! 
 
 it! 
 
 
 I 
 
 ' "'
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 VIEWS 
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE, 
 
 SUBJECTS ADJACENT THERETO, 
 
 HORACE BUSHNELL. 
 
 HARTFORD: 
 
 EDWIN HUNT, NO. 6 ASYLUM STREET. 
 1847.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by 
 
 EDWIN HUNT, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. 
 
 Press of 
 
 CASK, TIFFANY AND CO., 
 
 Hartford, Conn.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 As the attention of the public mind is now earnestly fixed on the 
 great subject of Christian Nurture, it seems to be a matter of conse- 
 quence, if not of justice, that those, who are anxious to know the 
 merits of the question in debate, should have the means at their com- 
 mand. It was fortunately made a condition, when I gave up the 
 manuscript of my " Discourses" to the Massachusetts Sabbath 
 School Society, that I should have the right to publish them myself, 
 " with other things." Encountering, as I do, every day, the com- 
 plaint that they cannot be had, I have at length concluded, after 
 waiting a proper time for their emancipation, that it is my duty, 
 both to the public and also to them as my children, to give them 
 their liberty. There are many very important questions connected 
 with this subject, which, as yet, have been scarcely touched in our 
 discussion, and I would gladly have undertaken a new and complete 
 work, covering the whole ground, if I had time and strength for 
 such a labor. Perhaps some other, who is more competent, .will 
 assume the task. There are some advantages, however, in having, the 
 discussion which is already a matter of history and, in that shape, 
 has its interest, preserve its historical form. I republish therefore 
 the ' Discourses" and the " Argument," in company with three 
 or four other articles, which have a certain relation to the view 
 maintained, and will therefore assist the public to come at a more 
 thorough understanding of my general position. The associated 
 reasons too, which give a truth its complement, are often necessary 
 to a full and hearty conviction of its validity. Of course, it will 
 sometimes occur> in such a collection, that a thought is repeated. 
 
 The article on the " Spiritual Economy of Revivals," was designed 
 chiefly to remove that dismal state of despair and lethargy, con- 
 sequent on the presumption practically held, that there can be 
 nothing good, no real piety, save what appears in the shape of a 
 revival, a state which is the most disheartening impediment to the 
 
 1143847
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 Christian minister, that can be conceived. It will not be supposed, 
 of course, that I have any more implicit admiration of the Revival 
 system than I had nine years ago, when the article was written. 
 
 The article, "Growth, not Conquest, the True Method of 
 Christian Progress," originally appeared under a different title, 
 which, as a matter of taste, I have preferred to change. It was the 
 head on Christian training, in this article, which led to the prepar- 
 ation of the " Discourses," and thus to the present discussion. 
 
 I have added a Sermon, that was written three or four years 
 since, on the " Organic Unity of the Family," only reproducing 
 some parts of the argument. This, it is hoped, will render what I 
 have said on that subject more intelligible to such as have found 
 difficulty in realizing the truth of what I have said in more conden- 
 sed forms. 
 
 Also a Sermon written several months since, which I have enti- 
 tled " The Scene of the Pentecost and a Christian Parish," the ob- 
 ject of which is to give an external description of the mode or man- 
 ner, by which a Christian church may best advance the cause of reli- 
 gion. Some persons get their most satisfactory impressions of a sub- 
 ject through external descriptions, or inventories, and not through 
 interior principles. 
 
 Not concealing the importance of the question we have now on 
 hand, let us handle it earnestly, neither fearing to make the de- 
 cision, nor making it hastily. At the same time, it should be un- 
 derstood and remembered, that the question is one that involves, in 
 one way or another, all the most abstruse points in theology ; one 
 moftover that concerns a child, a very peculiar being, whose inter- 
 nar history is the darker, that it does not lie within the scope of 
 aclult consciousness and experience. Therefore my readers will 
 need to have some patience with themselves, and it will not be 
 wrong if they extend some degree of patience tome.
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 EPHESIANS 6: 4. BRING THEM UP IN THE NURTURE AND ADMONITION OF THE 
 LORD. 
 
 THERE is then some kind of nurture which is of the Lord, 
 deriving a quality and a power from Him, and communicating 
 the same. Being instituted by Him, it will of necessity have a 
 method and a character peculiar to itself, or rather to Him. It 
 will be the Lord's way of education, having aims appropriate 
 to Him, and if realized in its full intent, terminating in results 
 impossible to be reached by any merely human method. 
 
 What then is the true idea of Christian, or divine nurture, as 
 distinguished from that which is not Christian ? What is its 
 aim? What its method of working? What its powers and 
 instruments ? What its contemplated results ? Few questions 
 have greater moment, and it is one of the pleasant signs of the 
 times, that the subject involved is 'beginning to attract new in- 
 terest, and excite a spirit of inquiry which heretofore has not 
 prevailed in our churches. 
 
 In ordinary cases, the better and more instructive way of 
 handling this subject, would be to go directly into the practical 
 methods of parental discipline, and show by what modes of 
 government and instruction we may hope to realize the best 
 results. But unhappily the public mind is pre-occupied exten- 
 sively by a view of the whole subject, which I must regard as 
 1*
 
 6 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 a theoretical mistake, and one which must involve, as long as 
 it continues, practical results systematically injurious. This 
 mistaken view it is necessary, if possible, to remove. And ac- 
 cordingly what I have to say will take the form of an argument 
 on the question thus put in issue; though I design to gather 
 round the subject, as I proceed, as much of practical instruction 
 as the mode of the argument will suffer. Assuming then the 
 question above stated, What is the true idea of Christian edu- 
 cation I I answer in the following proposition, which it will be 
 the aim of my argument to establish, viz : 
 
 THAT THE CHILD is TO GROW up A CHRISTIAN. In other words, 
 the aim, effort and expectation should be, not, as Is commonly 
 assumed, that the child is to grow up in sin, to be converted 
 after he comes to a mature age ; but that he is to open on the 
 world as one that is spiritually renewed, not remembering the 
 time when he went through a technical experience, but seem- 
 ing rather to have lovsd what is good from his earliest years., 
 I do not affirm that every child may, in fact and without excep- 
 tion, be so trained that he certainly will grow up a Christian. 
 The qualifications it may be necessary to add, will be given in 
 another place, where they can be stated more intelligibly. 
 
 This doctrine is not a novelty, now rashly and for the first 
 time propounded, as some of you may be tempted to suppose. 
 I shall show you, before I have done with the argument, that it 
 is as old as the Christian church, and prevails extensively at 
 the present day, in other parts of the world. Neither let your 
 own experience raise a prejudice against it. If you have en- 
 deavored to realize the very truth I here affirm, but find that 
 your children do not exhibit the character you have looked for ; 
 if they seem to be intractable to religious influences, and some- 
 times to display an apparent aversion to the very subject of 
 religion itself, you are not, of course, to conclude that the doc- 
 trine I here maintain is untrue or impracticable. You may be
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 7 
 
 unreasonable in your expectations of your children. Possibly, 
 there may be seeds of holy principle in them, which you do not 
 discover. A child acts out his present feelings, the feelings of 
 the moment, without qualification or disguise. And how, many 
 times, would all you appear, if you were to do the same ? Will 
 you expect of them to be better and more constant and con- 
 sistent than yourselves ; or will you rather expect them to be 
 children, human children still, living a mixed life, trying out the 
 good and evil of the world, and preparing, as older Christians 
 do, when they have taken a lesson of sorrow and emptiness, to 
 turn again to the true good 1 Perhaps they will go through a 
 rough mental struggle, at some future day, and seem, to others 
 and to themselves, there to have entered on a Christian life. 
 And yet it may be true that there was still some root of right 
 principle established in their childhood, which is here only 
 quickened and developed, as when Christians of a mature age 
 are revived in their piety, after a period of spiritual lethargy ; 
 for it is conceivable that regenerate character may exist, long 
 before it is fully and formally developed. But suppose there is 
 really no trace or seed of holy principle in your children, has 
 there been no fault of piety and constancy in your church, no 
 want of Christian sensibility and love to God, no carnal spirit 
 visible to them and to all, and imparting its noxious and poison- 
 ous quality to the Christian atmosphere in which they have had 
 their nurture ? \ For it is not for you alone to realize all that is 
 included in the'Idea of Christian education. It belongs to the 
 church of God, according to the degree of its social power over 
 you and in you and around your children, to bear a part of the 
 responsibility with you. 1 Then, again, have you nothing to 
 blarne in yourselves, no lack of faithfulness, no indiscretion of 
 manner, or of temper, no mistake of duty, which, with a better 
 and more cultivated piety, you would have been able to avoid? 
 Have you been so nearly even with your privilege and duty, 
 that you can find no relief but to lay some charge upon God, or 
 comfort yourselves in the conviction that he has appointed the
 
 8 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 failure you deplore ? When God marks out a plan of education, 
 or sets up an aim to direct its efforts, you will see, at once, that 
 he could not base it on a want of piety in you, or on any imper- 
 fections that flow from a want of piety. It must be a plan 
 measured by Himself and the fullness of his own gracious inten- 
 tions. Besides, you must not assume that we, in this age, are 
 the best Christians that have ever lived, or most likely to pro- 
 duce all the fruits of piety. An assumption so pleasing to our 
 vanity is more easily made than verified, but vanity is the weak- 
 est as it is the cheapest of all arguments. We have some 
 good points, in which we compare favorably with other Chris- 
 tians, and Christians of other times, but our style of piety is 
 sadly deficient, in many respects, and that to such a degree that 
 we have little cause for self congratulation. With all our ac- 
 tivity and boldness of movement, there is a certain hardness 
 and rudeness, a want of sensibility to things that do no.t lie in 
 action, which cannot be too much deplored, or too soon rectifi- 
 ed. We hold a piety of conquest rather than of love. A kind 
 of public piety that is strenuous and fiery on great occasions, 
 but wants the beauty of holiness, wants constancy, singleness 
 of aim, loveliness, purity, richness, blamelessness, and if I may 
 add another term riot so immediately religious, but one that 
 carries, by association, a thousand religious qualities wants 
 domesticity of character ; wants them, I mean, not as compared 
 with the perfect standard of Christ, but as compared with 
 other examples of piety that have been given in former times, 
 and others that are given now. 
 
 For some reason, we do not make a Christian atmosphere 
 about us, do not produce the conviction that we are living unto 
 God. There is a marvelous want of savor in our piety. It is 
 a flower of autumn, colored as highly as it need be to the eye, 
 but destitute of fragrance. It is too much to hope that, with 
 such an instrument, we can fulfill the true idea of Christian ed- 
 ucation. Any such hope were even presumptuous. At the 
 same time, there is no so ready way of removing the deficien-
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 9 
 
 cies just described, as to recall our churches to their duties in 
 domestic lite ; those humble, daily, hourly duties, where the 
 spirit we breathe shall be a perpetual element of power and 
 love bathing the life of childhood. 
 
 Thus much it was necessary to say, for the removal of preju- 
 dices, that are likely to rise up in your minds, and make you 
 inaccessible to the arguments I may offer. Let all such preju- 
 dices be removed, or, if this be too much, let them, at least, be 
 suspended till you have heard what I have to advance ; for it 
 cannot be desired ot you to believe any thing more than what 
 is shown you by adequate proofs. Which also it is right to ask, 
 that you will hear, if offered, in a spirit of mind, such as be- 
 comes our wretched and low attainments, and with a willing- 
 ness to let God be exalted, though at the expense of some 
 abasement in ourselves. In pursuing the argument, I shall 
 
 I. Collect some considerations which occur to us, viewing the 
 subject on the human side, and then 
 
 II. Show how far and by what methods God has justified, on 
 his part, the doctrine we maintain. 
 
 TliL're is then, as the subject appears to us 
 1. No absurdity in supposing that children are to grow up in 
 Christ. On the other hand, if there is no absurdity, there is a 
 very clear moral incongruity in setting up* a contrary supposi- 
 tion, to be the aim of a system of Christian education. There 
 could not be a worse or more baleful implication given to a 
 child, than that he is- to reject God and all holy principle, till 
 he has come to a mature age. What authority have you from 
 the Scriptures to tell your child, or, by any sign, to show him 
 that you do not expect him truly to love and obey God, till after 
 he has spent whole years in hatred and wrong? What au- 
 thority to make him feel that he is the most unprivileged of all 
 human beings, capable of sin, but incapable of repentance ; old 
 enough TO resist all good, but too young to receive any good 
 whatever? It is reasonable to suppose that you have some 
 express authority for a lesson so manifestly cruel and hurtful,
 
 1Q DISCOURSES ON 
 
 else you would shudder to give it. I ask you for the chapter 
 and verse, out of which it is derived. Meantime, wherein 
 would it be less incongruous for you to teach your child that he 
 is to lie and steal, and go the whole round of the vices and then, 
 after he comes to mature age, reform his conduct by the rules 
 of virtue ? Perhaps you do not give your child to expect that 
 he is to grow up in sin, you only expect that he will yourself. 
 That is scarcely better, for that which is your expectation, will 
 assuredly be his ; and what is more, any attempt to maintain a 
 discipline at war with your own secret expectations, will only 
 make a hollow and worthless figment of that which should be 
 an open earnest reality. You will never practically aim at 
 what you practically despair of, and if you do not practically 
 aim to unite your child to God, you will aim at something less, 
 that is, something unchristian, wrong, sinful. 
 
 But my child is a sinner, you will say, and how can I expect 
 him to begin aright life, until God gives him a new heart? 
 This is the common way of speaking, and I state the objection 
 in its own phraseology, that it may recognize itself. Who then 
 has told you that a child cannot have the new heart of which 
 you speak 1 Whence do you learn that if you live the life of 
 Christ, before him and with him, the law of the Spirit of Life 
 may not be such as to include and quicken him also ? And why 
 should it be thought incredible that there should be some really 
 good principle awakened in the mind of a child ? For this is 
 all that is implied in a Christian state. The Christian is one 
 who has simply begun to love what is good for its own sake, 
 and why should it be thought impossible for a child to have 
 this love begotten in him ? Take any scheme of depravity you 
 please, there is yet nothing in it to forbid the possibility that a 
 child should be led, in his first moral act, to cleave unto what is 
 good and right, any more than in the first oi'his twentieth year. 
 He is, in that case, only a child converted to good, leading a 
 mixed life as all Christians do. The good in him goes into
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. H 
 
 combat with the evil, and holds a qualified sovereignty. And 
 why may not this internal conflict of goodness cover the whole 
 life from its dawn, as well as any part of it? And what more 
 appropriate to the doctrine of spiritual influence itself, than to 
 believe that as the Spirit of Jehovah fills all the worlds of mat- 
 ter, and holds a presence of power and government in all ob- 
 jects, so all human souls, the infantile as well as the adult, have 
 , nurture of the Spirit appropriate to their age and their 
 wants ? What opinion is more essentially monstrous, in fact, 
 than that which regards the Holy Spirit as having no agency 
 in the immature souls of children, who are growing up helpless 
 and unconscious into the perils of time? 
 
 2. It is to be expected that Christian education will radically 
 differ from that which is not Christian.! Now it is the very 
 character and mark of all unchrisjian education, that it brings 
 up the child for future conversion. ^No effort is made, save to 
 form a habit of outward virtue, and, if God please to convert the 
 family to something higher and better, after they come to the 
 age of maturity, it is well. Is then Christian education, or the 
 nurture of the Lord, no way different from this ? Or is it rather 
 to be supposed that it will have a higher aim and a more sacred 
 character. 
 
 And, since it is the distinction of Christian parents, that they 
 are themselves in the nurture of the Lord, since Christ and the 
 Divine Love, communicated through him, are become the food 
 of their life, what will they so naturally seek as to have their 
 children partakers with them, heirs together with them in the 
 grace of life? I am well aware of the common impression that 
 Christian education is sufficiently distinguished by the endeavor 
 ,of Christian parents to teach their children the lessons of scrip- 
 ture history, and the doctrines or dogmas of scripture theology. 
 But if they are given to understand, at the same time, that these 
 lessons can be expected to produce no fruit till they are come 
 jto a mature age, that they are to grow up still in the same char-
 
 12 DISCOURSES OX 
 
 acter as other children do, who have no such instruction, what 
 is this but to enforce the practical rejection of all the lessons 
 taught them ? And which, in truth, is better for them, to grow 
 up in sin under scripture light, with a heart hardened by so 
 many religious lessons; or to grow up in sinunvexed and unan- 
 noyed, by the wearisome drill of lectures that only discourage 
 all practical benefit 1 Which is better, to be piously brought up 
 to sin, or to be allowed quietly to vegetate in it? These are 
 questions that I know not how to decide, but the doubt in which 
 they leave us, will at least suffice to show that Christian educa- 
 tion has, in this view, no such eminent advantages over that 
 which is unchristian, as to raise any broad and dignified distinc- 
 tion between them. We certainly know that much of what is 
 called Christian nurture, only serves to make the subject of 
 religion odious, and that, as nearly as we can discover, in exact 
 proportion to the amount of religious teaching received. And 
 no small share of the difficulty to be overcome afterwards, in 
 the struggle of conversion, is created in just this way. On the 
 other hand, you will hear, for example, of cases like the follow- 
 ing. A young man, correctly but not religiously brought up, 
 light and gay in his manners and thoughtless hitherto in regard 
 to any thing of a serious nature, happens accidentally one Sun- 
 day, while his friends are gone to ride, to take down a book on 
 the evidences of Christianity. His eye, floating over one of the 
 pages, becomes fixed, and he is surprised to find his feelings 
 flowing out strangely into its holy truths. He is conscious of 
 no struggle of hostility, but a new joy dawns in his being. 
 Henceforth, to the end of a long and useful life, he is a Chris- 
 tian man. The love into which he was surprised continues to 
 flow, and he is remarkable, in the churches, all his life long, as 
 one of the most beautiful, healthful and dignified examples of 
 Christian piety. Now a very little mis-education, called Chris- 
 tian, discouraging the piety it teaches, and making enmity itself 
 a necessary ingredient in the struggle of conversion, conversion 
 no reality without a struggle, might have sufficed to close th^
 
 CHRI STIAN NURTURE. 13 
 
 mind of this man against every thought of religion to the end 
 of life. Such facts, (for the case above given is a fact and not a 
 fancy ) compel us to suspect the value of much that is called 
 Christian education. They suggest the possibility also that, 
 Christian piety should begin in oiher and milder forms of exer- 
 cise, than those which commonly distinguish the conversion of 
 adults that Christ himself, by that renewing Spirit who can; 
 sanctify from the womb, should be practically infused into the, 
 childish mind ; in other words, thatfthe house, having a domes- i 
 tic Spirit of grace dwelling in it, should become the church of I 
 childhood, the table and hearth a holy rite, and life an element 
 of saving power^ Something is wanted that is better than 
 teaching, something that transcends mere effort and will-work 
 the loveliness of a good life, the repose of faith, the confidence 
 of righteous expectation, the sacred and cheerful liberty of the 
 Spirit all glowing about the young soul, as a warm and genial 
 nurture, and forming in it, by methods that are silent and im- 
 perceptible, a spirit of duty and religious obedience to God. This 
 | only is Christian nurture, the nurture of the Lord. 
 
 3. It is a fact that all Christian parents would like to see their 
 children grow up in piety ; and, the better Christians they are, 
 the more earnestly they desire it ; and, the more lovely and 
 constant the Christian spirit they manifest, the more likely is it, 
 in general, that their children will early display the Christian 
 character. This is current opinion. But why should a Chris- 
 tian parent, the deeper his piety and the more closely he is 
 drawn to God, be led to desire, the more earnestly, what, in 
 God's view, is even absurd or impossible.' And, if it be gener- 
 ally seen that the children of such are the more likely to become 
 Christians early, what forbids the hope that, if they were better 
 Christians still, living a more single and Christ-like'Iife, and 
 more cultivated in their views of family nurture, they might 
 not see their children grow up in piety towards God. Or if they 
 may not always see it as clearly as they desire, might they not 
 
 still be able to implant some holy principle, which shall be the 
 2 
 
 * rt-,.
 
 14 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 seed of a Christian character in their children, though not de- 
 veloped fully and visibly till a later period in life 1 
 
 4. Assuming the corruption of human nature, when should 
 we think it wisest to undertake or expect a remedy ? When 
 evil is young and oliant to good, or when it is confirmed by years 
 of sinful habit ? \ And when, in fact, is the human heart found 
 to be so ductile to the motives of religion, as in the simple, in- 
 genuous age of childhood? How easy it is then, as compared 
 with the stubbornness of adult years, to make all wrong seem 
 odious, all good lovely and desirabl^T Jf not discouraged by 
 some ill-temper, which bruises all the gentle sensibilities, or 
 repelled by some technical view of religious character, which 
 puts it beyond his age, how ready is the child to be taken by 
 good, as it were, beforehand, and yield his ductile nature to the 
 truth and Spirit of God, and to a fixed prejudice against all that 
 God forbids. He cannot understand, of course, in the earliest 
 stage of childhood, the philosophy of religion as a renovated 
 experience, and that is not the form of the first lessons he is to 
 receive. He is not to be told that he musthave a new heart 
 and exercise faith in Christ's atonement, f We are to under- 
 stand, that a right spirit may be virtually exercised in children. 
 when, as yet, it is not intellectually received, or as a form of 
 doctrine. Thus if they are put upon an effort to be good, con- 
 necting the fact that God desires it and will help them in the 
 endeavor, that is ail which, in a very early age, they can receive, 
 and that includes every thing repentance, love, duty, depend- 
 ence, faith. Nay, the operative truth necessary to a new life, 
 may possibly"ue communicated through and from the parent, 
 being revealed in his looks, manners and ways of life, before 
 they are of an age to understand the teaching of words; for the 
 Christian scheme, the gospel, is really wrapped up in the life of 
 every Christian parent and beams out from him as a living epis- 
 tle, before it escapes from the lips, or is taught in words. And 
 the Spirit of truth may as well make this living truth effectual, 
 as the preaching of the gospel itself. Never is it too early for
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 15 
 
 good to be communicated. Infancy and childhood are the ages . 
 tv gffftd. And who can think it necessary that the 
 
 plastic nature of childhood must first be hardened into stone, 
 and stiffened into enmity towards God and all duty, before it 
 can become a candidate for Christian character ! There could 
 not be a more unnecessary mistake, and it is as unnatural and 
 pernicious, I fear, as it is unnecessary. 
 
 There are many who assume the radical goodness of human 
 nature, and the work of Christian education is, in their view, 
 only to educate, or educe the good that is in us. Let no one be 
 disturbed by the suspicion of a coincidence between what I have 
 here said and such a theory. The natural pravity of man is , 
 plainly asserted in the scriptures, and, if it were not, the famil- 
 iar laws of physiology v/ould require us to believe, what amounts 
 to the same thing. And if neither scripture nor physiology 
 taught us the doctrine, if the child was born as clear of natural 
 prejudice or damage, as Adam before his sin, spiritual educa- 
 tion, or, what is the same, probation, thatvv hich trains a being 
 for a stable, intelligent virtue hereafter, would still involve an 
 experiment of evil, therefore a fall and bondage under the laws 
 of evil ; so that, view the matter as we will, there is no so un- 
 reasonable assumption, none so wide of all just philosophy, as 
 that which proposes to form a child to virtue, by simply edu- 
 cing or drawing out what is in him. The growth of Christian 
 virtue is no vegetable process, no mere onward development. 
 It involves a struggle with evil, a fall and rescue. The soul 
 becomes established in holy virtue, as a free exercise, only as it 
 is passed round the corner of fall and redemption, ascending thus 
 unto God through a double experience, in which it learns the 
 bitterness of evil and the worth of good, fighting its way out of 
 one and achieving the other as a victory. The child, therefore, 
 may as well begin life under a law of hereditary damage, as to 
 plunge himself into evil by his own experiment, which he will 
 as naturally do from the simple impulse of curiosity, or the in- 
 stinct of knowledge, as from any noxious quality in his mold
 
 ] (J DISCOURSES ON 
 
 derived by descent. For it is not sin which he derives from hi? 
 parents; atleasi not sin in any sense which imports blame, but 
 only some prejudice to the perfect harmony of his mold< some 
 kind of pravity or obliquity which inclines him to evil. These 
 suggestions are offered, not as necessary to be received in every 
 particular, but simply to show that the scheme of education 
 proposed, is not to be identified with another, which assumes 
 the radical goodness of human nature, and according to which, 
 if it be true, Christian education is insignificant. J 
 
 5. It is implied in all our religious philosophy, that if a child 
 ever does any thing in a right spirit, ever loves any thing be- 
 cause it is good and right, it involves the dawn of a new life. 
 This we cannot deny or doubt, without bringing in question our 
 whole scheme of doctrine. Is it then incredible that some really 
 good feeling should be called into exercise in a child \ In all the 
 discipline of the house, quickened as it should be by the Spirit 
 of God, is it true that he can nevr once be brought to submit to 
 parental authority lovingly and because it is right 1 Must we 
 even hold the absurdity of the scripture counsel u Children, 
 obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right " 1 -When we 
 speak thus of a love to what is right and good, we must of course 
 discriminate between the mere excitement of a natural sensi- 
 bility to pleasure in the contemplation of what is good, (of which 
 the wougt minds are more or less capable) and a practical sub- 
 ordinatioi^ of the soul to its power, a practical embrace of its 
 law. The child must not only be touched with some gentle 
 emotions towards what is right, but he must love it with a fixed 
 love, love it for the sake of its principle, receive it as a vital and 
 formative power. Nor is there any age, which offers itself to 
 God's truth and love, and to that quickening spirit whence all 
 good proceeds, ytiih so much of ductile feeling and susceptibil- 
 ities so tender. The child is under parental authority too for 
 
 ^ 
 
 the very purpose, it would seem, of having the otherwise ab- 
 stract principle of all duty impersonated in his parents and 
 thus brought home to his practical embrace ; so that, learning
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 17 
 
 to obey his parents in the Lord because it is right, he may thus 
 receive, before he can receive it intellectually, the principle of 
 all piety and holy obediencej And when he is brought to exer- 
 cise a spirit of true and loving submission to the good law of his 
 parents, what will you see, many times, but a look of childish 
 joy and a happy sweetness of manner and a ready delight in 
 authority, as like to all the demonstrations of Christian experi- 
 ence, as any thing childish can be to what is mature ? 
 
 6. Children have been so trained as never to remember the 
 time when they began to be religious. Baxter was, at one time, 
 greatly ^troubled concerning himself, because he could recollect 
 no time, when there was a gracious change in his character. 
 But he discovered, at length, that "education is as properly a 
 means of grace as preaching," and thus found a sweeter com- 
 fort in his love to God, that he learned to love him so early. 
 The European churches, generally, regard Christian piety 
 more as a habit of life, formed under the training of childhood, 
 and less as a marked spiritual change in experience. In Ger- 
 many, for example, the church includes all the people, and it is 
 remarkable that, under a scheme so loose, and with so much of 
 pernicious error taught in the pulpit, there is yet so much of 
 deep religious feeling, so much of lovely and simple character, 
 and a savor of Christian piety so generally prevalent in the com- 
 munity. So true is this, that the German people are every day 
 spoken of as a people religious by nature ; no other way being 
 observed of accounting for the strong religious bent they mani- 
 fest. Whereas it is due, beyond any reasonable question, to 
 the fact that children are placed under a form of treatment 
 which expects them to be religious, and are not discouraged by 
 the demand of an experience above their years. Again, the 
 Moravian Brethren, it is agreed by all, give as ripe and grace- 
 ful an exhibition of piety, as any body of Christians living on the 
 earth, and it is the radical distinction of their system that it rests 
 its power on Christian education. They make their churches 
 
 schools of holy nurture to childhood, and expect their children 
 2*
 
 18 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 to grow up there, as plants in the house ol the Lord. Accord- 
 ingly it is affirmed that not one in ten of the members ol that 
 church, recollects any time, when he began to be religious. Is 
 it then incredible that what has been can be ? Would it not be 
 wiser and more modest, when facts are against us, to admit that 
 there is certainly some bad error, either in our life, or in our 
 doctrine, or in both, which it becomes us to amend ? 
 
 Once more, if we narrowly examine the relation of parent 
 and child, we shall not fail to discover something like a law of 
 organic connection,* as regards character, subsisting between 
 them. Such a connection as makes it easy to believe, and 
 natural to expect that the faith of the one will be propagated 
 in the other. Perhaps I should rather say, such a connection 
 as induces the conviction that the character of one is actually 
 included in that of the other, as a seed is formed in the capsule ; 
 and being there matured, by a nutriment derived from the stem, 
 is gradually separated from it. It is a singular fact, that many 
 believe substantially the same thing, in regard to evil character, 
 but have no thought of any such possibility in regard to good. 
 There has been much speculation, of late, as to whether a child 
 is born in depravity, or whether the depraved character is su- 
 perinduced afterwards. But, like many other great questions, 
 it determines much less than is commonly suppofjgd ; for, ac- 
 cording to the most proper view of the subject, a child is really 
 not born till he emerges from the infantile state, and never 
 
 * Some persons have blamed the use here made of the term " organic," as a 
 singularity of mine. So far from that, it is a term in common philosophic use in 
 connection with all the great questions of government and society. The days 
 of the " social compact" theory, for example, are gone by, and it is now held 
 by almost all the late writers, that we naturally exist as organic bodies, just as 
 we do as individuals, and that civil government is born with us, in virtue of our 
 organic unity in bodies or States that the State must legislate for itself in 
 Borne way, just as the conscience legislates for the individual. Government is, 
 in this view, the organic conscience of the State no matter what may he the 
 form, or who presides.
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 19 
 
 before that time can be said to receive a separate and properly 
 individual nature. The declaration of scripture, and the laws 
 of physiology, I have already intimated, compel the belief that 
 a child's nature is somehow depravated by descent from parents, 
 
 v who are under the corrupting effects of sin. JBut this, taken 
 as a question relating to the mere punctum temporis, or pre- 
 cise point of birth, is not a question of any so grave import, 
 as is generally supposed ; for the child, after birth, is still within 
 the matrix of the parental life, and will be more or less, for 
 many years. And*the parental life will be flowing into him all 
 
 / that time, just as naturally, and by a law as truly organic, as 
 when the sap of the trunk flows into a limb. We must not 
 govern our thoughts, in such a matter, by our eyes ; and be- 
 cause the physical separation has taken place, conclude that 
 no organic relation remains. Even the physical being of the 
 child is dependent still for nutrition on organic processes not 
 in itself. Meantime, the mental being and character have 
 scarcely begun to have a proper individual life. Will, in con- 
 nection with conscience, is the basis of personality, or individ- 
 uality, and these exist as yet only in their rudimental type, as 
 when the form of a seed is beginning to be unfolded at the root 
 of a flower. At. first, the child is held as a mere passive lump 
 in the arms, and he opens into conscious life under the soul of 
 the parent streaming into his eyes and ears, through the man- 
 ners and tones of the nursery. The kind and degree of pas- 
 sivity are gradually changed as life advances. A little farther 
 on it is observed that a smile wakens a smile any kind of sen- 
 timent or passion, playing in the face of the parent, wakens a 
 responsive sentiment or passion. Irritation irritates, a frown 
 withers, love expands a look congenial to iteelf, and why not 
 holy love ? Next the ear is opened to the understanding of 
 words, but what words the child shall hear, he cannot choose, 
 and has as little capacity to select the sentiments that are 
 poured into his soul. Farther on, the parents begin to govern 
 him by appeals to will, expressed in commands, and whatever 
 
 /?..
 
 20 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 their requirement may be, he can as -little withstand it, as the 
 violet can cool the scorching sun, or the tattered leaf can tame 
 the hurricane. Next they appoint his school, choose his books, 
 regulate his company, decide what form of religion, and what 
 religious opinions he shajl be taught, by taking him to a church 
 of their own selection.; In all this, they infringe upon no right of 
 the child, they only fulfi&an office which belongs to them. Their 
 will and character are designed to be the matrix of the child's 
 will and character. Meantime he approaches more and more 
 closely, and by a gradual process, to the proper rank and re- 
 sponsibility of an individual creature, during all which process 
 of separation, he is having their exercises and ways translated 
 into him. Then, at last, he comes forth to act his part in such 
 color of evil, (and why not of good? ) as he has derived from 
 them. The tendency of all our modern speculations is to an 
 extreme individualism, and we carry our doctrines of free will 
 so far as to make little or nothing of organic laws ; not observ- 
 ing that character may be, to a great extent, only the free de- 
 velopment of exercises previously wrought in us, or^extended 
 to us, when other wills had us within their sphere. _1A11 the 
 Baptist theories of religion are based in this error. They as- 
 sume as a first truth, that no such thing is possible as an or- 
 ganic connection of character, an assumption which is plainly 
 refuted by what we see with our eyes, and, as I shall by and 
 by show, by the declarations of scripture. We have much 
 to say also, in common with the Baptists, abput the beginning 
 of moral agency, and we seem to fancy tha^Jthere is some defi- 
 nite moment when a child becomes a moral agent, passing out 
 of a condition where he is a moral nullity, and where no moral 
 agency touches his beingj\ Whereas he is rather to be regarded 
 at the first, as lying within the moral agency of the parent 
 and passing out by degrees through a com se ofrfnixed agency, to 
 a proper independency and self-possession. "The supposition 
 that he becomes, at some certain moment, a complete moral 
 agent, which a moment before he was not, is clumsy and has
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. gL 
 
 no agreement with observation. The separation is gradual/ 
 He is never, at any moment after birth, to be regarded as per- 
 fectly beyond the sphere of good and bad exercises ; for the 
 parent exercises himself in the child, playing his emotions and 
 sentiments, and working a character in him, by virtue of an 
 organic power ."^And this is the very idea of Christian educa- 
 tion, that it begins with nurture or cultivation. And the inten- 
 tion is that the Christian life and spirit of the parents shall flow 
 into the mind of the child, to blend with his incipient and half- 
 formed exercises ; that they shall thus beget their own good 
 within him, their thoughts, opinions, faith and love, which are 
 to become a little more, and yet a little more- his own sepa- j 
 rate exercise, but still the same in character .J The contrary 
 assumption, that virtue must be the product of separate and 
 absolutely independent choice, is pure assumption. As regards 
 the measure of personal merit and demerit, it is doubtless true 
 that every subject of God is to be responsible only for what is 
 his own. But virtue still is rather a slate of being than an act 
 or series of acts; and if we look at the causes which induce or 
 prepare sach a state, the will of the person himself may have 
 a part among those causes more or less important, and it 
 works no absurdity to suppose that one may be even prepared 
 to such a state, by causes prior to his own will ; so that, when 
 he sets off to act for himself, his struggle and duty may be 
 rather to sustain and perfect the state begun, than to produce 
 a new one. Certain it is that we are never, at any age, so in- 
 dependent asHto be wholly out of the reach of organic laws 
 which affect our character. All society is organic the church, 
 the state, the school, the family, and there is a spirit in each 
 of these organisms, peculiar to itself, and more or less hostile, 
 more or less favorable to religious character, anjl-to some ex- 
 tent, at least, sovereign over the individual man, .A very great 
 share of the power in what is called a revival of religion, is 
 organic power ; nor is it any the less divine on that account. 
 The child is only more within the power of organic laws than
 
 22 DISCOURSES ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 
 
 we all are. We possess only a mixed individuality all our life 
 long. A pure, separate, individual man, living wholly within, 
 and from himself, is a mere fiction. No such person ever ex- 
 isted, or ever can. I need not say that khis view of an organic 
 connection of character subsisting between parent and child, 
 lays a basis for notions of Christian education, far different 
 from those which now prevail, under thereover of a merely fic- 
 titious and mischievous individualism. \ 
 
 Perhaps it may be necessary to add, that, in the strong lan- 
 guage I have used concerning the organic connection of cha- 
 racter between the parent and the child, it is not designed to 
 assert a power in the parent to renew the child, or that the 
 
 / child can be renewed by any agency of the Spirit less immedi- 
 ate, than that which renews the parent himself. When a germ 
 is formed on the stem of any plant, the formative instinct of 
 the plant may be said in one view to produce it ; but the same 
 solar heat which quickens the plant, must quicken also the 
 germ and sustain the .internal action of growth, by a common 
 presence in both. So if there be an organic power of character 
 in the parent, such asthat of which I have spoken, it is not a 
 complete power in itself, but only such a power as demands 
 the realizing presence of the Spirit of God, both in the parent 
 and the child, to give it effect.'. As Paul said, " I have begot- 
 ten you through the gospel," so may we say of the parent, who 
 having a living gospel enveloped in his life, brings it into organic 
 connection with the soul of childhood. But the declaration ex- 
 cludes the necessity of a divine influence, not more in one case 
 
 i^than in the other. 
 
 Such are some of the considerations that offer themselves, 
 viewing our subject on the human side, or as it appears in the 
 light of human evidence all concurring to produce the convic- 
 tion, that it is the only true idea of Christian education, that 
 the child is to grow up in the life of the parent, and be a Chris- 
 tian, in principle, from his earliest years.
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 EPHKSIANS 6 : 4. BRING THEM up IN THE NURTURE AND ADMONITION or THB 
 LORD. 
 
 WE proceed now to inquire 
 
 II. How far God, in the revelation made of his character and 
 will, favors the view of Christian nurture already vindicated 
 by arguments and evidences of an inferior nature ? And 
 
 1. According to all that God has taught us concerning his 
 own dispositions, he desires, on his part, that children should 
 grow up in piety, as earnestly as the parent can desire it ; 
 nay, as much more earnestly, as he hate's sin more intensely, 
 and desires good with less mixture of qualification. Good- 
 ness, or the production of goodness, is the supreme end of 
 God, and therefore we know, on first principles, that he de- 
 sires to bestow whatsoever spiritual grace is necessary to 
 the moral renovation of childhood, and will do it, unless some 
 collateral reasons in his plan, involving the extension of holy 
 virtue, require him to withhold. Thus if nothing were hung 
 upon parental faithfulness and example, if the child were not 
 used, in some degree or way, as an argument, to hold the pa- 
 tent to a life of Christian diligence, then the good principle in 
 the parent might lack the necessary stimulus to bring it to 
 maturity. Or, if all children alike, in spite of the evil and un- 
 christian example of their parents, were to be started into life 
 as spiritually renewed, then wanting in their future life as pa- 
 rents, one of the strongest motives to holy living, in the fact 
 that their children also are safe as regards a good beginning, 
 without any carefulness in them, or prayerfulness in their 
 life ; their own virtue might so overgrow itself with weeds,
 
 24 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 as never to attain to a sound maturity. JLet it be enough to 
 know, on first principles in the character of God, that he will 
 so dispense his spiritual agency to you and to your children, as 
 to produce, considering the freedom of you both, the best meas- 
 ure and the ripest state of holy virtue. jAnd how far short is 
 this of the conclusion, that if you live as you ought and may 
 yourselves, God will so dispense his spirit that you may see 
 your children grow up in piety? Jpbserve too, that he ex- 
 pressly pledges his holy Spirit to you, as one of his first gifts ? 
 and, what is more, even commands you to be filled with the 
 Spirit ; and considering the organic relation that subsists by 
 his own appointment, between you and your children, how far 
 off is he, in this, from pledging you a mercy that accrues to 
 their benefit ? He appoints you also to be a light to the world 
 and, by the grace he pours into your being, prepares you to 
 be; how much more a light to minds that are fed by simple 
 nurture from your own ? And when you consider how fond 
 he is, if I may so speak, in the blessings he pours on the good, 
 of gathering their children with them in the eame circle of 
 favor, how many of his promises in all ages, tun " to you and 
 to your children," what better assurance can you reasonably 
 ask, to fortify your confidence of whatever spiritual grace may 
 be necessary to your utmost success 1 
 
 2. If there be any such thing as Christian nurture, distin- 
 guished from that which is not Christian, which is generally 
 admitted, and, by the Scriptures clearly asserted, then is it 
 some kind of nurture which God appoints. Does it then, accord 
 with the known character of God, to appoint a scheme of edu- 
 cation, the only proper result of which shall be that children 
 are trained up under it in sin ? It would not be more absurd to 
 suppose that God has appointed church education, to produce a 
 first crop of sin. and then a crop of holiness. God appoints 
 nothing of which sin and only sin is to be the proper and legiti- 
 mate result, whether for a longer or a shorter time ; least of 
 all a mode of training which is to produce sin. Holy virtue is
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 25 
 
 the aim of every plan God adopts, every means he prescribes, 
 and we have no right to look only for sin, in that which he has 
 appointed as a means of virtue. We cannot do it understand- 
 ingly, without great impiety. 
 
 3. God does expressly lay it upon us to expect that our chil- 
 dren will grow up in piety, under the parental nurture, and 
 assumes the possibility that such a result may ordinarily be 
 realized. " Train up a child" how 1 for future conversion ? 
 No, " but in the way he should go, that when he is old he may 
 not depart from it." If it be said that this relates only to out- 
 ward habits of virtue and vice, not to spiritual life, the Old 
 Testament, I reply, does not raise that distinction, as it is raised 
 in the new. It puts all good together, all evil together, and 
 regards a child trained up in the way he should go, as going in 
 all the ways and fulfilling all the ideas of virtue. The phrase, 
 ology of the New Testament carries the same import. " Bring 
 them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," a form ot 
 expression, which indicates the existence of a Divine nurture, 
 that is to encompass the child and mold him unto God; so 
 that he shall be brought up, as it were, in Him. 
 
 4. A time is foretold, as our churches generally believe, when 
 all shall know God, even from the least to the greatest; that 
 is, shall spiritually know him, or so that there shall be no need 
 of exhorting one another to know him ; for intellectual know- 
 ledge is not carried by exhortation. If such a time is ever to 
 come, then, at least, children are to grow up in Christ ; can it 
 come too soon? And if we have the opinion that any such 
 thing is impossible, either we, or those who come after us must 
 get rid of it. A principal reason why the great expectations 
 of the future, that we, in this age are giving out so confidently, 
 seem only visionary and idle dreams to many, is that we are 
 perpetually assuming their impossibility ourselves. Our very 
 theory of religion is, that men are to grow up in evil, and be 
 dragged into the church of God by conquest. The world is to 
 
 3 

 
 26 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 lie in halves; and the kingdom of God is to stretch itself side by 
 gide with the kingdom of darkness, making sallies into it, and 
 taking captive those who are sufficiently hardened and bronzed 
 in guiltiness to be converted. Thus we assume even the ab- 
 surdity of all our expectations in regard to the possible advance- 
 ment of human society, and the universal prevalence of Chris- 
 tian virtue. And thus we throw an air of extravagance and 
 unreason over all we do. Whereas there is a sober and rational 
 possibility, that human society should be universally pervaded 
 by Christian virtue. The Christian scheme has a scope of 
 intention, and instruments and powers adequate to this, it de- 
 scends upon the world to claim all souls for its dominion, all 
 men of all climes, all ages from childhood to the grave. It is 
 indeed, a plan which supposes the existence of sin, and sin will 
 be in the world, and in all hearts in it, as long as the world or 
 human society continues, but the scheme has a breadth of 
 conception, and has powers and provisions embodied in it, which, 
 apart from all promises and predictions, certify us of a day, 
 when it will reign in all human hearts, and all that live shall 
 live in Christ. Let us either renounce any such confidence, or 
 show by a thorough consistency in our religious doctrines, that 
 we hold it deliberately and manfully. 
 
 5. We discover in the Scriptures that the organic law of 
 tvhich I have spoken, is distinctly recognized, and that charac- 
 ter, in children, is often regarded as, in some very important 
 sense, derivative from their parents. It is thus that " sin has 
 passed upon all men." " By the offence of one, judgment came 
 upon all." Christian faith is also spoken of in a similar way. 
 ' The unfeigned faith, which dwelt first, in thy grandmother 
 Lois, "and thy mother Eunice, and, 1 am persuaded that in thee 
 also." Not that in the bold and naked sense, it had descended 
 thus through three generations. But the apostle conceives a 
 power, in the good life of these mothers, that must needs trans- 
 mit Borne flavor of piety. In like manner, God is represented
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 27 
 
 as " keeping covenant and mercy with them that love him and 
 keep his commandments, to a thousand generations ;" which, if 
 it signifies any thing, amounts to a declaration that he will 
 spiritually own and bless every succeeding generation, to the 
 end of the world, if only the preceding will so live as to be fit 
 vehicles of his blessing ; for it is not any covenant, as a form of 
 mutual contract, which carries the Divine favor, but it is the 
 loving Him rather, and keeping His commandments, by an up- 
 right, godly life, which sets the parents on terms of friendship 
 with God, and secures the inhabitation of His power. . 
 
 Declarations like those in the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, 
 " the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father," "the soul 
 that sinneth it shall die," are hastily applied by many, not to 
 show that the child is to be punished only for his own sin, 
 which is their true import, but, as if it were the same thing, to 
 disprove the fact of an organic connection, by which children 
 receive a character from their parents. Whereas this latter ia 
 a truth which we see with our eyes, and one that is constantly 
 affirmed in the Scriptures, both in respect to bad character 
 and to good. " God layeth up the iniquity of the wicked for his 
 children," " Visiting the iniquities of the lathers upon the 
 children to the third and fourth generation." By which we are 
 to understand, what is every day exhibited in actual historic 
 proof, that the wickedness of parents propagates itself in the 
 character and condition of their children^and that it ordinarily 
 requires three or four generations to ripen the sad harvest of 
 misery and debasement. Again, on the other side, " he hath 
 blessed thy children with thee," " For the good of them and 
 their children after them," " For the promise is to you and to 
 your children."! The Scriptures have a perpetual habit, if I 
 may so speak, q associating children with the character and 
 destiny of their parents. In this respect, they maintain a mark- 
 ed contrast with the extreme individualism of our modern phi- 
 losophy. They do not always regard the individual as an isola- 
 ted unit, but they often look upon men as they exist, in families 

 
 28 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 and races, and under organic laws. -iSomething has undoubt- 
 edly been gained to modern theology, as a human science, by 
 fixing the attention strongly upon the individual man, as a moral 
 ageni, immediately related to God, and responsible only for his 
 own actions ; at the same time there was a truth, an important 
 truth, underlying the old doctrine of federal headship and 
 original or imputed sin, though strangely misconceived, which 
 we seem, in our one-sided speculations, to have quite lost sight 
 of. And how can we ever attain to any right conception of 
 organic duties, until we discover the reality of organic powers 
 and relations 1 And how can we hope to set ourselves in har- 
 mony with the Scriptures, in regard to family nurture, or house- 
 hold baptism, or any other kindred subject, while our theories 
 include, or overlook precisely that which is the basis of all their 
 teachings and appointments ? This brings me to my 
 
 Last argument, which is drawn from infant or household bap- 
 tism, -a rite which supposes the fact of an organic connection 
 of character between the parent and the child; a seal of faith 
 in the parent, applied over to the child, on the ground of a pre- 
 sumption that his faith is wrapped up in the parent's faith ; so 
 that he is accounted a believer from the beginning. We must 
 distinguish here between a fact and a presumption of fact. If 
 you look upon a seed of wheat, it contains, in itself presump- 
 tively, a thousand generations of wheat, though by reason of 
 some fault in the cultivation, or some speck of diseased matter 
 in itself, it may, in fact, never reproduce at all. So the Christian 
 parent has, in his character, a germ, which has power, pre- 
 sumptively, to produce its like in his children, though by reason 
 of some bad fault in itself, or possibly some outward hindrance 
 in the Church, or some providence of death, it may fail to do so. 
 Thus it is that infant baptism becomes an appropriate rite. It 
 sees the child in the parent, counts him presumptively a be- 
 liever, and a Christian, and with the parent, baptizes him also. 
 Furthermore you will perceive that it must be presumed, either 
 that the child will grow up a believer, or that he will not. The
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. %$ 
 
 Baptist presumes that he will not, and therefore declares the 
 rite to be inappropriate. God presumes that he will, and there- 
 fore appoints it. The Baptist tells the child that nothing but 
 sin can be expected of him ; God tells him that for his parents' 
 sakes, whose faith he is to follow, he has written his own name 
 upon him, and expects him to grow up in all duty and piety. 
 
 I have no desire to press the passages in which mention is 
 made of household baptism beyond their true import. When 
 Paul -is said to have "baptized the household of Stephanas," 
 our Baptist friends reply that the text proves nothing, in re- 
 spect to infant baptism, because it cannot be shown that there 
 were any children in the household ; and some, who practice 
 infant baptism have conceded the sufficiency of the objection. 
 But the power of this proof text does not depend in the least, 
 on the fact that there were children in the household ol Stepha- 
 nas, but simply on the form of the language. Indeed, it has 
 always seemed to me that the argument for infant baptism is 
 rather strengthened than weakened, by the supposition that 
 there were, in fact, no infants or children in this household ; 
 for a household generally contains children, and a term so in- 
 clusive in its import, could never come into use, unless it was 
 the practice for baptism to go by households. Under a practice 
 like that of our Baptist brethren, what preacher would ever 
 be heard to speak in this general inclusive way, of having bap- 
 tized a household ? In the case of the jailor too, the same 
 reasoning holds. Here, however, our Baptist brethren go far- 
 ther, endeavoring to show positively, from the language used, 
 that there were no infants or children in the household ; for 
 when it is said that the jailor " rejoiced, believing in God with 
 all his house," it is argued that, inasmuch as infant children are 
 incapable of believing, there could have been no infants in the 
 family. Admitting the correctness of the translation, which 
 some have questioned, the argument seems rather plausible as 
 a turn of logic, than just and convincing; for, if we consider 
 3* 

 
 30 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 the more decisive position held in that age by the heads of fam- 
 ilies, and how, in common speech, they were supposed to carry 
 the religion of the family with them, we shall be convinced 
 that nothing was more natural than the very language here 
 used. It was taken for granted, as a matter of common under- 
 standing, that, in a change of religion, the children went with 
 the parents, ifthey became Jews that their children would be 
 Jews, if Christian believers that their children would be Chris- 
 tians. Hence all the terms used, in reference to their religion, 
 took the most inclusive form. If one believed in God, he be- 
 lieved with all his house, the change he suffered, in the com- 
 mon understanding of the age, carried the house with him ; 
 and it occurred to no one to question the literal exactness of 
 such like inclusive terms. 
 
 It has been a fashion, with many modern critics, to surrender 
 both these passages as proofs of infant baptism, and they cer- 
 tainly do not prove it, in just the way in which many have used 
 them as proof texts. But if any one will seek a point of view, 
 whence he may be able to give a natural and easy interpreta- 
 tion to the language used, or if he will ask, on the simple doc- 
 trine of chances, what chance there was that these two house- 
 holds should include no children, and moreover what chance 
 that, in the only two cases of household baptism mentioned in 
 the scripture, the households should have been distinguished 
 by this singularity, he will be as little likely as possible, to con- 
 cede the fact that infant baptism is not adequately proved by 
 these passages. 
 
 But the true idea of these passages, and also of the rite itself, 
 is seen most evidently, in the history of its establishment by 
 Christ, in the third chapter of John. The Jewish nation re- 
 garded other nations as unclean. Hence, when a Gentile fam- 
 ily wished to become Jewish citizens, they were baptized in 
 token of cleansing. Then they were said to be re-born, or re- 
 generated, so as to be accounted true descendants of Abraham.
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTUHE. 31 
 
 We use the term naturalize, that is, to make natural born, in 
 the same sense. But Christ had come to set up a spiritual 
 kingdom, the kingdom of heaven ; and finding all men aliens, 
 and spiritually unclean, he applies over the right of baptism, 
 which was familiar to the Jews (" art thou a Master in Israel, 
 and knowest not these things?") giving it a higher sense. 
 " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
 enter the kingdom of heaven." But the Gentile proselyte ac- 
 cording to the custom here described, here is the point of the 
 argument, came with his family. They were all baptized 
 together, young and old, all regenerated, or naturalized to- 
 gether ; and therefore in the new application made of the rite, 
 to signify spiritual cleansing and regeneration, it is understood, 
 of course, that children are to come with their parents. To 
 have excluded them would have been, to every Jewish mind, 
 the height of absurdity. They could not have been excluded, 
 without express exception, and no exception was made. Some 
 have questioned whether proselyte baptism existed at this early 
 age ; but of this, the third chapter of John is itself conclusive 
 proof; for how else was baptism familiarly known to the Jews 
 as connected with regeneration ; that is, civil regeneration ? 
 There is always an historic reason for religious rites, and for 
 usages of language, and you will find it impossible to suppose 
 that Christ appointed baptism, and set the rite in connection 
 with spiritual regeneration, by any mere accident, or without 
 some historic basis answering to that which I have just descri- 
 bed. In this manner, all his language, in the interview with 
 Nicodemus, becomes natural and easy. 
 
 It follows that the children of Christian disciples, being bapti- 
 zed with their parents, as the children of Gentile proselytes 
 were baptized with theirs, would be taken or presumed by the 
 church to be spiritually cleansed, in the same manner. Ac- 
 cordingly, just as the children of Jews were accounted Jews, 
 and not as unclean, when one of the parents was a Jew, so Paul 
 tells us, that in the church of God, the believing party sancti-
 
 32 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 fies the unbelieving, " else were your children unclean, but now 
 are they holy ;" showing that the Jewish analogies, in regard 
 to children, were in fact translated, or passed over to the church, 
 and adopted there a translation that naturally followed, from 
 the re-application of proselyte baptism. 
 
 Then passing into the early history of the church, we hear 
 Justin Martyr, saying, " there are some of us, eighty years 
 old, who were made disciples to Christ in their childhood," 
 that is, in the age of the apostles, and while they were yet 
 living ; for it was now less than eighty years since their death. 
 And in the expression " made disciples," taken in connection 
 with the baptismal formula, " Go disciple all nations, baptizing, 
 &c." we see that he alludes to baptism ; for baptism was the 
 rite that introduced the subject into the Christian school as a 
 disciple ; and what so natural, as that the children of disciples 
 should be disciples with them ? 
 
 Then again, Ireneus, who lived within one generation of the 
 apostles, gives us the second mention of this rite which ap- 
 pears in history, when he says, " Christ came to save all per- 
 sons through himself; all I say, who through him are regener- 
 ated unto God ; infants and little ones, and children and youth, 
 and the aged." Which phrase, " regenerated unto God," ap- 
 plied to parents and little ones, alludes to baptism, showing that 
 a notion of baptism, as connected with regeneration, coincident 
 with that which we found in the third chapter of John, was then 
 cujrent in the church. 
 
 ', I have been thus full upon the rite of baptism, not because 
 that is my subject, but because the rite involves, in all its 
 grounds and reasons, the same view of Christian education, 
 which I am seeking to establish. One cannot be thoroughly 
 understood and received without the other. And it is precisely 
 on this account, that we have so great difficulty in sustaining 
 the rite of infant baptism. It ought to be difficult to sustain 
 any rite, after the sense of it is wholly gone from us. You per-
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 33 
 
 ceive too, in this exposition, that the view of Christian nurture, 
 I am endeavoring to vindicate, is not new, but is older, by far, 
 than the one now prevalent, as old as the Christian church, 
 It is radically one with the ancient doctrine of baptism and re- 
 generation, advanced by Christ, and accepted by the first _j 
 fathers. 
 
 We have much to say of baptismal regeneration as a great 
 error, which undoubtedly it is, in the form in which it is held ; 
 but it is only a less huriful error that some of us hold in denying 
 it. The distinction between our doctrine of baptismal regen- 
 eration, and the ancient scripture view, is too broad and palpa- 
 ble to be mistaken. According to the modern church dogma, 
 no laith, in the parents, is necessary to the effect of the rite. 
 Sponsors too are brought in between all parents and their duty, 
 to assume the very office which belongs only to them. And, 
 what is worse, the child is said to be actually regenerated by 
 the act of the priest. According to the more ancient view, or 
 that of the scriptures, nothing depends upon the priest or min- 
 ister, save that he execute the rite in due form. The regener- 
 ation is not actual, but only presumptive, and every thing de- 
 pends upon the organic law of character pertaining between 
 the parent and the child, the church and the child, thus upon 
 duty and holy living and gracious example. The child is too" 1 
 young to choose the rite for himself, but the parent, having him 
 as it were in his own life, is allowed the confidence that his own 
 .faith and character will be reproduced in the child, and grow 
 up in his growth, and that thus the propriety of the rite as a 
 seal of faith will not be violated.) In giving us this rite, on the 
 grounds stated, God promises, in fact, on his part, to dispense 
 that spiritual grace which is necessary to the fulfillment of its 
 import. I^i this way too is it seen that the Christian economy 
 has a place for all ages ; for it would be singular, if after all we 
 say of the universality of God's mercy as a gift to the human 
 race, it could yet not limber itself to man, so as to adapt a place
 
 34 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 for the age of childhood, but must leave a full fourth part of 
 the race, the part least hardened in evil and tenderest to good 
 unrecognized and unprovided for, gathering a flock without 
 lambs, or, I should rather say, gathering a flock away from the 
 lambs. Such is not the spirit of Him who said, "forbid them 
 not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Therefore we 
 bring them into the school of Christ, and the pale of his mercy 
 with us, there to be trained up in the holy nurture of the Lord. 
 And then the result is to be tested afterwards, or at an advan- 
 ced period of life, by trying their character in the same way as 
 the character of all Christians is tried; for many are baptized 
 in adult age, who truly do not believe, as is afterwards discov- 
 ered. And yet our Baptist brethren never re-baptize them, 
 notwithstanding all they say of faith as the necessary condition 
 ofbaptism. 
 
 But there are two objections to this view of Christian nur- 
 ture, which may occur to some of you, and may even suffice to 
 break the force of my argument, if they are not removed. 
 
 1. A theoretical objection, that it leaves no room for the sove- 
 reignty of God, in appointing the moral character of men and 
 families. Thus it is declared that " all are not Israel who are 
 of Israel," and that God, before the children Jacob and Esau, 
 had done either good or evil, professed his love to one, and his 
 rejection of the other. But the wonder is, in this case of Re- 
 becca and her children, that such a mother did not ruin them 
 both. A partial mother, scorning one child, teaching the other 
 to lie and trick his blind father and extort from a starving brother 
 his birthright honor, cannot be said to furnish a very good test 
 of the power of Christian education. But show me the case, 
 where the whole conduct of the parents has been such as it 
 should be to produce the best effects, and where the sovereignty 
 of God has appointed the ruin of the children, whether all, or 
 any one of them. The sovereignty of God has always a rela-
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 35 
 
 tion to means, and we are not authorized to think of it, in any 
 case, as separated from means. 
 
 2. An objection from observation, asking why it is, if our~\ 
 doctrine be true, that many persons, remarkable for their piety. 
 
 ' J^ - / 
 
 have yet been so unfortunate in their children ? Because, I 
 answer, many persons, remarkable for their piety, are yet very 
 disagreeable persons, and that too, by reason of some very 
 marked defect in their religious character. They display just 
 that spirit, and act in just that manner, which is likely to make 
 religion odious, the more odious the more urgently they com- 
 mend it. Sometimes they appear well to the world one remove 
 distant from them, they shine well in their written biography, 
 but one living in their family will know what others do not ; and 
 if their children turn out badly, will never he at a loss for the 
 reason. Many persons too have such defective views of the 
 manner of teaching appropriate to early childhood, that they 
 really discourage their children. " Fathers provoke not your 
 children to anger," says one, " lest they be discouraged ;" im- 
 plying that there is such a thing as encouraging, and such a 
 thing as discouraging good principle and piety in a child. And 
 there are other ways of discouraging children besides provoking 
 them to an angry and wounded feeling by harsh treatment. 
 
 I once took up a book, from a Sabbath school library , one 
 problem of which was to teach a child that he wants a new 
 heart. A lovely boy (for it was a narrative) was called every 
 day, to resolve that he would do no wrong that day, a task 
 which he undertook most cheerfully, at first, and even with a 
 show of delight. But, before the sun went down, he was sure 
 to fall into some ill-temper or be overtaken by some infirmity. 
 Whereupon, the conclusion was immediately sprung upon him 
 that he wanted a new heart. We are even amazed that any 
 teacher of ordinary intelligence should not once have imagined 
 how she herself, or how the holiest Christian living would fare 
 under such kind of regimen ; how certain to discover every day ,
 
 36 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 and probably some hours before sunset, that she too wanted a 
 new heart ? And the practical cruelty of the experiment is yet 
 more to be deplored, than its want of consideration. Had the 
 problem been how to discourage most effectually every ingen- 
 uous struggle of childhood, no readier or surer method could 
 have been devised. 
 
 Simply to tell a child, as he just begins to make acquaintance 
 with words, that he " must have a new heart, before he can be 
 good," is to inflict a double discouragement. First, he cannot 
 guess what this technical phraseology means, and thus he takes 
 up the impression that he can do, or think nothing right, till 
 he is able to comprehend what is above his age why then 
 should he make the endeavor ? Secondly, he is told that he 
 must have a new heart before he can be good, not that he may 
 hope to exercise a renewed spirit, in the endeavor to be good 
 why then attempt what must be worthless, till something pre- 
 vious befalls him ? Discouraged thus on every side, his tender 
 soul turns hither and thither, in hopeless despair, and finally 
 he consents to be what he must a sinner against God and 
 that only. Well is it, under such a process, wearing down his 
 childish soul into soreness and despair of good, sealing up his 
 nature in silence and cessation as regards all right endeavors, 
 and compelling him to turn his feelings into other channels, 
 where he shall find his good in evil well is it, I say, if he has 
 not contracted a dislike to the very subject of religion, as invet- 
 erate as the subject is impossible. Many teach in this way, no 
 doubt, with the best intentions imaginable, their design is only 
 to be faithful, and sometimes they appear even to think that the 
 more they discourage their children the better and more faith- 
 ful they are. But the mistake, if not cruelly meant, is certainly 
 most cruel in the experience, and it is just this mistake, I am 
 confident, which accounts for a large share of the unhappy fail- 
 ures made by Christian parents, in the training of their chil- 
 dren. Rather should they begin with a kind of teaching suited
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 37 
 
 to the age of the child. First of all, they should rather seek to 
 teach a feeling than a doctrine, to bathe the child in their own 
 feeling of love to God, and dependence on him, and contrition 
 for wrong before him, bearing up their child's heart in their 
 own, not fearing to encourage every good motion they can call 
 into exercise ; to make what is good, happy and attractive ; what 
 is wrong, odious and hateful. Then as the understanding ad- 
 vances, give it food suited to its capacity, opening upon it, 
 gradually, the more difficult views of Christian doctrine and 
 experience. 
 
 Sometimes Christian parents fail of success in the religious 
 training of their children, because the church counteracts their 
 effort and example. The church makes a bad atmosphere 
 about the house and the poison comes in at the doors and win- 
 dows. It is rent by divisions, burnt up by fanaticism, frozen by 
 the chill of a worldly spirit, petrified in a rigid and dead ortho- 
 doxy. It makes no element of genial warmth and love about 
 the child, according to the intention of Christ in its appoint- 
 ment, but gives to religion, rather, a forbidding aspect, and 
 thus, instead of assisting the parent, becomes one of the worst 
 impediments to his success. What kind of element the world 
 makes about the child is of little consequence ; for here there 
 is no pretence of piety. But when the school of Christ itself 
 becomes an element of sin and death, the child's baptism be- 
 comes as great a fiction as the church itself, and the arrange- 
 ments of divine mercy fail of their intended power. There are 
 in short, too many ways of accounting for the failure of success, 
 in the family training of tnose who are remarkable for their 
 piety, without being led to doubt the correctness of my argu- 
 ment in these discourses. 
 
 To sum up all, we conclude, not that every child can cer- 
 tainly be made to grow up in Christian piety nothing is gained 
 by asserting so much, and perhaps I could not prove it to be 
 true, neither can any one prove the contrary I merely show 
 4
 
 38 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 that this is the true idea and aim of Christian nurture as a nur- 
 ture of the Lord. It is presumtively true that such a result 
 can be realized, just as it is presumptively true that a school 
 will forward the pupils in knowledge, though possibly some- 
 times it may fail to do it. And, without such a presumption, 
 no parent can do his duty and fill his office well, any more than 
 it is possible to make a good school, in the expectation that the 
 scholars will learn something five or ten years hence anil not 
 before- 
 
 To give this subject its practical effect, let me urge it 
 1. Upon the careful attention of those who neglect, or de- 
 cline, offering their children in baptism. Some of you are sim- 
 ply indifferent to this duty, not seeing w T hat good it can do to 
 baptize a child ; others have positive theological objections to 
 it. With the former class I certainly agree, so far as to admit 
 that baptism, as an operation, can do no good to your child ; 
 but, if it has no importance in what it operates, it has the 
 greatest importance in what it signifies; and, what is more to 
 be deplored by you, the withholding it signifies as much, viz : 
 that you yourselves have no sense of the relation that subsists 
 between your character and that of your child, and as little of 
 the mercy that Christ intends for your child, by including him 
 with you in his fold, to grow up there by your side in the same 
 common hopes. Had you any just sense of these things, you 
 would look upon the baptism of your child as a rite of as great 
 importance and spiritual propriety as your own ; for in neither 
 case, has the form any value beyond what it signifies. The 
 other class among you suffer the same defect ; for it is my set- 
 tled conviction that no man ever objected to infant baptism, 
 who had not at the bottom of his objections, false views of 
 Christian education who did not hold a notion of individualism, 
 in regard to Christian character in childhood, which is justified, 
 neither by observation nor by scripture. It is the prevalence 
 of false views, on this subject, which creates so great difficulty
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 39 
 
 in sustaining infant baptism in our churches. If children are to 
 grow up in sin to be converted when they come to the age of 
 maturity, if this is the only aim and expectation of family nur- 
 ture, there really is no meaning or dignity whatever in the rite. 
 They are even baptized unto sin, and every propriety of the 
 rite as a seal of faith is violated. And it is the feeling of this 
 impropriety, which lies at the basis of all your objections. Re- 
 turning to the old scripture doctrine of an organic law, connect- 
 ing the child morally with the parents, so that he is, as it were, 
 .included in them, to grew up in their life ; perceiving then that 
 a child is a kind of rudimental being, coming up gradually into 
 a separate and complete individuality, having the parental life 
 extended to him, first, with an almost absolutely controlling 
 power, then less and less, till he takes, at length, the helm of 
 his own spirit every difficulty that you now feel vanishes, and 
 the rite of infant baptism becomes one of the greatest beauty 
 and perfectly coincident with the spirit and the rules of adult 
 baptism. The very command, " believe and be baptized," of 
 which so much is made, is exactly met and with no modifica- 
 tions, save what are necessary to suit the peculiar state and 
 age of childhood : for the child, being included as it were in the 
 parental life, is accounted presumptively one with the parents, 
 and sealed with the seal of their faith. And it would certainly 
 be very singular, if Christ Jesus, in a scheme of mercy for the 
 world, had found no place for infants and little children : more 
 singular still if he had given them the place of adults ; and 
 worse than singular, if he had appointed them to years of sin 
 as the necessary preparation for his mercy. But if you see him 
 counting them one with you, bringing them tenderly into his fold 
 with you, there to grow up in him, you will not doubt that he has 
 given them a place exactly and beautifully suited to them. And 
 is it for you to withhold them from that place ? Is it worthy of 
 your tenderness, as a Christian parent, to leave them outside 
 of the fold, Avhen the gate is open, only taking care to go in
 
 40 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 yourself? I will not accuse you of intended wrong, but I 
 am quite sure your thoughts are not as God's thoughts, and I 
 ask you to study this question again, and more deeply. You 
 are giving your children as they grow up, impressions that will 
 assuredly be very injurious to them, and robbing them of im- 
 pressions that would have great power and value to their minds. 
 What can be worse, what can make them aliens more sensibly 
 from Christ's sympathies, what can more effectually -discour- 
 age and chill them to all thought of a good life, than to make 
 them feel that Christ has no place for them, till their sins are 
 ripe, and they are capable of a grace that is now above their 
 years? What more persuasive, than to know that he has 
 taken them into his school already, to grow up round him as 
 disciples. And if God should call you to himself, what will 
 draw upon their hearts more tenderly, than to remember that 
 the lather and mother whose name they revere, brought them 
 believingly in with themselves, to be owned in that general as- 
 sembly of the just which occupies both worlds, and become par- 
 takers with them there, in the grace which is now their song- 
 You rob yourselves too of an influence which is necessary to a 
 right fulfillment of your duty. Their character, you say, is 
 their own, let them believe for themselves and be baptized 
 when they will. You have never the same genial feeling that 
 you would, if you regarded them as morally linked to your cha- 
 racter and drawing from you the mold of their being. You are 
 not kept in the same state of carefulness and spiritual tender- 
 ness. No matter if you are cold to them, at times, and do not 
 always live Christ in the house, they are growing up to be con- 
 verted, and almost any thing is good enough for conversion ! 
 Christ himself, too, has no such relation to you, in your 
 family as to make your piety a domestic spirit. He has not 
 gathered your children round you, as a flock of young disciples, 
 pouring all his tenderness into your family ties to make them 
 vehicles of mercy and blessing. Once more I ask you to con-
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 41 
 
 sider whether God is not better to you than you yourselves 
 have thought, and whether, in withholding your children from 
 God,,youare not like to fall as far short ol'your duty, as you do 
 of the privilege offered you, 
 
 2. What motives are laid upon all Christian parents, by the 
 doctrine I have established, to make the first article of family 
 discipline a constant and careful djiscinline^of themselves. I 
 would not undervalue a strong and decided government in 
 families. No family can be rightly trained without it. But 
 there is a kind of virtue, my brethren, which is not in the rod, 
 the virtue, I mean, of a truly good and sanctified life. And a 
 reign of brute force is much more easily maintained, than a 
 reign whose power is righteousness and love. There are too, 
 I must warn you, many who talk much of the rod as the ortho- 
 dox symbol of parental duty, but who might really as well be 
 heathens as Christians ; who only storm about their house 
 with heathenish ferocity, who lecture, and threaten, and casti- 
 gate, and bruise, and call this family government. They even 
 dare to speak of this as the nurture of the Lord. So much 
 easier is it to be violent than to be holy, that they substitute 
 force for goodness and grace, -and are wholly unconscious of 
 the imposture. It is friglrful to think how they batter and 
 bruise the delicate, tender souls of their children, extinguish- 
 ing in them what they ought to cultivate, crushing that sensi- 
 bility which is the hope of their being, and all in the sacred 
 name of Christ Jesus. By no such summary process can you 
 dispatch your duties to your children. You are not to be a 
 savage to them, but a father, and a Christian. Your real aim 
 and study must be to infuse into them a new life, and, to this 
 end, the Life of God must perpetually reign in you. Gathered 
 round you as a family, they are all to be so many motives, 
 strong as the love you bear them, to make you Christlike in 
 your spirit. It must be seen and felt with them that religion is 
 
 a first thing with you. And it must be first, not in words and talk, 
 4*
 
 42 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 but visibly first in your love that which fixes your aims, feeds 
 your enjoyments, sanctifies your pleasures, supports your trials, 
 satisfies your wants, contents your ambition, beautifies and 
 blesses your character. No mock -piety, no sanctimony of 
 phrase, or longitude of face on Sundays will suffice. You must 
 live in the light of God and hold such a spirit in exercise, as 
 you wish to see translated into your children. You must take 
 them into your feelings, as a loving and joyous element, and 
 beget, if by the grace of God you may, the spirit of your own 
 heart in theirs. This is Christian education, the nurture of the 
 Lord. Ah, how dismal is the contrast of a half-wor Idly, carnal 
 piety, proposing money as the good thing of life, stimulating 
 ambition for place and show, provoking ill-nature by petulance 
 and falsehood, praying to save the rule of family worship, hav- 
 ing now and then a religious fit, and, when it is on, weeping 
 and exhorting the family to undo all that the life has taught 
 them to do, and then, when the passions have burnt out their 
 fire, dropping down again to sleep in the cinders, only hoping 
 still that the family will sometime be converted ! When shall 
 we discover that families ought to be ruined by such training as 
 this'? When shall we turn ourselves wholly to God, and look- 
 ing on our children as one with us and drawing their character 
 from us, make them arguments to duty and constancy duty 
 and constancy not as a burden, but, since they are enforced by 
 motives so dear, our pleasure and delight. For these ties and 
 duties exist not for the religious good of our children only, but 
 quite as much for our own. And God, who understands us well, 
 has appointed them to keep us in a perpetual frame of love ; for 
 BO ready is our bad nature to kindle with our good, and burn 
 with it, that what we call our piety is, otherwise, in constant 
 danger of degenerating into a fiery, censorious, unmerciful, and 
 intolerant spirit. Hence it is that monks have been so prone to 
 persecution. Not dwelling with children as the objects of affec- 
 tion, having their hearts softened by no family love, their life
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 43 
 
 identified with no objects that excite gentleness, their nature 
 hardens into a Christian abstraction, and blood and doctrine 
 go together. Therefore God hath set Israel in families, that 
 the argument to duty may come upon the gentle side of your 
 nature, and fall, as a baptism, on the head of your natural 
 affections. Your character is to be a parent character, in- 
 folding lovingly the spirits of your children, as birds gathered 
 in the nest, there to be sheltered, and fed, and got ready for the 
 flight. Every hour is to be an hour of duty, every look and 
 smile, every reproof and care, an effusion of Christian love. For 
 it is the very beauty of the work you have to do that you are 
 to cherish and encourage good, and live a better life into the 
 spirits of your children. 
 
 3. It is to be deeply considered, in connection with this view 
 of family nurture, whether it does not meet many of the deficien- 
 cies we deplore in the Christiaiysharacter of our times, and 
 the present state of our churches! We have been expecting to 
 thrive too much by conquest, and too little by growth. \ I desire 
 to speak with all caution of what are very unfortunately called 
 revivals of religion; for, apart from the name, which is modern, 
 and from certain crudities and excesses that go with it, which 
 name, crudities and excesses are wholly adventitious as regards 
 the substantial merits of such scenes, apart from these, I say, 
 there is abundant reason to believe that God's spiritual econo- 
 my includes varieties of exercise, answering, in all important 
 respects, to thase visitations of mercy, so much coveted in our 
 churches. They are needed. \ A perfectly uniform demonstra- 
 tion in religion is not, possible or desirable. Nothing is thus 
 uniform but death, pur exercise varies every year and day 
 from childhood onward. Society is going through new modes 
 of exercise in the same manner, excited by new subjects, run- 
 ning into new types of feeling, and struggling with new com- 
 binations of thought. Quite as necessary is it that all holy 
 principle should have a varied exercise, now in one duty, now
 
 44 DISCOURSES ON 
 
 in another; now in public aims and efforts, now in bosom strug- 
 gles ; now in social methods, now in those which are solitary 
 and private ; now in high emotion, now in deliberative thought 
 and study. Accordingly the Christian church began with a 
 scene of extraordinary social demonstration, and the like, in 
 one form or another, may be traced in every period of its histo- 
 ry since that day. But the difficulty is with us that we idolize 
 such scenes and make them the whole of our religion. We 
 assume that nothing good is doing, or can be done at any other 
 time. And what is even worse, we often look upon these 
 scenes, and desire them, rather as scenes of victory, than of 
 piety. Tihey are the harvest times of conversion, and conver- 
 sion is too nearly every thing with us. 'In particular, we see 
 no way to gather in disciples, save by means of certain marked 
 experiences, developed in such scenes, in adult years. Our 
 very children can possibly come to no good, save in this way. 
 Instrumentalities are invented to compass our object, that are 
 only mechanical, and the hope of mere present effect is suppo- 
 sed to justify them. Present effect, in the view of many, justi- 
 fies any thing and every thing. We strain every nerve of mo- 
 tion, exhaust every capacity of endurance, and push on till na- 
 ture sinks in exhaustion. We preach too much, and live 
 Christ too little. We do many things, which, in a cooler mood, 
 are seen to hurt the dignity of religion, and which somewhat 
 shame and sicken ourselves. Hence the present state of reli- 
 gion in our country. We have worked a vein till it has run 
 out. The churches are exhausted. There is little to attract 
 them, when they look upon the renewal of scenes through 
 which many of them have passed. They look about them, 
 with a sigh, to ask if possibly there is no better way, and some 
 are ready to find that better way, in a change of their religion. 
 Nothing different from this ought to have been expected. No 
 nation can long thrive by a spirit of conquest ; no more can a 
 church. There must be an internal growth, that is made by
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 45 
 
 holy industry, in the common walks ot life and duty. Let us 
 turn now, not away from revivals of religion, certainly not 
 away from the conviction that God will bring upon the church- 
 es tides of spiritual exercise, and vary his divine culture by 
 times and seasons suited to their advancement ; but let us turn 
 to inquire whether there is not a fund of increase in the very 
 bosom of the church itself. Let us try if we may not train up 
 our children in the way that they should go. Simply this, if 
 we can do it, will make the church multiply her numbers many 
 fold more rapidly than now, with the advantage that many 
 more will be gained from without than now. For she will 
 cease to hold a mere piety of occasions, a piety whose chief 
 use is to get up occasions ; she will follow a gentler and more 
 constant method, as her duty is more constant and blends with 
 the very life of her natural affections. Her piety will be of a 
 more even and genial quality, and will be more respected. She 
 will not strive and cry, but she will live. The school of John 
 the Baptist will be succeeded by the school of Christ, as a dew 
 comes after a fire. Families will not be a temptation to you, 
 half the time hurrying you on to get money, and prepare a 
 show, and the other half, a motive to repentance and shame, 
 and profitless exhortation ; but, all the time, an argument for 
 Christian love and holy living. Then also the piety of the 
 coming age will be deeper and more akin to habit than yours, 
 because it begun earlier. It will have more of an air of natu- 
 ralness and will be less a work of will. A generation will come 
 forward, who will have been educated to all good undertakings 
 and enterprises, ardent without fanaticism, powerful without 
 machinery. Not born so generally, in a storm, and brought to 
 Christ by an abrupt transition, the latter portion of life will not 
 have an unequal war to maintain with the beginning, but life 
 will be more nearly one, and in harmony with itself. Is not 
 this a result to be desired? Could we tell our American 
 churches at this moment, what they want, should we not tell 
 them this? Neither, if God, as many fear, is about ta bring
 
 46 DISCOURSES ox 
 
 upon his church a day of wrath and stormy conflict, let any 
 one suspect that such a kind of piety will want vigor and nerve, 
 to withstand the fiery assaults anticipated. See what turn the 
 mind of our apostle took, when he was arming his disciples for 
 the great conflict of their age. Children obey your parents, 
 Fathers provoke not your children, Servants be obedient to 
 your masters, Masters forbear threatening, Finally, to in- 
 clude all, put on the whole armor of God. As if the first 
 thought, in arming the church for great trials and stout victo. 
 ries, was to fill common life and the relations of the house with 
 a Christian spirit. There is no truer truth, or more sublime. 
 Religion never thoroughly penetrates life, till it becomes domes- 
 tic. Like that patriotic fire, which makes a nation invincible, 
 it never burns with inextinguishable devotion, till it burns at 
 the hearth. 
 
 4. Parents who are not religious in their character, have 
 reason, in our subject, seriously to consider what effect they 
 are producing, and likely to produce in their children. Proba- 
 bly you do not wish them to be irreligious, few parents have 
 the hardihood or indiscretion to desire that the fear of God and 
 the salutary restraints of religion should be removed from their 
 children. Possibly you exert yourselves, in a degree, to give 
 them religious counsel and instruction. But, alas ! how diffi- 
 cult is it for you to convince them, by words, of the value of 
 what you practically reject yourselves. Have I not shown 
 you that they are set in organic connection with you, to draw 
 their spirit and principles and character from yours ? What 
 then are they daily deriving from you? but that which you 
 yourselves reveal, in your prayerless house, and at your thank- 
 less table ? Is it a spirit ofduty and Christian love, a faith that 
 has its home and rest in other worlds, or is it the carnal spirit 
 of gain, indifference to God, deadness to Christ and love of the 
 world, pride, ambition, all that is earthly, nothing that is heav- 
 enly ? Do not imagine that you have done corrupting them, 
 when they are born. Their character is yet to be born, and, in
 
 CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 47 
 
 you, is to have its parentrge. Your spirit is to pass into them, 
 by a law of transition that is natural, and well nigh irresistible. 
 And then you are to meet them in a future life, and see how 
 much of blessing or of sorrow they will impute to you to share 
 their unknown future, and look upon yourselves, as father and 
 mother to their destiny. Such thoughts, I know, are difficult 
 for you to meet ; difficult because they open real scenes, which 
 you are, one day, to look upon. Loving these your children, 
 as most assuredly you do, can you think that you are fulfilling 
 the office that your love requires ? Go home to your Christ- 
 less house, look upon them all as they gather round you, and 
 ask it of your love faithfully to say, whether it is well between 
 you? And if no other argument can draw you to God, let 
 these dear living arguments come into your soul and prevail 
 there.
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 FOR 
 
 DISCOURSES ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE,'* 
 
 DEAR BRETHREN, Your decision, when suspending the sale 
 of my little book, to do it without ' publicity,' was kindly de- 
 signed ; but, inasmuch as 1 heard of it in the streets the very 
 next day, I should have been quite as well satisfied if you had 
 not extended a show of protection to my infirmity, which after 
 all was to be so precarious. You will, at least, make no com- 
 plaint under the circumstances, if I publish the suspension 
 myself. 
 
 The history of this little book is worthy of recital. When I 
 returned from Europe, I found that certain paragraphs of an 
 article which I had published in the New Englander had provo- 
 ked some feeling of dissent, in the ministerial Association to 
 which I belong, and that T was appointed to discuss a ques- 
 tion made up on the subject of Christian training, involving 
 the matter dissented from. I produced two discourses on the 
 question, for my pulpit, and read the argument before the Asso- 
 ciation. The question was then discussed by the members 
 present. I do not recollect that any one seriously objected to 
 
 * The whole title as originally printed was, " An Argument for Discourses on 
 Christian Nurture, addressed to the Publishing Committee of the Massachusetts 
 Sabbath School Society." 
 
 5
 
 50 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 the view given, or desired any correction more radical than the 
 addition of some verbal qualifications. A venerable fathe r > 
 whose name is a name of confidence and respect, second to no 
 other in our churches, offered a motion that I should be re- 
 quested to print the discourses. No one objected, and the vote 
 was passed, I believe, nem. con. They were not produced for 
 publication, but my strong conviction of the importance of the 
 subject and of the view presented, induced me afterwards to 
 comply ; and while I was preparing them for publication, in 
 another manner, one of the members of your committee re. 
 quested me to allow your Society to publish them. I felt some 
 doubt, which I expressed, whether your Society would do it; 
 not because there is any thing in the practical view presented, 
 which conflicts with, or may not with very slight modifications 
 be adopted into the received opinions of any theological school 
 known among us ; but because>he view itself is different from 
 that commonly held, and was likely not to meet a ready accept- 
 ance. Your committee had the manuscript in their possession 
 for five or six months. . It made its first impression as anony- 
 mous. I have understood that it was much discussed, and 
 finally that every member of your large committee actually read 
 it foAimself. I have under stood also that you had no doubt of 
 the substantial orthodoxy of the discourses; but had, as I 
 expected you would have, much hesitancy in regard to the 
 impression they would make on the public. You sent the man- 
 uscript back to me twice, for the insertion of qualifications and 
 the modification of phrases ; in which, as it cost me no change 
 of opinion, I was ready to gratify you. Finally, after a long 
 pause of three or lour months, such as generally precedes some 
 great convulsion of nature, the " Discourses on Christian Nur- 
 ture" were published. Some little commendatory notices ap- 
 peared. The most strongly Calvinistic, and as many judge, 
 the most thoroughly respectable Congregational paper in New- 
 England, (precisely what I should have expected,) was full 
 and decided in its commendation, and published extracts, I have
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 51 
 
 been told, for the benefit of its readers. It was noticed with 
 qualified favor, (which also I should have expected,) by a very 
 candid and highly respected writer in the Episcopal paper of 
 this city. It seemed about to get audience, in fact, before the 
 public, without producing any alarm whatever. 
 
 But the day was coming. A " Letter" addressed to me was 
 at length published, under the "unanimous" sanction of the 
 North Association of Hartford county, in which the most seri- 
 ous objections are made to the ' Discourses ;' and particularly 
 that they are full of " dangerous tendencies." The " Letter" is 
 a remarkably quiet epistle, but it has been very industriously 
 circulated and the " dangerous tendencies," like the fuse hissing 
 upon a bomb, have thrown the ancient and honorable com- 
 monwealth of Massachusetts, including, for aught that appears, 
 the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company itself, into a 
 general panic. How Jar the American Sunday School Union, 
 which is a rival institution to your Society, has exerted itself 
 through its agents to increase the panic, I know only by report. 
 Enough, that when I attended the General Association of your 
 state at Worcester, a few days ago, I encountered manifest- 
 ations on every side, which, if they did not alarm, did a little 
 surprise me. I found myself enveloped in an atmosphere of 
 sensibility. It was proposed, I understood, to the committee of 
 business, to place -upon their docket, as one article, the admin- 
 istration of some rebuke to your Society, for publishing so cor- 
 rupt a book. In reading the Reports of the District Associa- 
 tions on the state of religion, one of the readers contrived to 
 interline a personal sneer at me, for the entertainment of the 
 audience. And among other demonstrations of courtesy, which 
 1 was permitted to receive as a stranger, it was industriously 
 whispered. I was told, that what I had said in the " Adver- 
 tisement" to my little book, of being requested by the Associa- 
 tion to publish it, is not true ! a civility that has since come 
 into print, in certain periodicals of Boston. In the dignity of 
 these demonstrations, unless you have methods of exhibiting
 
 52 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 sensibility in your state that are quite peculiar to yourselves, it 
 is manifest that I have touched the quick of theologic odium. 
 And now, when your numerous committee, after having sifted 
 my manuscript till the paper itself was near giving- out in the 
 process, coming thus to the deliberate conclusion that there is 
 no bad error in it, and finally giving it to the public, return to 
 give me notice that you feel obliged, for a time at least, to sus- 
 pend the publication; it is evident that the excitement must 
 finally have reached the pitch, usually called, in newspaper 
 phrase, "great consternation." 
 
 Is it now too much to ask of your friends in Massachusetts, 
 that they will descend from the tragic altitude of their resent- 
 ments, long enough to go through, with me, a brief comparison 
 of my doctrine of Christian nurture, with doctrines and opin- 
 ions formerly held by men of acknowledged soundness in the 
 iaith 1 I ask it, not because I do not feel myself at liberty, when 
 truth seems to require it, to defy all human authorities ; but 
 simply because it is pleasant to have the sanction of venerable 
 names, when we .may, and especially since there seem to be 
 many who are more fit subjects of authority than of reason. I 
 made some reference in the ' Discourses,' to what had been the 
 views of Christian teachers in past ages. If I erred in not 
 being more full on that subject, I will now supply the deficiency, 
 not without some confidence that this panic before which you 
 have yielded, will be discovered, like many others which have 
 troubled the world, to have had its birth in ignorance. 
 
 If I give you reason to believe that the same doctrine of 
 Christian nurture was held by the church of the apostolic age, 
 in connexion with infant baptism, after which the rite fell into 
 long ages of abuse , where its proper meaning was lost out of 
 mind ; then that when the Reformation came it brought no 
 such view of it to light, that the reformers and fathers and 
 learned professors whom we have most in confidence, have 
 ever, down to the present day, had any fixed agreement among 
 themselves, in regard to the state of childhood as connected
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 53 
 
 with baptism, or the meaning of the rite itself, and have ad- 
 vanced continually different theories without offence some of 
 them regarded ae even ultra orthodox, asserting the precise 
 doctrine of nurture which I have maintained; if I show you 
 moreover that the very type of religion which has produced this 
 extraordinary sensitiveness to my book, is in fact a novelty 
 itself just a hundred years old, being that which was derisively 
 called " New Light" in its day, and which now is taken to be 
 really synonymous with antiquity and all orthodoxy ; a type of 
 religion which approaches strict individualism, which practi- 
 cally hangs all power and progress on adult conversions, which 
 flowered in the brilliant era of Burchard and Knapp, and is 
 now dying under mildew or passing into seed ; showing you 
 this I think your committee will at least find some confirmation 
 of their judgment, and the subjects of this panic some solution 
 of the very peculiar courtesy and intellectual dignity that has 
 attended their demonstrations. 
 
 In the ' Discourses,' (p. 32,) I quoted two passages, one 
 from Justin Martyr, the other from Ireneus, which are, at once, 
 proofs of the existence of infant baptism; also that the rite was, 
 in that early age, called regeneration ; also that the subjects 
 were accounted and treated as disciples. In the third chapter 
 of John also, and in Titus 3 : 5, we see that water and regen- 
 eration are already cognate terms, and that the language ot 
 the church in the age succeeding, is no departure from the lan- 
 guage of scripture itself. [Compare Colman's Christ. Antiq. 
 p. 265.] 
 
 We also find inscriptions on the monuments of children, con- 
 sidered by antiquarians to be of a very early age, probably of 
 the first two or three centuries, in which they are called fideles, 
 i. e. faithfuls. The following is an example. 
 
 " A faithful descended of faithfuls, here lies Zoslmus. He lived two years 
 one month and twenty-five days." Suonarotti, 17. Fabretti, Cap. 4. 
 
 5*
 
 54 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 Turning now to Acts 16 : 15, we find Lydia, after her bap- 
 tism, speaking of herself as one adjudged to be faithful. And 
 then passing to Titus, 1 : 6, where it is prescribed that the 
 elder shall be one "having faithful children," we become ap- 
 prised of the fact that the children of disciples were accustomed 
 also then to be called faithfuls as afterwards, and in common 
 with disciples of a mature age. Nor let it be said that the words 
 which follow in the latter passage, "not accused of riot, or 
 unruly," (that is, not in bad repute as a wild, ill governed fam- 
 ily,) show that the term faithful relates to children who are 
 truly be lievers. When does it occur to us to call children faith- 
 fuls because they are well behaved 1 Manifestly, the term has 
 reference to just that age when, being called faithfuls on ac- 
 count of their baptism, good behavior and Christian manners 
 were the only or principal evidence ol Christian character to 
 be looked for. And that every father is able so to train up his 
 children that they may properly deserve this title, is so far 
 assumed that if he fails to do it, the fact must be taken as 
 presumptive evidence against him, as being one whojs unfit to 
 rule as an elder in the church. 
 
 Then again, we open the Epistle to the Ephesians and we 
 find it addressed to the " Saints at Ephesus and the faithful 
 m Christ Jesus," which, making nothing of the particular words 
 employed, does at least mean that the epistle is addressed to 
 Christian brethren. And among these, "children" are directly 
 addressed, in the same way as other members of the frater- 
 nity. The same is true in the Epistle to the Colossians, and 
 also in the first Epistle of John. In which, apart from all theo- 
 ries, we see children familiarly recognized, with their parents, 
 among the adult Christian disciples and addressed in the sec- 
 ond person, with as little thought of impropriety, as the adults 
 themselves. 
 
 If now we ask, in what view all these facts and usages of the 
 first churches had their explication, no better answer can be
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. * 55 
 
 given, than that which is offered by Neander. Shortly after 
 advancing, about ten years ago, -the same view of Christian 
 nurture maintained in my ' Discourses,' I fell upon the follow- 
 ing passage in his Church History, by which, as I was young 
 in the truth, I was greatly supported. It was precisely this 
 that I had in mind, when I said, in my tract, that my doctrine 
 is "as old as the Christian Church." Better authority will 
 hardly be required. The passage relates, it will be seen, to 
 the import of infant baptism, or to the practical ideas origin- 
 ally held in connection with infant baptism. And he has in 
 view the two passages of Justin Martyr and Ireneus just refer- 
 red to. 
 
 " It is the idea of infant baptism that Christ, through the divine life which he 
 imparted to, and revealed in, human nature, sanctified that germ from its earl- 
 iest development. The child born in a Christian family was, when all things 
 were as they should be, to have this advantage over others, that he did not come 
 to Christianity out of heathenism or the sinful natural life, but from the first 
 dawning of consciousness unfolded his powers under the imperceptible, prevent- 
 ing influences of a sanctifying, ennobling religion ; that with the earliest ger- 
 mination of the natural self conscious life, another divine principle of life, trans- 
 forming the nature, should be brought nigh to him. ere yet the ungodly principle 
 could come into full activity, and the latter should, at once, find here its powerful 
 counterpoise. In such a life, the new birth was not to constitute a new crisis be- 
 ginning at some definable moment, ])ut it was to begin imperceptibly, and so pro- 
 ceed through the whole life. Hence, baptism, the visible sign of regeneration, 
 was to be given to the child at the very outset the child was to be consecrated 
 to the Redeemer from the very beginning of its life." Neander's Church His- 
 tory, Torretfs translation, p, 311, '12. 
 
 A more popular and practical view of Christianity, as seen in 
 the domestic life of families, and one, at the same time, wholly 
 coincident, is given by Cave. 
 
 "Gregory Nazianzen peculiarly commends his mother, that not only she her- 
 self was consecrated to God and brought up under a pious education, but that she 
 conveyed it down, as a necessary inheritance, to her children ; and it seems her 
 daughter Gorgonia was so well seasoned with these holy principles, that she 
 religiously walked in the steps of so good a patern ; and did not only reclaim her 
 husband, but educated her children and nephews in the ways of religion, giving 
 them an excellent example while she lived, and leaving this, as her last charge
 
 56 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 and request when she died. ***** This was the dis- 
 cipline under which Christians were brought up in those times. Religion was 
 instilled into t/iem betimes, which grew up and mixed itself with, their ordinary 
 labors and recreations. *******go that 
 Jerome says, of the place where he lived, you could not go into the field, but you 
 might hear the plowman at bis hallelujahs, the mower at his hymns, and the 
 vine-dresser singing David's Psalms." Primitive Christianity, p. 173, '4. 
 
 But when the Christian ministry became changed into a 
 priesthood, and external rites, performed by priestly hands, 
 were regarded as having a magical power in themselves, 
 Christain nurture was, in fact, superseded. Indeed, the whole 
 matter of religion, as well in the case of adults as of infants, 
 was dispensed by the priesthood, whose prerogative it was to 
 open heaven to all. 
 
 To follow the church into all the absurd opinions of this 
 subject through which she strayed for long ages, is unneces- 
 sary. We descend immediately to the Reformation, and the 
 views developed between that period and the present And 
 here we shall find that no settled opinion on the subject of infant 
 baptism and of Christian nurture has ever been attained to. 
 Between the standard Protestant writers themselves there has 
 been no agreement. And yet we shall distinguish, here and 
 there, gleams of the doctrine I have advanced in the ' Discours- 
 es,' and finally in some of the accredited theologians, both of 
 England and of New England, a doctrine carefully matured 
 and fully stated, so nearly identical with that by which I have 
 frightened the over sensitive orthodoxy of some, as to leave 
 room for no important distinction. 
 
 It is difficult to assign a precise and definite meaning to what 
 Luther advanced on this subject. We know that he taught 
 and held the most rigid views of election, and yet he says : 
 
 " Paul commendeth and setteth it [baptism] forth with honorable titles, calling 
 it the washing of the new birth, the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Tit. 3. 
 And here also, [Gal. 3 : 27,] he saith, that all they which are baptized have put 
 on Christ. As if he said, ' Ye are carried out of the law into a new birth, which
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 57 
 
 is wrought in baptism.' Wherefore baptism is a thing of great force and effica- 
 cy.' Comm. in loe. 
 
 This certainly is not any doctrine which I have advanced. 
 Indeed, it seems to convey a strong scent of the old errors in 
 which he had been trained, and out of which he was not yet 
 fully emancipated. Calvin is more intelligent and appears to 
 have carried his thoughts farther into the subject. His opin- 
 ion seems to be that the elect infants, and they only, have any 
 advantage in baptism. 
 
 " Christ was sanctified from his earliest infancy, that he might sanctify in him- 
 self all his elect. 
 
 " But how, it is inquired, are infants regenerated who have no knowledge 
 either of good or evil 7 We reply that thu worjj of God is not yet without exist- 
 ence because it is not observed or understood by us. Now it is certain that some 
 infants are saved, and that they are previously regenerated by the Lord is beyond 
 all doubt." 
 
 " They are baptized into future repentance and faith ; for though these graces 
 have not yet been formed in them, the seeds of both, are nevertheless implanted in 
 their hearts by the secret operations of the Spirit." Ins. Cap. XVI. 17, 18,20. 
 
 I claim no authority under this view of Calvin, save that 
 in the words italicised he falls into the same deadly error impu- 
 ted to me when I say, in the ' Discourses,' that " regenerate 
 character may exist long before it is fully and formally develop- 
 ed." Owen uses language hardly reconcilable with Calvin, 
 unless it can be shown either that all infants who die are elect, 
 or that all elect infants die. 
 
 " The children of believers are all of them capable of the grace signified in 
 baptism, and some of them are certainly partakers of it ; viz, such as die in their 
 infancy." 
 
 " God having appointed baptism as the sign and seal of regeneration * * * 
 it follows that infants who die in their infancy, have the grace of regeneration 
 and consequently as good a right to baptism as believers themselves." Owen's 
 Works, vol. XXI. 549. 
 
 We come now to Ridgely, whose doctrine appears to hold a 
 different cast, in which it is more strongly resembled to the
 
 58 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 view advanced in my ' Discourses,' as will appear on a com- 
 parison of the two following passages : 
 
 " I think those arguments which are generally brought to prove that the infants 
 of believing parents, as such, have the seeds of faith can hardly be defended." 
 
 " Baptism is an external sign of that faith and hope, which he has that dedi- 
 cates a person to God. that the person dedicated shall obtain the saving blessings 
 of the covenant of grace * * * * * Indeed when we 
 engage in this ordinance, we ought to expect some saving blessings as the con- 
 sequence thereof, as much as when we engage in any other ordinance of divine 
 appointment." Ridgely's Body of Divinity, fol. vol. II. 409. 
 
 Precisely how much is intended in this language, it may be 
 difficult to say, without a more thorough acquaintance with the 
 authors' opinions generally than I possess, but it has a very dif- 
 ferent cast from that of Calvin or Owen. 
 
 Baxter was a man of 'motion, and we shall see that the work- 
 ing of his mercurial mind has carried him into a direct scrutiny 
 of the relation itself of parents and children. I hope our cen- 
 sors of orthodoxy will deal gently with him, if in the passage 
 that follows he is found asserting the same doctrine of " organ- 
 ic" power and character as that into which I have ventured so 
 rashly. 
 
 " ft. Why then are they baptized who cannot covenant ? 
 
 "A. As children are made sinners and miserable by the parents, without 
 any act of their own, so they are delivered out of it, by the free grace of Christ, 
 upon a condition performed by their parents. Else they that are visibly bom 
 in sin and misery should have no certain or visible way of remedy. Nature 
 maketh them as it were parts of their parents, or so near as causeth their sin and 
 misery. And this nearness supposed, God, by his free grace, hath put it in the 
 power of the parents to accept for them the blessings of the covenant, and to 
 enter them into the covenant of God, the parents' will being instead of their own, 
 who yet have no will to choose for themselves." Teacher of Householders, fol. vol. 
 II. p. 135. 
 
 The next passage I cite, as one that is remarkable for con- 
 taining in a single sentence, almost every point of doctrine in- 
 volved in my view of Christian nurture, without professing to 
 give any theory at all of that subject; " the secret seeds" of a
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 59 
 
 new character planted by "education" before "actual ac- 
 quaintance with Christ" "stirring, working and reaching 
 after further grace" all in such a way that the new character 
 gets the start of what is evil and "ungodly." The only thing 
 Tvantmg is that such a result is not setup as the aim of paren- 
 tal training, but is merely affirmed of " some" children. Yet 
 of such a number that when we come to " confirmation," which 
 he is here commending, two classes are to be made, those who 
 are to have simple " confirmation" and those who are first to 
 have " absolution." And if some children are to be confirmed 
 without absolution, it is making a very practical matter certain- 
 ly of the possibility that children may "grow up" in piety. 
 
 " Of those baptized in infancy, some do betimes receive the secret seeds of 
 grace, which, by the blessings of a holy education, is stirring in them according 
 to their capacity, and working them to God by actual desires, and working them 
 from all known sin, and entertaining further grace, and turning them into actual 
 acquaintance with Christ, as soon as they arrive at full natural capacity, so that 
 they never were actual ungodly persons." Confirmation, fol. vol. IV. p. 267. 
 
 The citation that follows brings us to the same result by a 
 different method showing in particular, the relative impor- 
 tance in Baxter's view of Christian nurture and Christian 
 preaching as the instrument of adult conversions. The italics 
 are his own. 
 
 "Ungodly parents do serve the devil so effectually, in the first impressions on 
 their children's minds, that it is more than magistrates and ministers and all re- 
 forming means can afterwards do to recover them from that sin to God. Where- 
 as, if you would first engage their hearts to God by a religious education, piety 
 would then have all those advantages that sin hath now. (Prov. 22: 6.) The 
 language which you teach them to speak when they are children they will use 
 all their life after, if they live with those that use it. And so the opinions which 
 they first receive, and the customs which they are used to at first, are very 
 hardly changed afterward. I doubt not to affirm, that a godly education is Ood's 
 first and ordinary appointed means for the begetting of actual faith and other 
 graces in the children of believers. Many may have received grace before ; but 
 they cannot sooner have actual faith, repentance, love, or any grace, than they 
 have reason itself in act and exercise. And the preaching of the word by public 
 ministers is not the first ordinary means of grace to any but those that were
 
 60 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 graceless till they come to hear such preaching ; that is, to those on whom the 
 first appointed means hath been neglected or proved vain; * * * * 
 therefore it is apparent that the ordinary appointed means for the first actual grace 
 is parents' godly instruction and education of their children. And public preach- 
 ing is appointed for the conversion of those only that have missed the blessing 
 of the first appointed means." Christian Directory, vol. II. cap. 6, 4, folio, 
 p. 516. 
 
 One passage more from Baxter, in which he teaches my cen- 
 sors the difference between presuming forwards and backwards; 
 forwards on the faith of God's promises and offered privileges, 
 and backwards on results that involve our own personal fidelity 
 and righteousness. Though, undoubtedly, the presumption 
 that a child will grow up a Christian is to be retained until it 
 is displaced by sufficient evidence. 
 
 "It is a probable argument ' Such an infant is born of Christian parents ; 
 therefore he will be an actual believer.'' But it is not a probable argument 
 ' Such a man, at age, that professeth not Christianity, -had Christain parents 
 therefore he is a believer.' " Postscript fol. vol. IV. p. 303. 
 
 From the best and most respected authorities in the Church 
 of England, I might bring declarations to the same effect with- 
 out number, but as their view of baptism is different generally 
 from any that we are able to admit, I desist, only adding one as 
 an example. 
 
 " Here is the consequent fruit and benefit of good education And vhen he is 
 old he will not depart from it. Thus we are to understand, according to the moral 
 probability of things ; not as if this happy effect did always and infallibly follow 
 upon the good education of a child ; but that tin's very frequently is and may 
 probably be presumed and hoped to be, the fruit and effect of a pious and prudent 
 education. Till Olson's Works, vol. III. p. 179. 
 
 But we pass the sea. And now the question is, what opin- 
 ions have been held on this subject, by our New England di- 
 vines? And first of all it will be evident here on examination, 
 that no settled opinion of the grounds or import of infant bap- 
 tism has ever been attained to, certainly none that- will author- 
 ize Christian men to denounce as heretical and dangerous
 
 OX CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 61 
 
 every other opinion that may chance to differ from their own. 
 Do we hold that baptism accrues to the special benefit of elect 
 infants? I certainly do not. Is there any one of your respecta- 
 ble committee who entertains the distinction of elect and non- 
 elect infants at all ? We may not have reasoned ourselves out 
 of this once familiar distinction, as pertaining to infants ; but it 
 is gone, time has killed it. Do we hold that baptism accrues 
 to the benefit of infants that die ? What better possibly, what 
 better, in common opinion, is the condition of infants that die 
 baptized than if they were not baptized 1 But there is some- 
 thing like a covenant made in this matter of baptism. Even 
 so, in this we all agree. But what is the covenant, what mean- 
 ing and force has it? Here we never have agreed and do 
 not now. The Baptists have pushed us for an answer ; we 
 have given them many answers, but never any single answer 
 in which we could agree ourselves. And so conscious was 
 Edwards, in his debate on the " Halfway Covenant," of the 
 ambiguity resting on this point, that he purposely put the sub- 
 ject by, saying: 
 
 "Though I have no doubts about the doctrine of infant baptism, yet God's 
 manner of dealing with such infants as are regularly dedicated to him in baptism, 
 is a matter liable to great disputes and would require a large dissertation to clear 
 it up." Ei/ici/ril*' Works, vol. I. p. 90. 
 
 Our fathers had been accustomed, in Europe, to State 
 churches, in which baptism practically gave a title to com- 
 plete membership. But they organized their churches here, 
 as may be seen by the Cambridge Platform of 1649, on a differ- 
 ent principle, allowing none to be members, save such as gave 
 evidence of spiritually renewed character. Meantime none 
 were allowed to be voters in the commonwealth, except in the 
 Hartford and Providence colonies, unless they were members 
 of the church ; and since they were not able to rid themselves 
 of this latter political error, which they had brought over among 
 their many European prejudices, the correction they had 
 6
 
 62 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 made, in their views of church membership, only brought them 
 into trouble and confusion. For they began to find, as soon ag 
 their sons were grown to manhood, that many of them were 
 in fact aliens in the State ; and, what was more uncomfort- 
 able to most Christians of that age than we can well imagine, 
 the children of their sons and daughters often could not be 
 baptized. Hence another synod was convened, A. D. 1662, 
 to find some method of relieving these difficulties. And this 
 was done, by allowing to all baptized persons, living reputably 
 as regards outward character, and professing a speculative 
 assent to the Christian doctrines, a modified or half mem- 
 bership that is, so far to be accounted members as to have 
 a right of baptism for their children, and thus to become voters 
 in the State. This decision was stoutly opposed by some of the 
 ablest and best men in the synod, and the matter was earnestly 
 debated afterwards through the press. The result was un- 
 doubtedly bad in theory, as it proved also to be in its practical 
 effects. But we are not to suppose that the error introduced 
 was a fruit of Arminianism, as many are wont to speak. The 
 synod were high Calvinists probably to a man, and many of 
 the Calvinistic fathers of the first age were still ahVe and 
 present to assist in the result. That they had never as yet 
 attained to any settled opinion of the import of baptism as ap- 
 plied to children, since renouncing the view of the European 
 state churches, is evident from the fact that they fell into so 
 great a diversity of opinion, and also that such a man as In- 
 crease Mather actually changed sides after the synod. 
 
 In the account of the synod and of the debate that followed, 
 as given. by Cotton Mather, three positions are advanced 
 which are specially noticeable as elements of right opinion, and 
 from which probably neither party dissented. 
 
 1. That the children of Christian parents trained in a Chris- 
 tian way, often grow up as spiritually renewed persons, and 
 must indeed be accounted true disciples of Christ, until some 
 evidence conclusive to the contrary is given by their conduct.
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 63 
 
 " Children of the covenant have frequently the beginning of grace wrought 
 in them in younger years, as Scripture and experience show. Instance Joseph, 
 Samuel, David, Solomon, Abijah, Josiah, Daniel, John Baptist, Timothy. Hence 
 this sort of persons [baptized persons,] showing nothing to the contrary are, in 
 charity or to ecclesiastical reputation, visible believers." Magnolia, Book V., 
 
 2. That baptism supposes an initial state of piety, or some 
 right beginning, in which the child is prepared unto good by 
 causes prior to his own wilL 
 
 " We are to distinguish between faith and the hopeful beginning of it, the char- 
 itable judgment whereof runs upon a great latitude, and faith in the special exer- 
 cise of it, unto the visible discovery whereof, more experienced operations are 
 to be inquired after. The words of Dr. Ames are 'children are not to be ad- 
 mitted to partake of all church privileges till first increase of faith do appear, but 
 from those which belong to the beginning of faith and entrance into the church 
 they are not to be excluded.' " Magnolia, Book V.,fol.p. 77. 
 
 3. That there is a kind of individualism which runs only to 
 evil; that the church is designed to be an organic, vital, grace- 
 giving power, and thus a nursery of spiritual life to its children. 
 
 "The way of the Anabaptists to admit none to membership and baptism but 
 adult professors, is the straitest way ; one would think it should be a way of great 
 purity ; but experience hath shewed that it has been an inlet unto great corrup- 
 tion. If we. do not keep in the way of a converting, grace-giving covenant, and 
 keep persons under those church dispensations wherein grace is given, the 
 church will die of a lingering though not violent death. The Lord hath not set 
 up churches only that a fcia old Christians may keep one another warm while 
 they live, and then carry away the church with them when they die ; no, but 
 that they might with all care, and with all the obligations and advantages to that 
 care that may be, nurse still successively another generation of subjects to our 
 Lord that may stand up in his kingdom when they are gone." Magnolia, Book 
 
 How sentiments like these came to be urged, in support of 
 the mongrel scheme of church membership proposed by the 
 synod, is not altogether clear ; for so far from encouraging the 
 extension of a merely formal rite, they conduct us rather to a 
 restricted application where it may be the seal of existing faith, 
 and retain, by that means,.a real and earnest significance. And
 
 64 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOUR^KS 
 
 I judge, from the representations of Mather, that sentiments of 
 this kind were concurred in by the opposing party in the synod, 
 and \vere actually urged as arguments against the issue propo- 
 sed. However this may be, for I have not had recourse to the 
 original pamphlets and debates of the period, it is quiie certain 
 that these sentiments were held by a large majority of the 
 synod ; and any one, at all accjuainted with the general current 
 of opinions and practices in the Reformed churches, will also 
 see that sentiments like these had descended upon them and 
 were likely to be held by them all. The quotation from Dr. 
 Ames, (together with those I have made from Calvin and 
 Ridgely,) is a more specific evidence to the same effect. 
 
 At a later period, Mr. Stoddard of Northampton, took the 
 lar more consistent and dignified ground that both sacraments, 
 baptism and the Lord's supper, are to be regarded as means of 
 grace offered to all who hold the Christian doctrines and main- 
 tain a correct outward life. In this opinion he was followed by 
 many. Meantime, under the combined influence of these two 
 changes, or partly by force of other causes operating to de- 
 press the intellectual and moral character of the age, practical 
 religion fell into a serious and alarming state of decline. The 
 churches, it is represented, had quite lost their spirituality, and 
 what is worse, had well nigh lost the idea of spiritual life itself. 
 These representations, however, have come to us from the 
 age succeeding, when new scenes and a higher frame of activ- 
 ity, connected with no slight measure of censoriousness, were 
 likely to give an exaggerated air to the declension of the former 
 times. Still, making every allowance for exaggerations of this 
 nature, there was evidently a serious decline of piety in the 
 churches. 
 
 And here comes forward Jonathan Edwards, followed by 
 Whitfield, the Terments, Davenport and other inferior teach- 
 ers, introducing a new religious era, the same which has con- 
 tinued to the present day the era of extreme individualism, of 
 adult conversions, revivals, angular experiences, hard and vio-
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 65 
 
 lent demonstrations, painful exhaustions, and now, at last, of 
 a growing disrespect to spirituaf piety itself. To break up the 
 dead formalism that reigned in the churches, Mr. Edwards 
 set up and maintained as the great first truth of religion, the 
 necessity of spiritual regeneration. Having his controversy 
 with the halfway covenant and the doctrine of'Mr. Stoddard, 
 in which he was obliged to repel a formalistic tendency, he fell, 
 as was natural, into a spiritualism so intense as practically to 
 hold, if not theoretically, that there is no such thing as spirit- 
 ual piety which does not begin with a definite and consciously 
 dated experience. Depravity imported the same thing as the 
 " unregenerate state" of all who come to the age of reason. 
 That Christian nurture should have been blessed of God, so 
 to counterwork the tendencies of a corrupted nature, as to 
 bring the subject forward to the age of moral action, with a 
 heart prepared to obedience, was left out of mind. All adults, 
 not converted after the age of reason, were assumed to be under 
 sin and addressed as unreconciled to God. Perhaps the defect 
 of family training had been so great, in that age of decline, 
 that he might very naturally and excusably make this assump- 
 tion. And yet the assumption is not any the less to be re- 
 gretted since it has entered into the very body of practical 
 religion among us, and become a fixed element ; so that we 
 have acted upon it, from that day forward, and been warped 
 from our Christian duties and discolored in our piety by it. 
 The attention he had bestowed on the will gave a still more 
 intense form of individualism probably to his teachings. He 
 also undertook, what I believe had never before been attempted, 
 to give a metaphysical idea of the change wrought in regen- 
 eration, showing, in terms of analysis, wherein the soul is dif- 
 ferent from what it was before ; and by this means also, he 
 threw the individual into a yet more perfect isolation, as regards 
 organic laws and influences, and imparted, though undesign- 
 edly, a more violent character to the demonstrations of Chris- 
 tian experience. 
 
 6*
 
 66 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 Under the head of " Improvements in Theology," introdu- 
 ced by his father, the younger Edwards (Vol. II. p. 491,) says 
 that he showed regeneration to consist " in the communication 
 of a new spiritual sense or taste" And this, he goes on to 
 say, was shown to be wrought by the immediate or sole agency 
 of the Holy Spirit, apart from all suasion and choice. " Previ- 
 ous light and knowledge" moreover were shown, he thinks, 
 to have only the same relation to the result that the ram's horns 
 had to the fall of Jericho. Perhaps it was well to endeavor a 
 metaphysical idea of regeneration, and I know not that any first 
 essay could hope to be more successful. But if ' ' improvements 
 in theology" came to a full end, as many suppose, I believe, in 
 the days of Edwards, so that no farther advance is to be con- 
 sidered admissible, it might possibly have been as well, regard- 
 ing only this particular subj ect , if they had ended sooner. Hang- 
 ing every thing thus on miracle, or a pure ictus Dei, sepa- 
 rate from all instrumental connexions of truth, feeling, depend- 
 ence, motive and choice, there was manifestly nothing left but 
 to wait for the concussion. It was waiting, in fact, as for the 
 arrival of God in some vision or trance, and since there was no 
 intelligible duty to be done, as means to the end, the disturbed 
 soul was quite sure to fall on conjuration to obtain the desired 
 miracle ; cutting itself with the knives of conviction, tearing 
 itself in loud outcries, and leaping round the altar and calling 
 on the god to come down and kindle his fire. Edwards himself 
 was a man of too great mental dignity to surrender himself to 
 any flagrant excess, and yet, so strong was the sympathy be- 
 tween the general view of religion maintained by him and the 
 extatic impulses, that he yielded a degree of indulgence to 
 trances, visions and other extravagances of his times, which 
 cannot be soberly justified. The inferior characters of the day, 
 from Whitfield down to Davenport, were all for impulses and 
 divine concussions of course, and the churches rushed into 
 scenes of extravagance which present in the history a truly
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTJTRE. 67 
 
 mournful picture. The preachers had great hopes as the " Re- 
 vival" went on, that the whole people would finally be con- 
 verted. They encouraged outcries and visions and trances and 
 faintings; they counted nothing a conversion which did not 
 explode like a rocket in mid heaven, and the number of these 
 explosions was accepted as the guage of all progress. But 
 finally, when the confusion had run itself to a limit in disgrace, 
 and the fuel of passion was quite burned away, then suddenly 
 the New Light power gave out, as a motion that is spent, and 
 religion subsided, falling into a long and dreary decline. 
 
 Edwards himself was greatly disappointed and chagrined ; 
 for in the beginning of the " Revival," he had viewed it as the 
 harbinger of a new era, even that of the Spirit in the latter days. 
 Now, fifteen years later, he writes 
 
 " I cannot say that the greater part of supposed converts give reason, by their 
 conversation, to suppose that they continue converts. The proportion may per- 
 haps be more truly represented by the proportion of blossoms on a tree, which 
 abide and coine to mature fruit, to the whole number of blossoms in the spring." 
 Life, 460. 
 
 Whether he ever discovered the real causes of the failure 
 by which he was disappointed, is perhaps doubtful ; and yet in 
 his farewell sermon at Northampton, when his heart was bleed- 
 ing under the wrongs put upon him by the very converts in 
 whom he had once rejoiced, it seems to come upon him as a 
 half discovery, at least, that there might be some better way. 
 And protesting more strongly than ever his confidence in the 
 power of family religion, and the essential need of a piety form- 
 ed by Christian nurture, he says 
 
 " Every Christian family ought to be, as it were, a little church, consecrated to 
 Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education 
 and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, all other means are 
 likely to prove ineffectual." Vol. I. p. 90. 
 
 Now so great has been the name and authority of Edwards, 
 that the new era, or as it has been called in derision, the " New
 
 68 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 Light" era, introduced by him, still continues, and, what is not 
 a little remarkable, we have theological professors, and other 
 distinguished teachers, sworn to the maintenance of orthodo xv , 
 who are actually defending, as synonymous with all antiquity, 
 notions and practices, which are scarcely more than a century 
 old ! The type of religion so lately stigmatized as " New light," 
 is precisely theirs, or only_with very slight modifications, and 
 they are actually found assailing me, as a dangerous intruder 
 on their othodoxy, for maintaining the very opinions of the first 
 churches ! Some of our teachers have ventured to make bolder 
 modifications, in the theoretic doctrines of Edwards, but it must 
 be allowed that our type of practical religion is still that of 
 the " new light" age. It has the same virtues and the same 
 defects. It runs to the same kind of excesses, and, as we have 
 lately seen, to those which are scarcely milder in degree. It 
 is a religion that begins explosively, raises high frames, car- 
 ries little or no expansion, and after the day is spent, subsides 
 into a torpor. Considered as a distinct era, introduced by 
 Edwards, and extended and caricatured by his contemporaries, 
 it has one great merii and one great defect. The merit is. that 
 it displaced an era of dead formality, and brought in the de- 
 mand of a truly spiritual and supernatural experience. The 
 defect is, that it has cast a type of religious individualism, 
 intense beyond any former example. It makes nothing of the 
 family, and the church, and the organic powers God has consti- 
 tuted as vehicles of grace. It takes every man as if he had 
 exisied alone, presumes that he is unreconciled to God until he 
 has undergone some sudden and explosive experience, in adult 
 years, or after the age of reason ; demands that experience, 
 and only when it is reached, allows the subject to be an heir of 
 life. Then, on the other side, or that of the Spirit of God, the 
 very act or ictus by which the change is Avr ought, is isolated 
 or individualized, so as to stand in no connexion with any other 
 of God's means or causes an epiphany, in which God leaps
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 69 
 
 from the stars, or some place above, to do a work apart from 
 all system, or connection with his other works. Religion is thus 
 a kind of transcendental matter, which belongs on the outside 
 of life, and has no part in the laws by which life is organized a 
 miraculous epidemic, afire-ball shot from the moon, something 
 holy because it is from God, but so extraordinary, so out of 
 place, that it cannot suffer any vital connexion with the ties and 
 causes and forms and habits, which constitute the frame of our 
 history. Hence the desultory, hard, violent and often extrav- 
 agant or erratic character it manifests. Hence, in part, the 
 dreary years of decay and darkness, that interspace our months 
 of excitement and victory. 
 
 I know not whether it has been some secret sense of these 
 deficiencies, struggling in the mind of many distinguished teach- 
 ers in our churches, since the days of Edwards, which has put 
 them on the endeavor to supply a remedy. Certain it is, that 
 some of our most respected and prominent divines, Drs. Hop- 
 kins, West and Dwight, among the number, have given their 
 testimony for Christian nurture in a manner perfectly coinci- 
 dent with the doctrine, by which I have frightened, so uncom- 
 fortably, the cautious orthodoxy of some. 
 
 Dr. Hopkins was a pupil of Edwards, and lam willing to be- 
 lieve that he received from his master some hints suggested by 
 his own experience, and was thus put upon supplying a viejwjof^ 
 baptism as connected with family nurture, which he had very 
 naturally omitted, or overlooked in his contest against formal- 
 ism. Dr. Hopkins occupies no less than sixty pages in his 
 "System of Divinity," in a cateful discussion of "the nature 
 and design of infant baptism," in which he lays down for his main 
 proposition, in italics, the following : 
 
 " That real holiness and salvation are secured to the children of believers by the 
 run ninit tutu which parents enter with God as it respects their children, if the 
 liiu-1-nts faithfully ket'iicoccninit and fulfill tc/iut they profess nnd promise respect- 
 ing t/ii'ir rliililren irhrn they offer them in baptism," System of Divinity, Vol. 
 II. p. 291.
 
 70 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 And he means by this, not that the child shall sometime be 
 converted, for immediately after, on the same page he says, 
 
 The parent promises if he and the child shall live, to bring it up for Christ, as 
 belonging to him, as one of the lambs in his flock, and bearing his mark and 
 name, to train it up in the way he should go, in the nurture and admonition of 
 the Jx)rd." p. 291. 
 
 He uses also other forms of expression, which show that he 
 expected the children to grow up in piety, perpetrating the 
 same dire heresy by which I have offended. 
 
 " The heart of the children is turned to their parents, when they are disposed 
 to obey them in the Lord, and grow up in the exercise of piety and righteous- 
 ness" p. 309. 
 
 "How can it be expected that they will grow up pious children, "&c. p. 319. 
 
 " Then the happy effect of this will be seen in the early piety of the children, 
 who will grow up in the fear of God and walk in his ways. p. 324. 
 
 The very dangerous presumption of piety in the child, which 
 I am supposed to have authorized, is far less cautiously offered 
 by him when he says, 
 
 "The church receive and look upon them as holy and those who shall be 
 saved. So they are as visibly holy, or as really holy, in their view, as their par- 
 ents are." p. 319. 
 
 How far his theory of conversion would compel him to isolate 
 the act of God by which is wrought the spiritual renovation of 
 a soul, I will not undertake to decide. JSnqugji_that he asserts 
 anorganic connection of character between parents and chil- 
 dren, as effectual for good as I'or evil, nay, that they may as 
 truly and in the same sense transmit holiness as they transmit 
 existence. Thus, after asserting, not more clearly or decided- 
 ly than 1 have done, the impossibility that parents should spirit- 
 ually renew their children, considered as acting by themselves, 
 he says, 

 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 71 
 
 " But it does not follow from this, that God has not so constituted the cove- 
 nant of grace, that holiness shall be communicated, by him, to the children 
 in consequence of the faithful endeavors of their parents, so that, in this sense 
 and by virtue of such a constitution, they do by their faithful endeavors, con 
 vey saving blessings to their children. In this way they give existence to their 
 children. God produces their existence by his own Almighty energy ; but, by 
 the constitution he has established, they receive their existence from their par- 
 ents, or by their means. By an established constitution, parents convey moral 
 depravity to their children. And if Giid has been pleased to make a constitu- 
 tion and appoint a way, in his covenant of grace with man, by which pious 
 parents may convey and communicate moral rectitude or holiness to their chil- 
 dren, they, by using the appointed means, do it as really and effectually as they 
 communicate existence to them. In this sense, therefore, they may convey and 
 give holiness and salvation to their children, p. 334, '5. 
 
 Doubtless I have been somewhat more explicit in what I have 
 said of the organic relation of parents and children, but when 
 Dr. Hopkins carries over from the parents both " depravity and 
 grace," by an " established constitution," and both " as really 
 and effectually as existence" itself, I am not able to see wherein 
 I go beyond him ; save that in showing how the child is in the 
 will, at first, of the parents, to be acted in as it were by them and 
 prepared to moral character by causes prior to his own will, I 
 have suggested the definite boundary of the "established con- 
 stitution" of Dr. Hopkins, and likewise how it is, or under what 
 philosophic conditions that they are "to communicate holi- 
 ness." 
 
 I might go on also to show how Dr. Hopkins accounts for the 
 failures of Christian parents substantially in the same way as 
 I have done; rebukes the false notions prevalent in regard 
 to Christian training; insists on the essential absurdity of infant 
 baptism, as commonly practiced ; charges the current unbelief 
 on this subject to the apostasy of the church, " from the truth 
 once delivered to the saints," to a self excusing spirit, and the 
 known repugnance of men to duties and doctrines that conflict 
 with their " corrupt inclinations"; finally that a better day is to 
 come, when the Bible will recover its meaning, and true Chris-
 
 72 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 tianity, rising to a new pitch of faith and devotion, will prac- 
 tice the duties and reap the delightful results appropriate to 
 the baptism of children, as an ordinance of God. He touches, 
 in fact, almost all the points made in my ' Discourses,' and 
 really I am not able to detect any difference between us, save 
 that he draws his argument from the terms of the "covenant," 
 as a positive institution, while I arrive at precisely the same 
 results from a view of the relation itself, between parents and 
 churches on one side, and children on the other ; that relation 
 being considered as a vehicle of God, and thus a power. Dr. 
 Hopkins takes the exterior view regarding the result as resting 
 in a positive appointment of God. I have produced the interior 
 view, that of inherent connexion and causation. But every 
 theologian who has got beyond his alphabet, will see, at a 
 glance, that both views are only different forms of one and the 
 same truth, having each its own peculiar uses and advantages. 
 Indeed I will suggest to your committee that you compound 
 your difficulty with the panic mongers, by publishing, in the 
 same volume with the ' Discourses,' this whole treajtise of Dr 
 Hopkins ; so that when they are frightened by the heresies of 
 one, they may turn over and fortify their orthodoxy by the 
 other. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon, a contemporary of Dr. Hopkins, held opin- 
 ions on this subject that were in a high degree coincident, 
 though presented in a more popular and less doctrinal shape. 
 He says, 
 
 "I will not enlarge on some refined remarks of persons as distinguished for 
 learning as piety, some of whom have supposed that they [children] are ca- 
 pable of receiving impressions of desire and aversion, and even of moral tem- 
 per, particularly of love or hatred, in the first year of their lives. 
 When the gospel comes to a people that have long sitten in darkness, there may 
 be numerous converts of all ages ; but when the gospel has long been preached, in 
 plenty and purity, and ordinances regularly administered, few but those who are 
 called in early life are called at all. A very judicious and pious writer, Rich- 
 ard Baxter, is of opinion that in a regular state of the church, and a tolera-
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 73 
 
 ble measure of faithfulness and purity in its officers, family instruction and gov- 
 ernment are the usual means of conversion, public ordinances of edification. This 
 seems agreeable to the language of Scripture ; for we are told that God hath 
 set in the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, (not for 
 converting sinners, but) for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the 
 ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Witherspoon, Vol. II. p. 395, 
 397. 
 
 We descend now to Dr. Stephen West, of Stockbridge, who 
 wrote a generation, or half generation, later than Dr. Hopkins. 
 Many persons, yet living, remember the controversy carried on 
 between him and Rev. Cyprian Strong, of Chatham, in refer- 
 ence to this subject : a controversy managed, on the part of 
 Dr. West, with a degree of ability worthy of his high reputa- 
 tion as a man of talent. He handles his argument, from the 
 covenant, in a different manner from Dr. Hopkins, but comes 
 to the same result. He says, in his reply to Mr. Strong, a 
 pamphlet that will be found in the collection of the Connecti- 
 cut Historical Society, that 
 
 " As the fate of the offspring was suspended, by divine constitution, on the 
 conduct of the parent, it would be no more than analogous to suppose that 
 provision is made, in the covenant of grace, for parents to be instrumental in 
 transmitting and securing its blessings, p. 66. 
 
 But respecting this covenant, it is to be observed, that it is to believers 
 that the proposals of it are made to those whose hearts are, in a- good measure, 
 prepared for every duty. Nor is that grace, which is necessary to such parental 
 faithfulness as God will bless to the conversion and salvation of Children, an 
 unattainable thing, p. 74. 
 
 It is unnecessary to burden my pamphlet with extended quota- 
 tions. He answers the objection, which my little book has pro- 
 voked, that " children will not consider their salvation depend- 
 ing on their personal exercises," dwells on " the susceptibility 
 of children to impressions," while under "the control" of their 
 parents, and before their own will is developed, finds, in his 
 doctrine, " abroad basis for infant baptism," which on any other 
 theory is absurd and insignificant and therefore certain to fall 
 7 

 
 74 ARGUMENT fOR DISCOURSES 
 
 into practical disuse, shows how it will stimulate every parent 
 to' duty, and encourage him in it, what a " spring" is one day 
 to be given to the cause of God and spiritual religion, by means 
 of it, regrets the " unpopular part" he has been obliged to 
 take, and finally, if my censors will suffer it, accounts for the 
 reluctance of men to admit his doctrine, on the ground that " a 
 sense of obligation sits uneasy on the human mind," that there 
 is a " latent desire in parents to exculpate themselves," and '' a 
 natural opposition in the human heart to a doctrine which" 
 takes away so completely " the excuses" of neglect and un- 
 belief. 
 
 One passage only I cannot withhold, and I commend it to the 
 special attention of some, that they may look, for once, on the 
 bearing of a true Christian scholar ; that they may see how the 
 fathers of a manlier time dared to hope for some progress in 
 Christian truth, and judge whether 1 am most in fault, who 
 have endeavored, as I could, to fulfill the hope of this revered 
 teacher, and discharge the legacy he has left us, or they who, 
 having lost both the doctrine he held and the spirit of courage 
 in which he held it, turn pale at the possibility that something 
 variant or new may come. Regretting that the subject discus- 
 sed had before been so " sparingly handled and superficially 
 treated," he adds 
 
 "Though, through the natural blindness of the human heart, the progress 
 in divine things is slow and gradual, it is to be hoped that what is here offered 
 to public view may excite a more general sense of the importance of the subject, 
 and a more careful and strict attention to it. Should this be the effect, it is 
 presumed that FCRTHIR LIGHT WILL STILL APPEAR." p. 103. 
 
 Nobly said ! and possibly the hope expressed, if we can suffer 
 it, will somehow be fulfilled. I am permitted to add that my 
 venerable friend, Dr. Robbins, who was a pupil of Dr. West, 
 distinctly remembers that a circle of ministers was gathered to 
 hear his pamphlet read before publication ; and most of them, 
 he informs me, coincided with it, but Dr. Edwards.(the younger)
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 75 
 
 was opposed ; and it was remarked that when the part was read 
 which showed the inherent connexion between the doctrine 
 vindicated and infant baptism, and the insignificance of the rite, 
 on any other ground, Dr. Edwards observed an ominous and 
 profound silence, making no reply. Dr. Strong, also, of Hart- 
 ford, he remembers to have said, while this controversy was 
 in progress, " Dr. West is right, his doctrine will ultimately 
 prevail ; but in the present state of the church it can hardly 
 become a practical principle." 
 
 Dr. Dwight, in his two sermons on " religious education," 
 letting go for the present, the covenant as a positive institution, 
 passes directly to the import and inherent power of the parental 
 relation itself, as constituted by God; and taking the same 
 stand-point that I have taken, advances a train of sentiments 
 nearly identical with the sentiments held hi my ' Discourses.' 
 Speaking of the peculiar ductility of childhood he says 
 
 " The conscience is, at this period, exceedingly tender and susceptible, readily 
 alarmed by the apprehension of guilt, and prepared to contend or fly, at the 
 approach of a known temptation. All the affections also are easily moved, 
 and fitted to retain permanently and often indelibly whatever impressions are 
 made. The heart is soft, gentle, and easily won, stongly attached by kindness, 
 peculiarly to the parents themselves. To every amiable, every good thing it is 
 drawn, comparatively, without trouble or resistance, and united by bonds which 
 no future art or force can dissolve. Against every odious and bad thing, its 
 opposition is with equal ease excited and rendered permanent. Dwighfs Theology, 
 vol. r., p. 131. 
 
 He insists also on the necessity of suiting the matter of reli- 
 gious instruction to the age and capacity of the child, not only 
 excluding, as I ventured to do, philosophic and theologic forms 
 of doctrine, but even declaring that "such parts only of the 
 Scriptures should be taught at any time, as may be made dis- 
 tinctly intelligible." He deprecates also the exceedingly baleful 
 effect of such teachings and modes of treatment as make the 
 subject of religion " odious," or present it " in a gloomy or dis- 
 couraging light."
 
 76 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 "In this mode of instruction, children are kept at a distance from religion, 
 by a regular repulsion, and scarcely approach so near as to learn its real nature. 
 Even truth itself will, to them, be odious truth. Religion will be dreaded before 
 it is known. That which is taught, the child will neither love, respect, nor 
 remember, and the teacher's own example of its influence, will complete the 
 alienation his precepts began, p. 138. 
 
 There are manifestly some very "dangerous tendencies" in 
 sentiments like these. And when he comes to propound his 
 doctrine of results, showing how it is given to every Christian 
 parent to form his children almost without fail to God, the laxity 
 of his opinions becomes decidedly alarming. Under the text 
 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, 
 he will not depart from it he first dissents from the inference 
 taken by some, that " in every instance a child, thus educated, 
 will persevere in the way he should go," maintaining, instead, 
 the opinion 
 
 " That God intended this promise as a direct encouragement to parents who 
 should be faithful, in such a degree, as we sometimes see exercised, in the 
 education of children. The amount of the promise is, that their children will 
 generally, when trained up in the way they should go, not depart from it." 
 p. 140, '41. 
 
 Varying his language, he says again, yet more definitely 
 
 " If we train up children in the way they should go, they will enter it 
 almost of course, follow us to heaven and be our companions forever." p. 145. 
 
 To substantiate this opinion, he goes into a careful examin- 
 ation of the objection, derived from the apparent failures of 
 good men in training their children, partly denying the supposed 
 facts, partly explaining them away, and, for the rest, resolving 
 them into the neglects and wrongs of the parents themselves. 
 
 I am not aware that this particular subject has been fully and 
 formally discussed, by any writer of repute, since the days of 
 Dr. D wight. But it would be easy to cite, from a hundred 
 sources, single paragraphs that carry the same opinion, and 
 would, if formally developed, expand themselves into a view
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 77 
 
 systematically correspondent. Thus, my predecessor, the 
 lamented Wilcox, in a beautiful sermon on the " Influence of 
 Education," says 
 
 " Must early instruction and habit go for nothing in Christianity ? Though 
 men are never made Christians in heart, merely by a course of early instruc- 
 tion and discipline, independently of the special influences of the Holy Spirit, 
 are they not frequently made so, by a course in connexion with such influences 7 
 And would they not uniformly be. if the instruction and discipline, in question, 
 were not more or less neglected ? Is there not fullness and firmness enough in 
 the promise of God to furnish ground for such an opinion ? Can any thing be 
 plainer than the language, ' Train up a child in the way he should go, and 
 when he is old he will not depart from it ?' Has not God promised to bless 
 the means of grace, when they are faithfully used ? Has he not, by a partic- 
 ular covenant, given such a promise to faithful parents, in relation to their 
 children 1 May they not plead that covenant, and, when they are unsuccessful 
 in their plea, is it not because, they have broken their part of this covenant 
 by not performing their whole duty ? " Wilcox's Remains, p. 303. 
 
 In the theology of Knapp, a text book translated by Dr. 
 Woods, Jr., and in general repute among us lor candor and 
 orthodoxy, the author discusses very cautiously the " uses and 
 effects of infant baptism," and comes to the following, as one of 
 his conclusions : 
 
 " In the general position that just as far as they [baptized children] have 
 subjective capacity and as soon as they have this, God will work in them that 
 which is good for their salvation, there is not only nothing unreasonable, but it is 
 altogether rational and Scriptural. It is also certain that we cannot surely tell 
 how soon, or in what way, and by what means, this subjective capacity may be 
 shown and developed." fol. 11^ p. 538. 
 
 Dr. Woods, of Andover, is characteristically cautious on this 
 subject, but when he says that the " religious character" of men 
 is " commonly derived" from their parents, it is difficult to see 
 wherein he differs from what I have asserted concerning the 
 organic power of the parental office, save that he has employed 
 language less precise and determinate. Religious character 
 has two forms, bad and good, that of sin and that of faith. And 
 
 if this is " commonly derived from parents," not from the world 
 
 7*
 
 78 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 without, or the church without, (save as the church acts 
 through the family,) what is this but the very heresy I have 
 asserted? only it is advanced in a way so loose and general that 
 few will notice the real import of the language. He says 
 
 " From the beginning of the world, the character and condition of children 
 have generally resulted from the conduct of parents. The peculiar character of 
 a tribe or nation has commonly been derived from the character of its father 
 or head. This extends to the religious as well as the social and secular charac- 
 ter. The history of the Christian church shows that after it has been once 
 established in any place, it has depended for its continuance and increase, 
 chiefly upon the success of parents in promoting the piety of their children, 
 Infant Baptism, p. 30. 
 
 Once more, and the latest of all, Dr. White, Professor of 
 Theology in the Theological Seminary of New York, delivered, 
 less than a year since, before the synod of New York and 
 New Jersey, and at their request, a discourse on the Abra- 
 hamic covenant, in which he takes the same ground precisely 
 with Drs. Hopkins and West : viz. that when the covenant en- 
 gages " I will be a God to thee and thy seed after thee," the 
 promise is equally spiritual in both the members. " To be the 
 God oi'the seed of Abraham signifies as much as to be the God 
 of Abraham. The promise is spiritual, and its blessings eter- 
 nal." Then carrying out his doctrine to its legitimate results, 
 he says 
 
 " It is the duty of Christian parents to train up their children strictly in the 
 ways of virtue ; to restrain them from all courses of immorality and sinful and 
 dangerous pleasure, and to cause them to conform their lives to all the require- 
 ments of tke Oospel. Do any say this is too hard a requirement they cannot do 
 it 1 We can only answer them here by saying, it is their duty. God will strictly 
 require it of them, and will admit of no apology to justify or extenuate their 
 failures." National Preacher, vol. XX., p. 243, and 253. 
 
 Here now, lest I should overburden your patience, I suspend 
 the citation of witnesses. And does any one ask for what pur- 
 pose I have accumulated such a roll of authorities ? Is it that 
 I propose to limit myself by their opinions, or shelter myseli
 
 ON- CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 79 
 
 under their names? Neither. I submit to no human limitation, 
 I ask no human shelter. Is it that I propose to silence my 
 censors by these authorities 1 No ; for they are as much at 
 liberty as I am to dissent from the doctrines and opinions cited. 
 What then ? It is done, I answer, that I may bring my critics 
 into a lair dilemma, and require it of them either to confess 
 their ignorance, and such a measure of it as amounts to a the- 
 ologic disqualification, or else to stand convicted of knowingly 
 raising a panic against the best and most respected names, not 
 in our own churches only, but in the world. Possibly these 
 distinguished men were all in a mistake, and possibly I am in 
 the same. That was a fair subject of discussion. But these 
 censors of orthodoxy have done more, they have raised an out- 
 cry, they have instigated a fright, driving you thus to the very 
 extreme measure of silencing a book! in which it turns out 
 that they have been stirring up their fire against Baxter and 
 the first fathers of New England, against Hopkins, West, 
 D wight, and I know not how many others, to say nothing of 
 the ancient church itself, as understood by the most competent 
 critics ! For there is scarcely a point in my tract which these 
 high authorities are not seen to have asserted, or an objection 
 by themselves, which they are not seen to have refuted. It is 
 made clear, also, to yourselves as a committee, and I should 
 think to the public beside, that you did not err when you came 
 to the deliberate conclusion that there was no such breach on 
 received opinions, in my tract, as ought to disturb the peace of 
 the churches. What right had you to judge that you should 
 set on fire the course of nature, by publishing sentiments accept- 
 ed in the first age, and maintained by the best men in the 
 church? And now what opinion will you have, what opinion 
 will all sensible men have, two years hence, of this dismal scene 
 of fatuity, which in the year of our Lord one thousand eigh^ 
 hundred and forty seven, has so infected the nerves of orthodox, 
 Massachusetts as even to stop the press of their Sabbath School 
 Society.
 
 80 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 So much for the past. I will now endeavor to show you more 
 briefly the relations of my view of Christian nurture to present 
 opinion. I expressed confidence, in the " Advertisement," that 
 the view presented is " inconsistent with no scheme of doctrine 
 generally held or accepted," I did not mean, of course, that I 
 believed every and all such schemes myself, or that I had not 
 written according to the scheme I do believe. I only meant 
 that what may seem to be peculiar, in the view given, that 
 the child is to be trained not for conversion at some advanced 
 age, but as expected to "grow up a Christian," that God 
 offers a grace to make it possible, and justifies a presumption 
 that the result may actually be realized ; this, I meant to say, 
 is a view not inconsistent with any scheme I know, whether of 
 depravity, regeneration, spiritual influence, or election. No 
 matter whether depravity is inborn damnable sin, or whether 
 as guilty the guilt is only the demerit of our own exercises ; no 
 matter whether we begin to sin before birth, with the first 
 breath, or only after years have passed away ; no matter 
 whether our sin come by imputation, or blood, or social conta- 
 gion ; take what scheme you will, of this or any of the other 
 doctrines named, and my view of Christian nurture, as above 
 stated, may be easily set in connexion with it, and adapted into 
 it as a component member. This I meant to say, and this I 
 now repeat. Doubtless it will fit more awkwardly in some than 
 in others, and make a clumsier figure; for probably some of the 
 schemes are clumsier than others, and more difficult to marry 
 with what is reasonable and scriptural. Still there is not any 
 scheme or school of doctrine current among us, unless it be a 
 real and practical antinomianism, which will not suffer, with- 
 out any substantial infringement, the view of Christian nurture 
 which I have advanced. This I affirm, not without having 
 made the experiment, but it would require too much space to 
 verify the assertion universally. I will only show how it holds 
 in a single example. Take the doctrine (which I frankly say I
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 81 
 
 do not hold). that regeneration is accomplished by an instant 
 and physical act of God, to which act truth and all endeavors 
 in the subject have no other relation, as means to ends, than the 
 ram's horns had to the fall of Jericho. Yet that instant, isolated 
 act of Omnipotence may fall on the heart of infancy, as well as 
 of adult years, and God may give us reason to expect it. Nay, 
 it is this very scheme, which professes that God sometimes 
 regenerates men when they are asleep ! Wherein is it incred- 
 ible, therefore, that God should regenerate infancy before it is 
 awake? This too was the very scheme of regeneration held 
 by Dr. Hopkins, who also maintained, as we have seen, that 
 parents may as " really and effectually transmit holiness as ex- 
 istence to their children." And who of these defenders of the 
 faith will rise up to show that Dr. Hopkins was a man who did 
 not know the logical connexions of his own opinions. 
 
 But I did not draw up this scheme of nurture to meet the 
 uses or gratify the opinions of any sect. It is a first maxim 
 with me, as I think it should be in this age of every one who 
 pretends to think at all, to reach after the most comprehensive 
 form of truth possible ; to see how far I may dissolve into unity, 
 in the views I present, the conflicting opinions by which men are 
 divided, giving them back all which they are after, in a form 
 which they can accept together. And the fortune of my little 
 book is, in this view, remarkable, though not a surprise to my- 
 self. This will appear as I glance at the relations of my doctrine 
 to the religious posture of some of the principal denominations 
 of Christians. I begin with 
 
 THE BAPTISTS. I did not suppose that what I had advanced 
 would be acceptable, at first, to them, and they have spoken of 
 my tract as only they could, retaining their position ; save that 
 they have been a little more violent and contemptuous, in one 
 or two instances, than was necessary. At the same time 1 have 
 heard of more than one minister of that denomination candidly 
 allowing that my doctrine of organic character as opposed to 
 the rigid individualism of the times, was a view of the subject
 
 82 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 which had greatly affected his mind. There certainly is little 
 reason to wonder that the Baptists should reject infant baptism, 
 when we hold it ourselves only as a dead tradition, separated 
 from any rational meaning or use. And if we stand upon the 
 footing of absolute individualism, it follows irresistibly, as any 
 child may see, that they are right in requiring evidence of actual 
 faith previous to baptism. 1 have shown them how they may 
 accommodate all their rational scruples and yet accept this rite. 
 And perhaps it may not be indelicate to allude to my own men- 
 tal experience. ^At the time of my settlement in the ministry, 
 the council came near rejecting me because I could say nothing 
 more positive concerning infant baptism. After two or three 
 years of reflection, I came upon the discovery that all my views 
 of Christian nurture were radically defective and even false. 
 And now what before was dark or even absurd, immediately 
 became luminous and dignified a rite the most beautiful and 
 appropriate of all the ordinances of God. And when our Bap- 
 tist brethren can .take up this view of Christian nurture, I think 
 they will discover that, while we have been in as great error as 
 they perhaps even greater because of our inconsistency God 
 has yet saved us a rite, which may be as true a comfort and as 
 rich a blessing to themselves as to us. 
 
 CONGREGATIONALISTS. Inasmuch as the relation of my view 
 of Christian nurture to these is the matter now in question, I 
 only notice here the fact that a Congregational paper in Maine, 
 and another in Vermont, both journals in the highest repute 
 for character, have noticed my tract with favor. This too they 
 have done since the attention of the public has been distinctly 
 called to its errors, by the attacks made upon it. And they are 
 moved to this, if I may judge, by their regard, not for novelty, 
 but for an older antiquity ; for the practical aim of the ' Dis- 
 courses' is really in much closer sympathy with the Christian 
 methods of high Calvinism, in days gone bye, than it is with 
 the desultory and dry individualism of our new light orthodoxy.
 
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 83 
 
 EPISCOPALIANS. How the view of Christian nurture.which 
 I have presented differs from the doctrine of baptismal regen- 
 eration, as held in the Episcopal church, is sufficiently explained 
 on pages 33 and 34 of" the ' Discourses.' Probably it is not diffi- 
 cult to use the language of the prayer book, as meaning only 
 what I have asserted to be the true idea of baptism as connected 
 with regeneration. And many, I presume, do use it only in this 
 or in a similar meaning ; regarding the rite as signifying a pre- 
 sumptive regeneration and nothing more. Whether this can 
 be done so as to justify the historic meaning of the language is 
 more doubtful; for it is a fact known to all that the rite of bap- 
 tism had been regarded in former ages as having a peculiar 
 sacramental or magical power, and was understood to convey 
 a grace immediately to the subject, washing away his sins and 
 setting him in a regenerate state ; and the language of the 
 prayer book I suppose represents this opinion. Still it is an 
 
 undoubted truth, in our view of the subiecfthat baptism, being 
 
 \^r 
 
 a rite of God, as the church is a school or temple of God and all 
 together a form or body for the inhabitation of the Spirit, the 
 rite must, in some sense and degree, be a vehicle of grace ; just 
 as all other forms are vehicles. And since it was originally set 
 in the church, as a type of regeneration, it is so to be held and 
 applied.' Soon after my tract was published, it was carefully 
 and very candidly noticed in the Episcopal paper of this city, 
 and with, at least, qualified favor. The writer was particularly 
 gratified by the recognition made of an organic power and the 
 opposition avowed to that extreme individualism so prevalent 
 in our notions of piety. He considered this an indirect compli- 
 ment to the style of opinion held in his own church, and was a 
 little disposed to complain that while I had drawn facts to illus- 
 trate my doctrine from many other and distant sources, I had 
 made no reference to the Episcopal church always close at 
 hand. To excuse any such appearance of prejudice, I ought 
 perhaps to say that I had not been able, by observation, to con- 
 vince myself that the children educated in the Episcopal church-
 
 84 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 es tur^ out better, as regards moral and Christian character, 
 than our own. Indeed I had this fact, real or supposed, before 
 me to resist my theory. And I accounted for the fact, by ob- 
 serving that, while Episcopacy is right in avoiding our extreme 
 individualism, it does so by absorbing the family in a boundless, 
 unsparing churchism: ^Now it is the family pre-eminently that 
 God has prepared tcMse the church of childhood. Here is 
 located the true organic power, that which under God, is to 
 fashion the child to a Christian life. He must grow up as an 
 olive plant at the table, and drink in, through the spirit of the 
 house, the spirit of piety. It is not enough therefore to avoid 
 individualism, unless we accept instead the organic power 
 which God has ,set in most intimate and proper connexion 
 with childhood; L 
 
 GERMAN REFORMED. We have here another phase of reli- 
 gious opinion and of Christian organization. To look at our- 
 selves, from this yet more foreign point of view, will instruct 
 us, but this I shall do more at large, in another connexion. I 
 only acknowledge here an able review of my ' Discourses' con- 
 tinued through four numbers of a weekly journal, in which my 
 distinction between organic character and individualism is 
 earnestly approved. The real import and importance of the 
 distinction are seized upon, and it is treated, not as a conceit 
 or trick of language, but as a solid and earnest truth, which 
 foretokens, in the writer's opinion, a final remedy of that which 
 is the great defect of Puritanism in which however the author 
 js partially at fault, for it is not so much the defect of Puritan- 
 ism, as of the new light form of it, introduced only a hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 UNITARIANS. Since my tract was published, it has been signi- 
 fied to me privately that I have done the Unitarians injustice 
 in the paragraph (p. 15, 16,) where allusion is made to them. I 
 have been assured that they do not consider it to be the work 
 of Christian education " to educate or educe the good that is in
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 85 
 
 us." It was not my design to misrepresent them, but it is diffi- 
 cult in so great diversity of sentiment, to ascertain, with any 
 precision, what may properly be attributed to them. That 
 there is a susceptibility to good, in every mind, fallen though it 
 be, is to me beyond a reasonable question. The soul has that 
 within it, which may be appealed to by what is right and holy. 
 It can feel the beauty of truth, only not as when practically 
 embraced. God is to it a lovely being, lovely in all the points 
 of his character and government, only not loved. The mind 
 also has ideals revealed in itself that are even celestial and it is 
 the strongest of all proofs of its depr.avity that, when it would 
 struggle up towards its own ideals, it cannot reach them ; can- 
 not, as apart from God, even lift itself towards them. Now 
 this capacity or susceptibility to good, I have supposed the 
 Unitarians to consider as good in itself, that is morally good, 
 deserving or meritorious. That I have often seen language of 
 this kind I am certain. I dissent from it, as I would from the 
 inference that one is a friend of truth, because he has a percep- 
 tive power for the truth? There is not and really can be no 
 proper goodness in a soul, till it practically embraces, as its 
 final end and law, and thus becomes united to the right, or what 
 is the same to God and the principles of God. Previously to 
 this, the power we have to feel the right and be attracted by 
 the good is only the more conclusive proof of depravity, inas- 
 much as we are found to reject what we mentally approve, and 
 to mortify the noblest wants of our being. And the moment we 
 withdraw our mind, in such a case, from the simple attitude of 
 contemplation, to reflect upon our own guilty unlikenessto God, 
 or remind ourselves of laws and constraints which we still de- 
 sign to violate, then also will be discovered the possibility of 
 hating what we feel to be lovely, and, in fact, that no enmity 
 is so truly bitter, as that which wrong feels towards the desecra- 
 ted goodness of its object. 
 
 I observe that a certain school, at least, of Unitarians, have 
 somewhat warmly espoused my little book since its publication
 
 86 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 was suspended, and this, I perceive, is to many a note of appall- 
 ing import against me ; for nothing surely can be less than a 
 pestilent error which any Unitarian will approve ! Indeed there 
 are some such, whether in your committee or not I cannot say, 
 who would probably renounce their own faith at once, if they 
 saw a Unitarian even so much as meditating an assent to it. 
 If you suffer at all this kind of infirmity, would it not be well to 
 employ a Unitarian committee, who may pass upon the manu- 
 scripts you have before you, and then what they approve you 
 will certainly know that you ought to reject ! Meantime I can 
 only say, for myself, that it gives me unfeigned pleasure to find 
 myself approved by the Unitarians, and I hope they may be 
 able to approve, in like manner, every sentiment I may here- 
 after publish. Indeed I sincerely rejoice that their approbation 
 was signified, before my tract was suspended, wherein it is 
 shown beyond dispute, that they approve it for the sentiments, 
 and no one can say that they do it from any antagonistic or 
 party motive. And since my nerves are equal to it, I will go 
 farther and confess that I had a secret hope beforehand of 
 carrying the assent of the Unitarians ; that, in drawing out my 
 view of depravity as connected with organic character, and 
 also in speaking of what I supposed to be their theory of educa- 
 tion, I did seek to present the truth in such a way that all their 
 objections might be obviated. I know not that any of their own 
 writers have presented views that are similar. If they have, 
 then I accept them. If they have not, I certainly shall not re- 
 nounce the truth, if I have been so happy, after a quarter of a 
 century of debate and quarrel, as finally to present a view of it, 
 in which they are able to rest; much less when high Calvinism 
 is able to rest in it too, in company with evangelic Episcopacy, 
 and I know not how many of the Christian families beside. In- 
 deed it is my felicity that, while your committee are deploring 
 probably the stigma suffered in publishing a book that Unitari- 
 ans can accept, I am congratulating myself in the fact that I
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 87 
 
 have been able to present a great practical subject, involving 
 so many difficult and contested points in theology, in a manner 
 so comprehensive, as to carry at least, the qualified assent of 
 many Christian denominations. I should even be false to my 
 own aims and principles not to hail the result with unfeigned 
 joy. Neither let the public be too easily frightened by the suc- 
 cess of a catholic effort. And if the bats and beetles, scared by 
 so strange a sign, begin to flutter wildly, as if the elemental 
 darkness they inhabit were in danger, it is not best to be alarm- 
 ed on that account ; for it is not they who rule the world any 
 more than it is they who understand it. 
 
 Such alarm, brethren of the Committee, you have suffered 
 with a good deal more of facility, it seems to me, than was 
 necessary. No word ol* complaint against my tract had you 
 heard, till you heard it from Connecticut. None have you yet 
 heard, probably, save in voices that are only echoes of the 
 alarm from Connecticut. Pardon me now, if 1 suggest that, 
 representing the ministers and Christians of Massachusetts, 
 you really do us much greater honor than we deserve. So 
 great honor that we are obliged to smile at your expense. 
 That you, a numerous and respectable committee, after having 
 come to a serious and careful decision on my ' Discourses,' a 
 decision manured by six months of deliberation, should have 
 turned pale and recanted, at the first note of disapprobation 
 from Connecticut, is, to say the least, more than we could have 
 expected. We are even amazed at the spell we have wrought 
 on your judgments, and can hardly believe what we have done 
 ourselves. 
 
 We have a little institution sworn, every six months, to suffer 
 no progress, also to maintain the new light doctrine as equiva- 
 lent to all antiquity, and probably fulfilling its oaths with reli- 
 gious fidelity therefore certain, as we suppose you will see, 
 to condemn others with as little reason as it is permitted to 
 exercise for itself. It has three professors and twelve or fifteen 
 students, and calls off one or two ministers from their charge.
 
 88 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 a considerable part of the time, to gather up the requisite funds. 
 To maintain its hold of public favor, it is obliged of course to do 
 something more positive than to evince its repugnance to pro- 
 gress, by a regular diminution of its own numbers ; and since 
 the turning out of four or five young preachers a y ear is no 
 such rate of propagation, as justifies the heavy expense of three 
 salaries, it must make up the deficit and keep the public apprized 
 of its existence, in some other way. That such an institution 
 suffers many severe alarms for the truth, busies itself in a 
 general censorship, becomes first an annoyance and finally a sub- 
 ject of mirth, is well understood in Connecticut, and without any 
 report from us, you can easily show yourselves, out of the facts, 
 that so it will be. You will even anticipate, without any notes 
 of history from me, acts of private meddling that disturb good 
 neighborhood and discourage the most conciliatory purposes. 
 Or if I were to show you this same institution acting the part of 
 a scavenger, three or four years ago, to a Baptist paper, then 
 engaged in an assault upon my character, where of course I 
 must be silent, sending in its anonymous communications to 
 help on the attack ; representing moreover that this present is 
 the third or fourth public assault I have suffered from the same 
 quarter, which, if I were to answer, it would be the first time 
 that I have troubled them with a word this you might not know 
 beforehand, but it ought not in the least to surprise you. For 
 no matter how much you may rely on the character of the men ; 
 a band of angels, subjected to such terms of existence, would 
 have need to pray, "lead us not into temptation." In saying 
 thus much, I do not conceive that I attack the motives of the 
 worthy professors of this institution. I only do my duty to you, 
 by reminding you how far good men are swayed by causes back 
 of their consciousness and under even a great appearance of 
 fairness. An institution that is organized against the age and 
 the ordinances of heaven, has more to do than any thing human 
 ever did or can do, and is therefore under a perpetual induce- 
 ment to the doing of what no man ought ; in other words, it is,
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 89 
 
 in itself, a most "dangerous tendency." Indeed there is no 
 monastic order, under vows ot'mendicancy, that will more surely 
 sink itself, at last, into a public annoyance and become a by- 
 word, than a Protestant Theological Seminary that is driven 
 to meddle in all ways with the churches of God, to support a 
 precarious existence.* 
 
 But what is to be done, it may be asked, with the more 
 specific charges against my tract ; for as yet they are not an- 
 ewer^d ? It would be somewhat strange, I reply, after the his- 
 torical view just given, if I did not indulge a degree of confidence 
 that I have my adversaries already in my power. Pardon me 
 if I have not been able, as yet, to bring myself thoroughly into 
 the defensive mood in this article, and especially as I seem to 
 have a work on hand that is more positive and significant than 
 self vindication. Besides there are reasons in the matter of 
 these attacks, that discourage any attempt to offer a formal 
 answer. 
 
 First of all, they depend, for the most part, as regards any 
 show of argument, on a certain theory of depravity and regen- 
 eration that was debated, to the complete satisfaction of the 
 public, some fifteen years ago, and, as I believe, forever explo- 
 ded. According to this theory the human race hate God in- 
 stinctively, and must hate him the more, the more clearly his 
 character is seen, until after a certain divine stroke or ictus 
 reverses the instinct, when love results as hatred did before. 
 Many whom 1 really respect still linger under this ictic theory, 
 and if they choose to discuss it and reason from it I have no 
 objection. But for me to go back and wade through this worn 
 out question, to vindicate myself against objections from a doc- 
 trine as distant from me as the supremacy of the Pope, and 
 shortly to be as distant from the world really it is more than I 
 can undertake. Let it suffice that Dr. Hopkins, who held sub- 
 
 * See Note at the end of the volume. 
 
 8*
 
 90 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 stantially this same theory, was able to connect it with the 
 eame scheme of 'nurture, which I have advanced. ]f my adver- 
 saries will do the same, I am content to suffer what judgment 
 they please to inflict Meantime the excellent man whom I 
 have brought under sentence as a "Pharisee," because he was 
 not regenerated according to the ictic theory, who did not hate 
 sufficiently and loved God without a preliminary contest, being 
 quite surprised by his glory, he too, doubtless, though he can- 
 not pass the theologic censors below, will be able to hold some 
 confidence still that he may pass the more discriminative, as 
 well as milder tribunal above. 
 
 In the next place, the most effective points that are made 
 against my ' Discourses,' are made so, only by the misrepre- 
 sentations of the critics themselves, and these misrepresenta- 
 tions are so interwoven with all their arguments against me, 
 that I am discouraged from any attempt to answer them ; for 
 I see beforehand that the same treatment, practiced against 
 my answer, will turn that also into the same confusion, and 
 since I have no hope of being permitted to stand before the 
 public in my own opinions, unless I go on to reclaim and re- 
 assert what is taken from me till misrepresentation is out of 
 breath, I may as well submit first as last. Manifestly there 
 could be no end but exhaustion to an argument thus conducted. 
 That I have reason for such a determination you will see from 
 two or three examples. 
 
 And first, I invite you to take my tract and see whether I 
 condense without distortion, the passage found on pages to 
 . t$, so that, having the whole before us, we may judge what it 
 means. 
 
 " You say that you have tried to realise the very scheme of 
 Christian nurture I am proposing, how then can it be true, 
 when your children seem intractable to religion, and sometimes 
 display an aversion to the subject ?" I answer distinctly in the 
 four considerations that follow. 
 
 1. Your children may have seeds of holy principle in them
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 91 
 
 which you do not discover, just as probably adults sometimes do. 
 
 2. The church of God, whose office it is to co-operate and bear 
 apart of the responsibility with you, may not have done it, but 
 may have actually hindered your success. 
 
 3. You may not have been as faithful as you suppose, or as 
 healthful in your example. 
 
 4. You must not assume that our style of piety, in this age, 
 is such as will allow us to reali/e the best results. 
 
 Looking over, now, this passage thus condensed, but not more 
 clearly stated than it is in the ' Discourses,' ask yourselves 
 whether it teaches that Christian parents are to lake it for 
 granted that their children are pious ? Next see how it is made 
 to convey this lesson. 
 
 The critic comes and sticks on a preface thus " There are 
 many parents who are eminently pious, and whose piety shines 
 in nothing more conspicuously than in the education of their 
 children. But they see no evidence, &c. * * To such 
 you say" 
 
 To such I did not say. I was addressing only Christians of 
 ordinary fidelity and such, in fact, as I actually and expressly 
 conjectured, may have failed of success by their own delinquen- 
 cies ; and every reader will see that my censor has begun by 
 fabricating for himself and the public a new aim or purpose, by 
 which the whole import of^ny words is changed. A case is 
 thus made out for me, in which I am compelled by my own 
 principles to believe that there must be sonie real success, even 
 despite of contrary evidence ; whereas it will be clear to the 
 reader that I am supposing not actual success only, but quite as 
 much, actual want of success, and the latter for sufficient rea- 
 sons. If I had written my name on a sheet of paper, and this 
 critic had then written a note of hand over it, he would not have 
 committed a worse violation of my rights, and the rights of the 
 public, than he has done by this little preface. But the preface 
 is added, and the public mind is thus prepared to see it made
 
 92 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 out that Christians are authorized, of necessity, to presume on 
 the spiritual renovation of their children, without any, or even 
 against the most decisive contrary evidence. B it there comes 
 a difficulty. Nos. 2, 3, and 4, suggest other solutions of the 
 question or objection proposed by the parents, viz. that there 
 may be no place for such a presumption, and that some fault of 
 theirs, or of the church, or the mis-shapen piety of the age will 
 account for it. What now shall be done with these three sug- 
 gestions ? If the proposed extravagance is to be fixed upon me, 
 there is evidently no other way of success but to cast out these 
 and make nothing of them ! But we come back to No. 1, and 
 here is a difficulty. The language is potential, (" may have") 
 it only declares a possibility. But harder things are already 
 surmounted than the changing of a possibility into a positive 
 affirmation! and nothing now remains for my censors but to 
 ask " Are Christian parents to presume that their children are 
 pious, when they give not the least evidence of the fact, when 
 they manifest aversion to the subject of religion itself?" And 
 a few pages further on, he draws out of much the same material, 
 a like conclusion, to be taken by the child; and, that I may see 
 the absurdity of my doctrine, allows me to hear myself address- 
 ing the child in a sermon of encouragement thus: "If your 
 parents are truly pious and faithful, you have a right to pre- 
 sume that you have been born aga,in, although neither you nor 
 your parents can as yet discern any evidences of a renewed 
 heart"! A very serious account has any man to meet, who 
 wrongs the public by throwing thus into confusion salutary and 
 healthful doctrine, and practices on the fears of the timorous, by 
 warning them of poisons he has himself injected. 
 
 Take a second example of misrepresentation. I had referred 
 to the Germans, giving them credit for a degree of " religious 
 feeling" and a savor of " Christian piety" exceeding, perhaps, 
 what the- truth will justify. I know them only by report and 
 some of my friends assure me that I have judged them too favor- 
 ably. And yet I see not how they can make sure of it ; for I
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 93 
 
 made their religious character " remarkable" only as contrasted 
 with the " looseness 1 ' and the "pernicious error" prevalent in 
 their " pulpits," so that if the error be very great and very per- 
 nicious, as I certainly thought it to be, then it would be remark" 
 able which was the very thought I had if there were any 
 piety left among them. I cited their case, accordingly, to show 
 what power there is in a scheme of education, even partially 
 right, when all other means are adverse. Then passing on I 
 alluded to a declaration, I had often seen in literary disquisitions 
 on the Germans, that "they are a people religious by nature." 
 This I contradicted thus " Whereas the strong religious bent 
 they manifest is due to the fact that they are under a form of 
 treatment that expects them to be religious, and are not dis- 
 couraged by the demand of an experience above their years." 
 And now after publishing these very words, our Professor 
 goes directly on to read me a sanctimonious lecture, on saying 
 that the Germans are 7-eligious by nature. " And suppose they 
 are religious by nature," <&c. ! holding me up to the public as 
 actually asserting, what I was only denying or resolving into 
 other causes ! 
 
 As a third example of unpardonable misconstruction, take 
 the following. I had spoken of discovering, in the relation of 
 parent and child, " something like a law of organic connexion, 
 as regards character, between them" "perhaps such a con- 
 nexion as induces the conviction that the character of one is 
 included in that of the other, as a seed is formed in the capsule," 
 &c. These forms of expression are referred to and then the 
 critic says, disregarding the words in italics, " I would serious- 
 ly ask, whether those who are children of God are not [on this 
 supposition,] ' born of blood ?' " As if I had been speaking here 
 only of a vascular connexion ! Now if it were the method of 
 accomplished theologians to hold up propositions to the ear and 
 try them by the sound, and then, if they do not sound orthodox, 
 to lay an argument against them, I should suspect that I had 
 fallen under some such test here. What had I said about this
 
 94 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 " organic connexion ?" Obviously it was something predicable 
 of a time "after birth," when the "physical separation" was 
 complete, and the vascular connexion terminated, (vide Dis- 
 courses, p. 17-22.) Follow my words through these pages, 
 with only ordinary attention, and you will perceive that I setup 
 the term "organic" to contrast in idea with "individual," 
 both as theologic or metaphysical terms, not as physical. Two 
 modes of being are thus distinguished. Some would call them 
 perhaps the passive and the active, though with less exactness. 
 For just as a seed grows and has its life in the parent stem, 
 then, as it matures and ripens, separates imperceptibly, to be a 
 complete form of life in itself, so the child is at first acted in by 
 the parental will and cast in the molds of parental feeling and 
 character ; until finally his will being developed, he becomes a 
 complete cause in himself, "acts from himself" as the theolo- 
 gians say, and is a proper individual the agent of his own 
 character, and thus a subject of blame or praise. But this 
 change takes place gradually, the parent stem being less and less 
 efficient in the seed, till finally it falls ofl'to be a seed by itself. 
 I take now the actings of the parent in the child, both before 
 and after birth, for as far as the child's will or individuality are 
 concerned, they are included in the same category of passivity, 
 and cover them both by the same term, calling them " org< nic? 
 Considering next this organic power as inhabited by Christ 
 and the Spirit of God, and exalted thus into a spiritual state 
 above itself, I take my stand at the birth point of the will, (not 
 of the body,) and there I say that the Christian child ought to 
 emerge into individuality, not as ripened into sin and set off in 
 it, but as one that is regenerated, quickened unto spiritual life. 
 In other words, it is the privilege of the Christian, not that he is 
 doomed to give birth to a tainted life and cease, but that by the 
 grace of God, dwelling in him and in the child, fashioning his 
 own character as an organic mold for the child, and the child to 
 a plastic conformity with the mold provided, he may set forth 
 the child into life asaseed afterldm one that is prepared unto
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 95 
 
 a godly life by causes prior to his own will ; that is, by causes 
 metaphysically organic. Thus every thing previous to the will 
 falls into one and the same category. No matter whether it 
 come through vascular connexion, or parental handling and 
 control, it comes to the child. I said, " just as naturally and by 
 a law as truly organic" (i. e. just as truly from without his own 
 will) " as when the sap of a trunk flows into a limb." At some 
 time, sooner or later, but only by a gradual transition, he comes 
 into his own will, which, theologically speaking, is the time of 
 his birth as a moral subject of God's government ; arid if he 
 takes up life as a corrupted subject, so he may and ought also 
 to take it up as a renewed subject that is to grow up as a 
 Christian. Now instead of pausing to inquire whether, dissolv- 
 ing thus all the doctrines of depravity held by all the sects, and 
 drawing out another form of doctrine, I had not succeeded in 
 saving what makes each venerable opinion true to itself, and 
 removing the objections of those who object, generalizing too 
 the doctrines both of grace and depravity, so as to bring them 
 into the same organic laws and present to Christian nurture the 
 true idea, that which makes it Christian instead of this it is 
 " seriously" asked whether I do not teach that children brought 
 up in Christ are born of blood ! 
 
 Now I do not say that these misrepresentations are wickedly 
 designed. I cannot properly say that they originate in inexpli- 
 cable dullness. Let the public account for them as they can. 
 To go into a formal controversy where I shall have so much 
 work upon my hands that is not argument, I must respectfully 
 decline. And happily for me, I may turn to a critic of another 
 cast, whose objections even are a refreshment, because they 
 are intelligent. 
 
 In four successive numbers of the Weekly Messenger, a paper 
 of the German Reformed church, published in Chambersburg, 
 Pa., I find a long and careful review of my ' Discourses,' occu-
 
 96 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 pying in all, eight or ten columns of the paper. The articles 
 signed J. W. N. are said to be from the pen of Dr. Nevin. And 
 now since he has set forth an objection to my view in the tract, 
 which my other censors would like probably to have advanced 
 themselves, it will be more satisfactory 1 presume to the public, 
 if) turning to the objection he has alleged, I show in what man- 
 ner it fails to hold as against me. 
 
 This writer enters fully into the distinction I have drawn 
 between organic and individual agency in religion. He sees 
 the vast import of the distinction, and sees, withal, how it pro- 
 poses a remedy for that which is the real and sad infirmity of 
 our present style of religion. Obviously the distinction itself, in 
 this shape or some other, is familiar to him. " The whole con- 
 stitution of the world," he says, " contradicts the unit or atom 
 theory of religion. Humanity is not an aggregate, but an or- 
 ganic whole, manifold and one at the same time. The whole 
 man, soul and body, exists in organic union with his race." 
 This for the natural constitution of things. He describes also 
 the " atomic theory of religion, or what I have here called the 
 " ictic theory," as an attempt to realize the supernatural, in 
 which 
 
 " It is assumed that the new creation holds no continuous historical connexion 
 with the order of the world, in its natural form. It is related to this, only in an 
 abrupt, outward way, without coming to any actual organic union with it, in the 
 form of life. The supernatural is regarded as something altogether abstract. 
 Grace is a mere influence from the other world, made to reach over to its subject, 
 by a sort of divine magic. It becomes identical thus in the end with the idea of 
 religious experience. All is subjective ; and so the theory runs out practically, at 
 last into a system of rank individualism, in which religion comes to be viewed as 
 an original, independent concern, in every case, between man and his Maker." 
 
 The development of this precise style of 'religion he considers, 
 with me, to be the great misfortune of Puritanism as seen in the 
 history of New England. In a word, it has made us all Bap- 
 tists in theory, which is the same as to say that we ought to be 
 in fact. Thus far he agrees with me.
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 97 
 
 But in his third article, he most "earnestly dissents" from 
 what he considers to be a dangerous error, into which I have 
 fallen : viz. that, while I seem to admit in words the depravity 
 of the race and the necessity of a supernatural grace to restore 
 us, I do yet seem effectually to dispense with both ; presenting 
 a " theory of educational piety on the constitution of nature, 
 rather than upon the constitution of grace as a strictly super : 
 natural system." In other words, the argument is " rational- 
 istic." In the article which alleges this objection, he feels his 
 way cautiously through my language, and rather seems to find 
 than positively to find the truth of it. But in the concluding 
 article, in which he shows how a " defective view of the church" 
 has left me on the ground of rationalism, he becomes positive 
 and decided, as to the pertinence of his objection. 
 
 It is most unfortunate, if 1 have left room for this truly serious 
 objection. For so far from holding the possibility of restoration 
 for men within the terms of mere nature, whether, as regards 
 the individual acting for himself, or the parent acting for his 
 child, the incarnation of the Son of God himself is not, as I be 
 lieve, more truly supernatural than any agency must be, which 
 regenerates a soul. Whether I could assent to all which this 
 reviewer means by " the church, ''"and" the sacramental grace" 
 of baptism, is doubtful. And when he says of the church " She 
 makes us Christians, by the sacrament of holy baptism, which 
 she always held to be of supernatural force for this very pur- 
 pose," I am still further in doubt. But to the following I most 
 heartily assent, and since it gives so happily the sentiments I 
 hold, on the point in question, I transfer it to my pages : 
 
 " Christianity is in one view, as I have said before, the perfection of nature. 
 Its relation to the world is never, as the sect spirit assumes, abrupt, violent, 
 fantastic, or magical. Chri.-it came truly in the flesh, and his Church is in the 
 flesh still. But he came, at the same time, as a true real revelation of a higher life 
 in the world ; a life that was not in it before ; a life that has been in it always 
 since, and according to his own promise will be so always to the end of time. 
 Christianity then, is not the mere constitution of nature, as it stood before, but
 
 98 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 the fact of a divine, supernatural constitution, incorporated with the course of 
 nature, by means of the Church. To question this, is to question the fact of the 
 incarnation itself, and involves the very essence of rationalism. The Church 
 accordingly is the proper object of faith, (as >nthe Creed,) no less than the person 
 of the theanthropic Saviour himself. To resolve it into the laws of our common 
 life, is infidelity in disguise. At the same time, its whole constitution is in har- 
 mony with the laws of this life. It it the supernatural in human natural form. 
 The higher life of the Church is the life of humanity itself. exaKed into its own 
 proper sphere. The new creation theij carries out and completes the sense of 
 the old creation. It is the old organism still, with all its original necessary laics ; 
 only lifted into a higher order of existence. Such as it is, however, its results 
 spring not from the flesh, as such, but from the presence of supernatural power 
 and resources made permanent in the flesh by Jesus Christ ; and we might as 
 well pretend to reduce the miracles of healing which Christ once wrought, to the 
 general category of animal magnetism, as undertake to resolve the objective grace 
 of the Church into the action of laws that begin and end with the constitution of 
 our human nature in its common form.' 
 
 Admirably said and true in every syllable ! unless when he 
 says " incorporated by means of the Church ;" though a sense 
 may be found even for that, which puts it beyond objection. 
 But if we take this view, so ably set forth in the extract here 
 given, it follows, of course, that the Christian family and its 
 organic laws are all penetrated by the supernatural element, 
 and as the family is closer about the child, and touches him in 
 points more numerous, and ways more sovereign over charac- 
 ter, " the church that is in the house" has a great deal more to 
 do with him, in the first years of his life, than the church uni- 
 versal, or any public sacrament. 
 
 If now the question be raised, how my reviewer was led to 
 take up an impression so directly opposite to my real senti- 
 ments, it was due perhaps in part to my misfortune, and also 
 in part, I must think, to some defect of attention in him. It 
 was my misfortune that all the language of supernaturalism, I 
 might wish to employ, was already preoccupied by that super- 
 supernaturalism which he has described, and the " fantastic" 
 impressions connected with the same. In order, therefore, to 
 bring in spirit and redemption from their isolation, and set 
 them in contact with the organic laws of nature, I was obliged
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 99 
 
 to lean, as decidedly as the truth would suffer, to naturalistic 
 language, and to set my whole subject in a naturalistic atti- 
 tude. 
 
 Thus there are two modes of viewing this whole subject, 
 both equally correct, but not equally apposite to my particular 
 purposes. And the two have about the same relation to each 
 other that the rainbow, as a positive institution, has to the 
 rainbow, as a product of the world's laws. If I take my posi- 
 tion by the covenant of Abraham and hang my doctrine of nur- 
 ture on that, as a positive institution, or, what is the same, on 
 its promises ; if then I contemplate God as coming in by his 
 spirit from a point of isolation above, in answer to prayer, or 
 without, to work in the child's heart, whether by a divine 
 stroke or ictus apart from all. connexion of cause and conse- 
 quence or not, the change called regeneration, and thus to fulfill 
 the promise ; I realize indeed a form of unquestionable super- 
 naturalism, in the mind of those who accept my doctrine, but it 
 is likely to be as far as possible from the reviewer's idea, of 
 " the supernatural in human natural form." For all the words 
 I have used will have settled into a meaning proper only to 
 religious individualism. Now just as the reality of the rainbow 
 is m the world's laws prior to the covenant with Noah, so there 
 is, in the organic laws of the race, a reality or ground answer- 
 ing to the covenant with Abraham ; only, in this latter case, the 
 reality is a supernatural grace which inhabits the organic laws 
 of nature and works its results in conformity with them. So 
 every intelligent writer understands. Thus Dr. Woods, on the 
 covenant of Abraham, says, summing up its import : " ll was 
 a system of RELIGIOUS EDUCATION." That is, the covenant had, 
 or was to have its reality, in the powers incorporated in life 
 in treatment, example, instruction, government. 
 
 If I had handled my subject wholly within the first form, or 
 under the type of the covenant as a positive institution, I pre- 
 sume I should have found a much readier assent, and that for
 
 100 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 the very reason that I had thrown my grounds of expectation 
 for Christian nurture the other side of the fixed stars, where- 
 by the parent himself is delivered from all connexion with the 
 results, and from all responsibility concerning them. He will 
 reverently acknowledge that he has imparted a mold of deprav- 
 ity, but the laws of connexion between him and his child are 
 operative, he thinks, only for this bad purpose. If any good 
 comes to the child, it must come straight down from the island 
 occupied by Jehovah, to the child as an individual, and does 
 not, in its coming, take the organic laws of parental character 
 on its way to regenerate and sanctify them as its vehicle. As 
 regards a remedy for individualism, little is gained, even if the 
 doctrine that children ought to be trained up in the way they 
 should go is believed ; for there is no effectual or sufficient rem- 
 edy, till the laws of grace are seen to be perfectly coinci- 
 dent with the organic laws of depravity. Therefore it was 
 necessary to keep to the naturalistic form. But I meant to 
 interpose all the safeguards necessary to save myself from 
 proper naturalism, and I supposed that I had done it. I really 
 think so now. The very first sentence of my tract is a decla- 
 ration of supernaturalism. I find too that, in as many as thir- 
 teen distinct passages, I have used language that has no pro- 
 per signification at all, unless it carries the idea, either of a 
 supernatural redemption, or of a want that requires it. I refer 
 to four which ought to satisfy the most distrustful, p. 15, 16. 
 22. 23,4. 43-5. 
 
 If I may judge, it was over the first named passage, p. 15,16. 
 that my reviewer settled into the unfortunate construction of 
 my tract implied in his objection. After drawing out a view 
 of " natural pravity" communicated under the organic laws of 
 the family, asserted in the Scriptures, and evidenced by the 
 scientific deductions of physiology, it occurred to me that it 
 might be well to throw in a suggestion, that would satisfy a 
 common Unitarian objection ; viz. that this subjection to or- 
 ganic mischief is a harsh and therefore incredible arrangement.
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 101 
 
 Therefore I went on to say that " if neither Scripture nor phy- 
 siology taught us the doctrine, or if we were born clear of all 
 damage," still there is back of all a kind of subjective moral 
 necessity that man should make an experiment of sin, in order 
 to become finally established in holiness. Whether this is 
 true, is not now the question. But the reviewer does not no- 
 tice that this suggestion is added hypothetically and not to 
 exclude, or at all modify the belief imposed by Scripture and 
 physiology. He then recollects that the disciples of the He- 
 gelian theology in Germany, and Daub in particular, reason 
 in a similar way concerning the necessity of sin, and as they 
 go directly on, representing that there is, in the very struggle 
 of humanity with evil, a law of self rectification, so that nature 
 will assuredly bring herself out clear at last, he allows himself 
 to believe that I pass to the same result with them ; whereas, 
 according to the view I gave, it is not sin only that is wanted 
 and must come as an experiment, but sin as a bondage, a 
 fall ; for any sin, even but one, involves a fall, that is a sub- 
 jection to evil ; the very thing denied or overlooked by the 
 school alluded to. And it was with a particular design to ex- 
 clude the error they hold, that I brought in the words "fall 
 and bondage under the laws of evil," " a fall and rescue," 
 "passed round the corner of full and redemption." And 
 what do theologians understand by a fall and a bondage under 
 the laws of evil, but that evil, once entering a soul, becomes its 
 master; so that it cannot deliver itself therefore that a rescue 
 must come, a redemption must be undertaken, by a power 
 transcending nature. My reviewer threw these very words 
 into italics himself, as if he had a question over them, but lor 
 some reason he could not allow them to have their only proper 
 significance. 
 
 My reviewer entertains a conviction that I have fallen into 
 this error, by not properly observing the distinction " between 
 principle or ground and mere occasion or condition.' 1 '' And if 
 I rightly understand him, he means to say that the organic
 
 102 ARGUMEA 7 T FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 laws in which we both agree are only occasional conditt >ns 
 under which depravity and spiritual life are developed, and that 
 " back of all" development there must be a " principle or germ" 
 to be developed an evil germ, and then, irom some supernat- 
 ural source, a good germ. I can hold such a distinction with- 
 out difficulty, but I see no place for it here ; for in this sense of 
 the word principle the soul is itself the principle developed, 
 and the good or evil, separate or mixed, is the development. 
 Or if we go back to the first sin, calling that the germ of all 
 evil, still, if we understand ourselves, we shall observe that we 
 use the term with no propriety save as a mere figure of speech, 
 to denote the reproductive quality of sin, or the certainty that, 
 taken simply as a development, it will be followed by other sins. 
 That first sin, call it a germ or not, is only a development of 
 the soul as a substantive creature, and all the other sins that 
 follow the germ (figurative) are only developments. And my 
 reviewer ought so to understand, when he speaks of a germ 
 or principle, as that which contains "the plastic law, that 
 which determines the interior form and type " of the develop- 
 ment. Thus, in the body, it is the life principle that contains 
 the plastic law of the fever, and the fever is only that malig- 
 nant presence by which the vital force is disturbed. In the 
 same manner sin is no germ, save in a figure, and the real 
 germ is the soul itself. So also it is the soul's nature that con- 
 tains the plastic form or mold, through which the truth and 
 Spirit of God operate a good lite; lor this is only a good devel- 
 opment, and if we speak of a ri^rht life afterwards as proceed- 
 ing from a new germ or . j eed, as the Scriptures do, it is a fig- 
 ure of speech. Otherwise, or if some new germ must be insert- 
 ed in the soul from without, my reviewer would fall out of his 
 own doctrine and take his place side by side virtually with those 
 who hold the ictic theory. 
 
 There is no happier term to be employed in this very ab- 
 struse and difficult matter, than the old orthodox term " effec- 
 tual calling." The ;ubject, after he has come into union with
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 103 
 
 God, is not the same man with a new germ inserted, but the 
 same man effectually called, i. e. " persuaded and enabled to 
 embrace Jesus Christ freely offered." And I do not under- 
 stand that the phrase "renewing our wills," used in this con- 
 nexion by the Westminster Assembly, was intended to imply 
 that the subject has any different will inserted, substantively 
 speaking, from what he had before, or that the action of the 
 old will is renewed by any direct interference of power as 
 power. It is only moved persuasively to a new and better con- 
 sent, and settled therein, by a new and gracious development 
 of the moral affections. In my tract, I represented Christian 
 virtue as a status or state of being, that is, a position or dis- 
 position, or what is the same, a development of the man, into 
 which being brought, he naturally goes on to develop himself 
 freely in what is right, as before in wrong. Then if we ask how 
 this status or state was developed, we have occasional causes 
 to speak of and main causes, objective and subjective causes, 
 organic and individual causes, plastic and voluntary causes, 
 intellectual and emotional causes, natural laws acting as natu- 
 ral laws, and natural laws inhabited by supernatural agencies 
 all concurring and struggling with as great a variety of oppo- 
 sing causes, but resulting, finally, in the given state as an 
 effectual calling; but exactly how and by what measures of op- 
 eration, no human mind, I am sure can ever fully distinguish. 
 Some things, however, we can say, and especially that the 
 Spirit of God, as a supernatural power, is the necessary cause 
 and spring, without which, concurrent in all, and wielding all, 
 the state in question could never be attained to. Still the germ 
 thus developed is the soul itself, not some other germ inserted. 
 r-^Andwhen we come to the case of the child, who I have said ' 
 pu'ght to STI.:W upas a Christian, and not to be trained up for 
 future conversion, 1 must mean, of course, that there is a dis_ 
 pensation of the Spirit for all ages ; one appropriate to the 
 adult, and one appropriate to the rudimental and unreflective 
 age previous to moral action. And here, during the period in
 
 104 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 which the child is wholly or principally subject to organic laws, 
 the problem is to prepare him to such a status or disposed- 
 ness, that he will set off, when he comes to his proper individ- 
 uality, as a true disciple. This, to the child, is his effectual 
 calling. If I say that the result comes to pass in virtue of the 
 parental character and treatment as an organic power ; it is 
 only in the certainty that this character and treatment are 
 themselves products of a supernatural grace, wielded also by 
 a supernatural graeA and attended by the same working in 
 the child or subject, (pan it be said that, in maintaining a view 
 like this, I deny, or at all bring into jeopardy any important 
 Christian truth ? 
 
 I have followed my reviewer into these objections, not for 
 the purpose of self vindication he regards himself rather as 
 favoring than as condemning, in general, the position I have 
 taken, and I accept his objections as cordially as I do his ap- 
 probation but I have done it, that I may be able, in the hand- 
 ling of some view intelligently opposed to me, to develope more 
 fully and distinctly my own doctrine. There may still be many, 
 who will hesitate to receive all my conclusions, though few, 
 I am quite sure, will any longer suspect my view of Christian 
 nurture as one that involves dangerous error. 
 
 At the same time, it will be seen, for I desire to hang out 
 no false colors, that while I was careful in the ' Discourses' to 
 advance nothing of importance, which I knew to be irreconcil- 
 able with doctrinal views held by any theologic school among 
 us, I do, i.i my p.-e^ent article, declare opinions that certainly 
 cannot be reconciled with the views of many, especially those 
 who are maintaining, as ancient, the new light opinions of the 
 last century. I hope my frankness now will gain me a degree 
 of confidence, which I failed to secure by reserve and caution 
 before. Meantime, as it would be far more respectable for the 
 churches, and quite as pleasant to me that, when an alarm is 
 raised, it should have some intelligent reference to errors ad- 
 vanced, I suggest to those who have been so unfortunate here
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 105 
 
 as to miss their occasion, that now is the time when a panic 
 ought immediately to begin. 
 
 It is remarkable that, while an Episcopal notice of my un- 
 fortunate tract, and another from the German Reformed 
 church, have readily entered into my distinction between the 
 organic and the individual, in character showing, I think, 
 that probably it is not absolute nonsense I have seen no evi- 
 dence, in any of the printed notices from our own Congrega- 
 tional press, that the distinction has entered, as yet, the mind 
 of a single reader. So glued is our mental habit to the impres- 
 sion that religious character is wholly the result of choice in 
 the individual ; or if it be generated by a divine ictus, preceded, 
 of absolute necessity, by convictions and struggles that are 
 possible only to the reflective age, that we cannot really con- 
 ceive the meaning, when the possibility is distinctly stated that 
 a child should be prepared unto God, by causes prior to his own 
 will. I also represented it to be the prevalent view of Chris- 
 tian nurture, that the child is to be trained up for future con- 
 version, when he is ripe enough in sin to have a conscious bat- 
 tle with it, and this my critics complain of; but they are found, 
 I observe, within less than a page, to set forth in some shape 
 this very opinion, and thus to certify the truth of my repre- 
 sentations ! 
 
 Many persons seem never to have brought their minds down 
 close enough to an infant child to understand that any thing 
 of consequence is going on with it, until after it has come to 
 language and become a subject thus of instruction. As if a 
 child were to learn a language before it is capable of learn- 
 ing any thing I Whereas there is a whole era, so to speak, 
 before language, which may be called the era of impressions, 
 and these impressions are the seminal principles, in some sense, 
 of the activity thp*runs to language, and also of the whole fu- 
 ture character, ff strongly suspect that more is done, in the age 
 previous to language, to affect the character of children.whether
 
 106 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 by parents, or, when they are waiting in indolent security, by 
 nurses and attendants, than in all the instruction and disci- 
 pline of their minority afterwards ; for, in this first age, the 
 age of impressions, there goes out in the whole manner of the 
 parent the look, the voice, the handling an expression of 
 feeling, and that feeling expressed streams directly into the 
 
 * soul, and reproduces itself there, as by a law of contagion. - 
 What man of adult age, who is at all observant of himself, has 
 failed to notice the power that lies in a simple presence, even 
 to him? To this power the infant is passive, as wax to 
 the seal. When, therefore, we consider how small a speck, 
 falling into the nucleus of a crystal, may disturb its form ; or 
 how even a mote of foreign matter, present in the quickening 
 egg, will suffice to produce a deformity ; considering, also, oil 
 the other hand, what nice conditions of repose, in one case, 
 and what accurately modulated supplies of heat, in the other, 
 are necessary to a perfect product ; then only do we begin to 
 imagine what work is going on in the soul of a child during the 
 age of impressions. Suppose now that all preachers of Christ 
 could have their hearers, for whole months, in their own will, 
 after the same manner, so as to move -them by a look, a mo- 
 tion, a smile, a frown, and act their own sentiments and emo- 
 tions over in them; and then, for whole years, had them in 
 authority to command, direct, tell them whither to go, what 
 to learn, what to do, regulate their hours, their books, their 
 pleasures, and their company, and call them to prayer over 
 their own knees every night and morning, who that can rightly 
 conceive such an organic acting of one being in many, will 
 
 , deem it extravagant, or think it a dishonor to the grace of 
 God, to say that a power like this may well be expected to 
 fashion all who come under it to newness of life? 
 
 Now what I have endeavored, in my tract, and what I here 
 endeavor is to waken, in our churches, a sense of this power 
 and of the momentous responsibilities that accrue under it. I
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. ]Q7 
 
 wish to produce an impression that God has not held us respon- 
 sible for the effect only of what we do, or teach, or for acts 
 of control and government ; but quite as much, for the effect 
 of our being what we are; that there is a plastic age in the 
 house, receiving its type, not from our words but from our 
 spirit, one whose character is shaping in the molds of our own. 
 And then, under an impression so salutary, what changes will 
 be wrought in the temperament of our own piety. If a man 
 were to be set before a mirror, with the feeling that *he exact 
 image of what he is, for the day, is there to be produced and 
 left as a permanent and fixed image forever, to what care- 
 fulness, what delicate sincerity of spirit would he be moved. 
 And will he be less moved to the same, when that mirror is 
 the soul of his child ? 
 
 This now is the new element that we want in our religion, 
 and this I earnestly hope may be received. The simple in- 
 troduction of this, while it destroys nothing valuable in our 
 present form of piety, would suffice to change the style of it 
 in all the points where it is defective ; to moisten the dry in~ 
 dividualism we Buffer, to relieve the eccentricities we display, 
 to set purity in the place of bustle and presumption, growth 
 in the place of conquest, sound health in the place of spasmodic 
 exaltations ; for when a conviction is felt in Christian families, 
 that they are to some extent organic unities, where the chil- 
 dren are not to grow up as heathens, to be converted after- 
 wards, but in the faith of the parents rather ; where living is 
 to be a means of grace, and as God will suffer it, a regene- 
 rating power ; then will our piety become a- domestic spirit, and 
 as much more tender, as it is more inclusive of the family. 
 Now we have a style of religion that contains, practically 
 speaking, only adults, or those who are old enough to reflect 
 and act for themselves, and it is as if we lived in an adult 
 world, where every one is for himself. If we could abolish 
 also distinctions of age, and sex, and office, we should only
 
 108 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 make up a style of religion somewhat drier and farther off 
 from nature than we now have. We can never come into 
 the true style of living that God has appointed for us, until 
 we regard each generation as hovering over the next, acting 
 itself into the next, and casting thus a type of character in the 
 next, before it comes to act for itself. Then we shall have 
 gentle cares and feelings; then the families will become bonds 
 of spiritual life; example, education and government, being 
 Christian powers, will be regulated by a Christian spirit ; the 
 rigidities of religious principle will be softened by the tender 
 affections of nature twining among them, and the common life 
 of the house dignified by the sober and momentous cares of the 
 life to come. And thus Christian piety being oftener a habit in 
 the soul than a conquest over it, will be as much more respect- 
 able and consistent as it is earlier in the birth and closer to 
 nature. 
 
 The more I reflect on the particular type of practical reli- 
 gion, prevalent in our churches, for the century now past, the 
 more dissatisfied I am with it. We do not seem to under- 
 stand that there is a law of population within the church of 
 God, as there is within a nation or an empire one which, if 
 children were only brought up in the faith, would give a far 
 more rapid increase than we now have, and finally would, by 
 itself, enable the church to overpopulate and occupy the 
 world, as the Saxon race are occupying this western conti- 
 nent. No addition meets our view, which does not come as a 
 conquest. 
 
 And revivals of religion, so called, are our scenes of con- 
 quest valued of course according to the hopes rested on their 
 power. Let me not be understood as rejecting revivals of reli- 
 gion, though I heartily wish the name were yet to be in vented; 
 for it is a source of indefinite mischief. God certainly designs 
 to act on men socially, as w T ell as individually, and to vary
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 109 
 
 the whole exercise of life, in a way to exert the most health- 
 ful power over their character. If any one is disturbed or af- 
 fected with distrust by what I here advance, in connexion 
 with this subject, 1 refer him to an article on the " Spiritual 
 Economy of Revivals of Religion," in the Christian Spec- 
 tator of 1838, where he will find what sentiments I entertain 
 of revivals exhibited more fully. But I was speaking of the 
 great hopes we have rested on revivals, and to this we now 
 return. If you will attend the General Association of Con- 
 necticut, or of Massachusetts, and listen to the reports on the 
 state of religion, you will discover, although it may not be 
 uniformly said, that a year which has brought no revivals of 
 religion is considered to be of course a barren year ; the " Spirit 
 of God will be said to be withdrawn," " Zion to languish," 
 " religion to decay," " the word to be fruitless," and I know 
 not what beside. 
 
 Suppose now it be asked, whether a revival can be had all 
 the time? No, that will not be pretended; for the term is 
 used with a special meaning to denote a time of exaltation 
 and victory. It comes then to this, that having made every 
 thing of a revival of religion, and little or nothing of religion 
 itself, we spend the intervening times in mourning over our- 
 selves for languishing when we cannot help it, and in chid- 
 ing ourselves because we cannot live in the extraordinary 
 as an ordinary thing ! Meantime, we virtually take it for 
 granted that God, because he does not help us to realize 
 an impossibility, is withdrawn, and since the revival is gone by, 
 what conclusion have we left, but that " Zion languishes," and 
 that life is to no Christian purpose any longer ? There could 
 not be a more unhappy style of practical religion. Nothing 
 stands in a natural attitude, there is no regular pulse of life 
 left, and we only know that we live by the spasms we suffer. 
 Could we believe that the Spirit of God is with us, at all times, 
 
 in the ordinary as in the extraordinary, in the house too as in 
 10
 
 HO ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 'the church, and that godly living, in the family, carefully per- 
 severed in, will be training up, in a way that is eilent and im- 
 perceptible, sons and daughters unto God ; working results 
 therefore as important as the public scenes in which unbe- 
 lievers and infidels are subdued to Christ, did we heartily 
 believe that there is something good to be done, some good 
 possibility waiting for us at all times, which is worth as much 
 and in God's view as sacred, as a revival of religion, how 
 much happier should we be, and quite as much better as hap- 
 pier; for now we discourage ourselves in every thing good, 
 and allow nothing to be properly good, because we have not a 
 revival of religion. 
 
 And then when the revival comes, it comes as a storm, a 
 strange day of power and spiritual commotion, and they that 
 were sighing for the day, are about as full of anxiety lest it run 
 to wildness and extravagance, as they were before to have it 
 come. For a revival of religion may as well be idolized as 
 any other creature of God, a stone or a star, and then, having 
 become an idol, the general truth that superstitious expecta- 
 tion exaggerates all objects, is sure to be verified. If the whole 
 of eternity hangs on religion, and religion is nothing but a 
 revival of religion, there ought assuredly to be some commo- 
 tion when it comes, as well as great despondency when it 
 goes ! 
 
 Besides, there is another cause of extravagance. Man is a 
 eocial creatui e, so that if we really deny organic power and 
 dissolve even families into isolated units of free agency if we 
 hold our religion as a strict exercise of individualism, and 
 never allow it to marry itself to our natural affections and 
 our social instincts, still these social instincts remain within 
 us, and the more they are baffled and kept out of action, the 
 more sure they are to burst over, at last, all barriers, and seize 
 as it were by force, the indulgence denied them. Now a re- 
 vival of religion, whatever we may say or think of it, is a so- 

 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. HI 
 
 cial scene, and the peculiar power exerted in it is social and in 
 that view organic power. Indeed, it seems to be the design 
 of God in such scenes, as far as they are sober realities, to wield 
 the power of social impulses, as in preaching he wields the 
 power of personal feeling and expression, in behalf of his truth. 
 Accordingly, if all the social instincts have before and ordinarily 
 been baffled as regards their activity, they will now rush in, as 
 animals dying for thirst rush to the water, and having found 
 vent for once, in religious scenes that move large masses of 
 men, they will burn with such intensity as amounts, if not 
 to phrenzy, to a dangerous extravagance. Thus you will 
 observe, in such a scene, that if there be some half solitary 
 beings brought within its power, persons whose social nature 
 has before been almost wholly disappointed of its nautral wants, 
 these are likely even to become bewildered by the strange joy 
 of an organic feeling, while the children who have grown up 
 in a truly Christian family, where their natural affections have 
 been bathed in religion as an element, from their earliest days, 
 will suffer no excitement that is not within the gentle bonds 
 of order and health. In which we see, that nothing can so ef- 
 ectually abate religious extravagances, as to have a style of 
 religion that is formed by the grace of God in the house, and 
 intertwining itself there among the roots of family feeling, 
 grows up into a habit of sanctified love and loving sanctity. 
 
 I have also a yet more serious complaint to make, viz. that 
 I see great reason, and the greater the longer I live, to dis- 
 trust the manner of testing religious character, generally pre- 
 valent in connexion with this type of religion. W,e make 
 nothing of habit, nothing of a proposed aim of life connected 
 with Christian duties, but we demand a kind of religious ex- 
 perience that stands in marked contrast with the previous time, 
 particularly in regard to feelings of complacency towards God. 
 For it is assumed that, if any man can express the fact that 
 he has found great emotions of delight in God or the character 
 of God, he is of course a true disciple. And yet nothing is
 
 112 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 more common than to find the most extatic flights of experi- 
 ence, in this particular, end, within a very few months, in a 
 total indifference to religion, and a manifest abandonment of 
 every duty. What now is the secret of these painful defec- 
 tions ? Certainly it is not that love is no Scripture evidence 
 of Christan character. Nothing is declared more frequently. 
 But it is that the mind, in what we call a revival of religion, 
 may often be thrown and often is thrown into a state of emotion 
 which cannot be distinguished, for the time, from true Chris- 
 tian love and yet is wholly distant from love. 
 
 And it comes to pass, unless I mistake, in the following man- 
 ner. First it is in the nature, as I have said, of every human 
 mind, when looking upon God in the simple attitude of contem- 
 plation, as upon a picture, to feel that he is a perfectly excel- 
 lent and lovely being. J\ o enmity rises, no turbid feeling springs 
 into life, unless it consciously reflects on itself as unworthy and 
 wholly unlike to God, or recollects its own determination to 
 adhere to courses of wrong which God forbids. And it lies 
 in the very facts of the case, you will observe beforehand, 
 that if any person can be held for a length of time to this con- 
 templative mew, he will for the same length of time, feel that 
 God is lovely, and that is a feeling which no man can distin- 
 guish from love, as a practical embrace of God and his law, 
 until it is put to the test and made to try itself by the Scripture 
 method of trying love, that is by the keeping of God's com- 
 mandments. Accordingly a man wholly irreligious in his life 
 comes within the sphere of a revival of religion, he hears a 
 great deal of preaching, thinks much upon what he hears, be- 
 comes a good deal heated by the general excitement, and some- 
 what confused by his own ill directed efforts to realize an un- 
 known experience, till at length, having no practical duties on 
 hand to show him the conflict of his will with God's authority, 
 and becoming unsphered, as it were, from all subjective 
 thoughts which may keep him apprised of his own unlikeness
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 113 
 
 to God, by the total absorption of his mind in the objective reali- 
 ties of religion, what wonder is it that his soul takes fire be- 
 fore God, and blazes up to heaven lira passionate admiration 
 of his beauty and glory ? And this new rhapsody, this strange 
 kindling of enthusiasm, he is sure must be Christian love, 
 now his sins arc forgiven, and his peace with God is sealed ! 
 
 On precisely this kind of evidence generally, converts are 
 accepted as such at the door of the church, and admitted to the 
 interior rites of discipleship. In fact, no evidence of Chris- 
 tian character is considered so decisive, as that which is found 
 in a change of emotions. This is love, the new heart, the 
 new taste, the new instinct which displaces the old instinct 
 of hatred every one that loveth is born of God. Undoubt- 
 edly the text is true, but it is also true that love has a test, 
 even the keeping of God's commandments, and until that test 
 is added, the less we rest upon mere emotions, however 
 strange, the better. And yet how many are nursed in a pre- 
 sumptuous confidence that all is right with God, because they 
 have had their pasions kindled, for once, in this way by the 
 beauty and glory of God ! What careful minister, seeing how 
 many are gathered round him, in the church, who manifest 
 no real love to God in the practical duties of life, and have 
 never shown any Christian character, save that they once 
 were subjects of a religious rhapsody, has not often staggered 
 under the suspicion of some dismal error, in the Current views 
 of religious experience. 
 
 For myself, I feel obliged, in faithfulness to God, to declare, 
 that I have more than a suspicion on this subject. Indeed my 
 own experience as a pastor, connected with the thoughts ex- 
 pressed above, has compelled me to feel that, if a young person 
 or child comes to me, in a time of religious quiet, and simply 
 asks to be admitted as a disciple to the ordinances, disclosing 
 a habit of private devotion, declaring a serious purpose and 
 desire to live a religious life, and indicating a settled spirit 
 
 of dependence n God for the sustenance of all good exer- 
 10*
 
 114 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 cises, I have a far better and more reliable evidence of Chris- 
 tian character, than any sudden burst of extatic emotion to- 
 wards God can possibly yield. These too, as experience will 
 abundantly show, are the persons who maintain the best ex- 
 amples of piety afterwards. We see too, in such examples, 
 that the more closely piety is wedded to habit, and the more 
 thoroughly it is interwoven with common life, the healthier 
 and firmer is the growth. It wants not great experiences to 
 make great Christians. Between extatic flights and godly 
 lives there is no valid connexion. But when the spirit of God 
 sanctifies the table and the hearth, and makes the homes tem- 
 ples of piety to childhood, when newness of life begins with 
 education or nurture, and not in high scenes or explosive 
 changes, then the church of God growing up, like a nation or 
 empire, from a silent law of increase, in its own nature, be- 
 comes a compact organic frame, having the vital spirit, as it 
 is the body, of Christ himself. 
 
 I have spoken already in my ' Discourses,' of many evils and 
 defects in our present type of practical religion the mischie- 
 vous impressions it gives to children ; the discouragement of 
 all right aims and efforts wrought in their minds ; and the arti- 
 ficial hostility to religion produced in their minds, by modes of 
 treatment that are contrary to first principles. Baptism, too, 
 we are holding as an empty tradition ; a form the soul of which 
 is evaporated and lost ; r obbing thus ourselves and our children 
 of all the proper benefits of the rite, and giving to its rejectors 
 the strongest argument they have against it. It was for these 
 unhappy defects and errors in our style of piety, that I was 
 moved to seek a remedy, and 1 struck at the radical error of 
 training up children for future conversion. I showed, by thir- 
 teen distinct arguments, that the only true aim and expectation 
 of Christian nurture is that the child is to grow up a Chris- 
 tian not doubting that I was offering to our churches a great 
 principle, worthy of their profound consideration, and one that 
 contains a remedy for the principal defects of piety and char-
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. H5 
 
 acter, by which their honor is defaced and their prosperity 
 hindered. And what now has been the result ? Has one of 
 my thirteen arguments been answered ? Not one, unless I 
 am to concede that an objection raised against my argument 
 from " organic catises" and hung on the words, without any 
 consideration of their meaning, is to be taken as an answer. 
 With this single exception, which is no exception, all my proofs 
 stand to this hour untouched and in their original integrity, 
 and the public mind, meantime, fogged by " dangerous tenden- 
 cies" and misrepresentations and worn out theories, is busying 
 itself in false issues, that have nothing to do with the real 
 merits of the question. Is it now too much to entreat of our 
 ministers and churches that, after they have sufficiently pun- 
 ished my heresies, they will begin to have some compassion 
 on themselves ; return to the question, as it is, and see whether 
 God is not offering them a medicine here lor the want of which 
 they are likely even to die 1 
 
 But there now remains, brethren of the committee, a ques- 
 tion that must rest with you, viz., what shall be done with my 
 book ? I did not ask you to publish it at the first, I do not ask 
 you to resume the publication now. As iar as I am person- 
 ally concerned, it is of the least possible consequence whether 
 you do it or not. Possibly you erred in deciding to publish it, 
 though not because of any heresy in it. Possibly you may have 
 erred again in suspending the publication. That I leave with 
 you. On your title page you say, " Approved by the Commit- 
 tee of Publication," in which you seem to suppose that you are 
 really, as a committee, intrusted with this matter and have a 
 judgment of your own concerning it. Have you, in truth, such 
 an official trust, or do you mean to say, by giving up your judg- 
 ment, the moment your constituents judge differently, that 
 there is yet another out door committee of panic mongers and 
 wire pullers back of you, before whom you engage to surrender,
 
 115 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 and when they so decree, unsay your own judgments and take 
 back your own acts ? If that be necessary, then it is a most 
 dishonorable necessity dishonorable I do not mean for you; 
 for I have perfect confidence in the integrity of your aims, and 
 I think I understand the difficulty of your position; but dis- 
 honorable, because of the factious and disorderly spirit, which 
 has obliged a respectable committee to sacrifice their official 
 doings, in order to save their society ; for if any fault of dignity 
 appears in this transaction, it is chargeable mainly not on you, 
 but on some very lamentable defect of character rather, in the 
 religious community you represent. I only think that to pre- 
 vent a revelation so undignified, some degree of stubbornness 
 might have been pardoned in you. 
 
 Since, then, it is not you that have thrown yourselves against 
 my character as a teacher of truth, but a body of Christian 
 ministers and persons of influence sufficiently numerous to sway 
 the movements of the Massachusetts churches, I turn from you 
 to them, and I hope the expostulations I may venture to offer 
 will be received as kindly as they are meant. The violence 
 they have done my character, it will be seen, justifies me in 
 this boldness, and the high ground of security to which I have 
 been able to bring my argument, helps me to speak with the 
 better chance of effect. Indeed, it was only the opportunity 
 here given me of saying some things with propriety, for the 
 benefit of religion, which almost never can be said without 
 presumption, that finally decided me in the purpose to under- 
 take this second exposition of my subject. 
 
 Brethren of Massachusetts, the Publishing Committee of 
 your Sabbath School Society, a grave and judicious body of 
 men whom you appointed, I presume, because of the confidence 
 you had in their character, after a long and careful examina- 
 tion of two discourses I had written, decided to give them to 
 the public. Two or three critics, not more capable certainly of 
 detecting error than they, have since discovered dangerous
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 117 
 
 tendencies and other like shadows of evil lurking in the tract 
 published. In a moment, you renounce the judgment of your 
 committee, you grow sensitive, you vent your dissatisfaction in 
 acts of rudeness to a stranger, you circulate and print stories 
 implicating my word, you go on to propagate your uneasiness 
 and stir yourselves up into a clamor, till finally you compel 
 your committee, if they will save the society, to suspend the 
 sale of the book. Now also you discover, if you have read 
 these pages, that you had, after all, gotten before your time, 
 and that the panic by which you have been agitated had no 
 intelligent cause. In view of facts like these, have you not 
 some opportunity to discover that there is a degree of sensi- 
 tiveness to opinions among you, which exceeds the limits of 
 reason, and certainly does not indicate as great breadth of 
 character as would be desirable in this age of the world ? 
 
 You have also a metropolitan position, as regards the 
 churches of New England, and you must not wonder if on this 
 account, you are a subject of study and of observation. Par- 
 don me if I say that we are not always satisfied with the man- 
 ner in which you fill your office. You have men of the highest 
 worth and character among you, men who are fit to lead you 
 into better and wiser demonstrations, and who earnestly de- 
 plore, as I certainly know, the very unhappy spirit and the 
 narrow councils which now predominate in your churches. 
 But they prefer apparently not to encounter a religious tem- 
 perament, which may prove too uncomfortable to their peace, 
 and retire rather from the place they ought to occupy, than 
 come forward to assert a position worthy of their character and 
 talents. We deplore, in particular, the relation in which you 
 seem to stand to the Unitarians. God has made both them 
 and you to change since the separation, and has carried you on 
 thus to a position essentially new, but you seem unable to dis- 
 cover it. Unitarianism was the necessary birth of a dead or- 
 thodoxy, and when it has ceased to exist, for cease it assur-
 
 118 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 edly will, it will not be found to have existed in vain. Indeed , 
 it may finally be discovered, that Unitarianism is nothing but 
 the proper result of a false assumption, that has run through 
 all the dogmatic efforts of the church, ever since dogmatic the- 
 ology was invented, which if it be once cast out, will carry off 
 with it no small part of our strifes, and leave us to subside 
 into the proper unity of the truth. I ask no assent to such a 
 suggestion, for I have not time to verify the probability of it. 
 Enough that it is possible or conceivable. Meantime, it is 
 perfectly clear to observation, than Unitarianism is not con- 
 tent with itself. Conscious undoubtedly of possessing impor- 
 tant truths, it reveals, at least, a suspicion of its own complete- 
 ness, and presents itself, in this view, as a most interesting sub- 
 ject of study. And if there were any such freedom of confer- 
 ence between you and the Unitarians as there might be, if there 
 was a disposition to present great truths held by yourselves, in 
 shapes that would clear them of difficulty, the want they suffer 
 of these truths would scarcely fail of inducing their acceptance. 
 I observe too, that they often extend themselves towards you, 
 in friendly demonstrations, which, though they do not come to 
 you on their knees, ought to be Jaken as inviting and offering a 
 reconsideration. Could you now come forward like men who 
 trust their own principles, to do something worthy of your age- 
 it is scarcely supposable that good results, and that of a very 
 important character, would not follow. But, instead of this, 
 you seem to be so much afraid of your own principles that you 
 cannot suffer a friendly approach of any kind ; and to think a 
 new thought, or to seek to reproduce an old doctrine,, in some 
 variant shape, that, without sacrificing even a hair of the truth, 
 will obviate their objections, is too frightful to be endured. I 
 even observe, that if you happen, by some accident, to have 
 preached a thoroughly orthodox sermon which they are tempt- 
 ed to approve, you throw your inkstand at them, as Luther did 
 at the devil, to keep them off! Could there be a worse infat- 
 uation?
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 119 
 
 Meantime the Episcopal church is waiting for the Unitarian 
 body, in Boston, to fall, as a ripe fruit, into its hands, and ac- 
 tually holding its hands for the prize; which if they do not re- 
 ceive, it will not be the fault of many among yourselves. Per- 
 haps the hope of Episcopacy, in this respect, is more sanguine 
 than it need be. But what do we see, if any among the Unita- 
 rians become dissatisfied and desire to find some form of re- 
 ligion more adequate to their spiritual wants? Seldom do 
 they stop with you, but they pass directly on to the hands 
 of the bishop. They prefer even to take a type of religion for- 
 eign to New England, and one that has no sympathy with our 
 institutions, rather than to stop with you, who are bound up 
 with them in the ties of a common history. An Episcopal 
 writer too, has just been calling the attention of your Boston 
 public, to what he considers to have been the radical defects of 
 our religion, as illustrated in our history, evidently with a view 
 to show such as become dissatisfied, in any degree, with Unita- 
 rianism, that there is a place of rest and satisfaction in Epis- 
 copacy. On this subject he has produced a calm, well studied 
 and eloquent tract. This tract was written without any 
 knowledge of my ' Discourses,' and they without any knowl- 
 edge of the tract, and yet you will observe, that the defect, 
 which I was endeavoring to supply, is precisely the same with 
 that out of which he draws all the mischiefs that have befallen 
 us. The impression left by the tract is, that Episcopacy is the 
 proper remedy. I have endeavored to suggest a remedy con- 
 sistent with our history, and the ecclesiastical frame of our 
 churches, and lo ! you raise such a storm that my book is 
 silenced ! 
 
 I should not discharge my whole duty, in this connexion, if I 
 did not say that these demonstrations, which I so earnestly 
 deplore, are probably traceable, in a very considerable degree, 
 to a single cause, and the sooner you awake to the mischiefs 
 you suffer from this quarter, the better. If one sinner destroy-
 
 ]20 ARGUMENT FOR DISCOURSES 
 
 eth much good, far more true is it that one bad newspaper 
 destroyeth much good. You have a religious newspaper that 
 has long been exerting a most baleful effect on your churches, 
 restraining the breadth of Christian character and opinions, 
 undignifying the feelings, and perverting the Christian man- 
 ners of your people. To say that this paper is behind the age 
 is nothing, it is behind all ages. It is as ignorant of the past 
 as it is opposite to the future. It exhibits that uncomfortable 
 spirit which properly belongs to a brute conservatism held by 
 the will, separated from all intelligent views of the past, and 
 even further still, from the dignified and courtly sentiments 
 that are commonly connected with a veneration for ancient 
 names and opinions. The one virtue for which it is sometimes 
 praised, viz. its consistency, is but another name for the fact 
 that its opinions and manners and spirit are all equally bad, 
 and that it holds to them all with equal tenacity. This paper 
 aggravates every mischief you suffer; indeed I sometimes 
 think that it is the author of whatever is undesirable in your 
 present state. For it is not the guiding reins of wisdom that 
 it applies, turning your chariot by gentle retractions, on this 
 side and on that, into the path of safety and progress ; but it is 
 more fitly represented by that thong in the harness which falls 
 across the haunches of the animal, and upon which throwing 
 back his weight he sometimes stubbornly refuses to move. 
 And so often and rudely has this unilluminated conservatism 
 backed its bulk upon every genial and hopeful motion, that 
 many appear to shrink from encountering its violence, prefer- 
 ring to save their quiet and possibly their dignity, from the 
 ill manners in which it finds impunity.* 
 
 There is no instrument of power, in this age, as we are just 
 beginning to discover, that can be compared with a newspaper. 
 What now we want in New England, above every thing else, 
 
 * See note at the end of the volume.
 
 ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 121 
 
 is a great religious newspaper, edited with such a degree of 
 ability, such firmness and breadth of understanding, as shall 
 make it an instrument worthy of our churches, and worthy of 
 the age. 
 
 Brethren, whether you will believe it or not, a new day has 
 come. If we will, we can make it a better day, but it demands 
 a furniture of thought and feeling, such as we must stretch our- 
 selves in a degree to realize. We must be firm for the truth, 
 and , for that very reason, ready to detect our own errors. We 
 must accept the legacy left us by our manly fathers, a legacy 
 of labor and duty and progress, and taking our stand for sound 
 doctrine, we must refuse to think any doctrine sound which 
 does not help us to grow, or any growth a reality which does 
 not include a growth in wisdom and breadth and Christian 
 dignity. 
 
 11
 
 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OF REVIVALS OF RELIGION.* 
 
 WE do not undertake the vindication of revivals of religion. 
 The Divine Husbandry in them is rather our study. Shall we 
 mask our conviction, that here is a want which has long de- 
 manded grave attention, that the views of this subject enter- 
 tained by many are unripe and partial,"their notions of Chris- 
 tian instrumentality confused, and their practice desultory to 
 the same degree. The discredit accruing from this cause is 
 really the heaviest argument, that lies against revivals heavier 
 than all the attacks of their adversaries. Indeed, if we had it 
 in hand to convince the adversaries, we know not how we 
 could hope more effectually to succeed, than by unfolding the 
 Divine Husbandry, the Reason of God's Economy in them, 
 which now is our attempt. 
 
 The term revival of religion is one not found in the scrip- 
 tures, and one to which we have decided objections. It pro- 
 perly denotes a reviving of Christian piety, where it has sunk 
 into decline. We use it to denote a scene of conversion, of 
 public exaltation and victory ; and, what is even opposite to its 
 proper meaning, we use it as the name, not of a scene which is 
 counterpart to a state of dishonor in the church, but of some- 
 thing which belongs inherently to the gospel itself, in the same 
 way as preaching or the sacraments. And then as the term 
 itself is seen to be no accurate measure of the idea, a feeling of 
 , S- * 
 
 * From the Christian Spectator of 1838, Vol X.
 
 124 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OF 
 
 distrust arises in all thinking persons. It carries an air of falsity, 
 which is undignified and painful to the mind, perhaps I should 
 rather say an air of crudity, or superstition, as if cant were sub- 
 stituted for intelligence. Or if it is heartily accepted, the more 
 probable is it that faith embraces some portion of error, and 
 earnestness exults in a smoke of mental confusion. For words 
 are powerful instruments, and false words can never be used 
 without danger ; they mislead the action even of philosophic 
 minds, much more of those who never think at all. Still the 
 term revival has found a current use, and convenience will 
 perhaps give it perpetuity. In this article we submit to the 
 term, only endeavoring, since it cannot be avoided, to measure 
 and guard its import. 
 
 This not being done the real position, if any, which revi- 
 vals hold in the economy of God's spiritual administration not 
 being well ascertained by the Christian body, they are viewed 
 by Christians themselves, with all the possible! varieties of feel- 
 ing between idolatry and distrust. Even the same mind often 
 fluctuates between these extremes. To-day, the face of God is 
 bright upon his people, and the whole community is, in a sense, 
 visibly swayed by his power ; and now, in the happy freshness 
 and vitality of the scene, it is concluded, that there is no true 
 religion but in a revival. To-morrow, as the freshness of new 
 scenes and new feelings is manifestly abating, there begins to 
 be an unhappy and desperate feeling, something must be 
 done, religion itself is dying. And yet what shall be done, it 
 is very difficult to find ; for every effort to hold fast the exact 
 degree and sort of feeling, to make a post of exercises, which 
 in their very nature have motion and change, only sinks the 
 vital force more rapidly. But the calm at length comes, and 
 now the prostration is the greater for the desperate outlay of 
 force used to prevent it. A dissatisfying look now begins to 
 rest, when it is reviewed, on the scene of revival itself; dis- 
 couragement, unbelief, sloth, a long age of lead follows. 
 Secretly sickened by what is past, many fall into real distrust
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 125 
 
 of spiritual experiences. Many have made so heavy a draft 
 on their religious vitality or capacity, that something seems to 
 be expended out of the sensibility even of their conscience, 
 they sink into neglects, or crimes close upon the verge of 
 apostacy ; or they betake themselves to the cheap and possible 
 perfectionism of antinomian irresponsibility. The extreme we 
 here depict is not often reached; but there 7 is very often a 
 marked approach towards it. The consequence is, that the re- 
 ligious life, thus unskilfully ordered, isunhappy, wears aforced 
 look, goes with a perplexed and halting gait. 
 
 Our present aim, then, is to ascertain the real office and posi- 
 tion of revivals, to furnish, if possible a view of them which 
 may be safely held at all times, and must be so held, if any 
 steady and intelligent conduct in these matters is to be secured. 
 We hope to establish a higher and more solid confidence in re- 
 vivals, and, at the same time, to secure to the cause of evan- 
 gelical religion a more natural, satisfactory and happy, as well 
 as a more constant movement. 
 
 They are grounded, we shall undertake to show, both in 
 honor and in dishonor. They belong in part, to the original 
 appointment and plan of God's moral administration, in which 
 part, they are only modes or varieties of divine action, neces- 
 sary to our renewal and culture in the faith. For the remain- 
 der, they are made necessary by the criminal instability of 
 God's people, or take their extreme character from unripe or 
 insufficient views, in their subjects and conductors. The two 
 sides of the subject, thus stated, will require to be prosecuted 
 separately. 
 
 
 
 If we are to show revivals of religion in place, (as a geologist 
 might say,) or as they stand related to the general system of 
 God's works, purposes and ends, we need, first of all, to show 
 in place the doctrine itself of spiritual agency. In speaking of 
 the divine agency in men, we are obliged to use many and va-
 
 126 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OF 
 
 rious figures of speech, by way of giving sufficient vividness 
 and practical life to the truth, to make it answer its moral ends. 
 We speak of the Spirit of God as " descending," or " coming 
 down," or "sent down," as " poured out," as "present" in a 
 given assembly or place, as " grieved away," or "dwelling" in 
 the heart of the believer. In all this, if we understand our- 
 selves, we only dramatize the divine action with a view to give 
 it reality and conversableness. But some, there is reason to 
 fear, use these terms intending too literally in them. They 
 separate the divine agency in men, from the general system in 
 which it belongs, they make the doctrine special in such a 
 sense that God is himself desultory in it, coming and going, 
 journeying between the earth and the sky, while all his other 
 operations go on by a general and systematic machinery, which 
 takes care of itself. 
 
 The word of God sometimes speaks of the divine or spiritual 
 agency in men, as if it were only a new or varied extension of 
 the divine presence, and uses the term presence as convertible 
 with spirit. " Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, whither 
 shall I flee from thy presence T' " Cast me not away from thy 
 presence, take not thy Holy Spirit from me.'' ' ' When the times 
 of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." 
 
 Favored by this example, if we leave out of sight the dis- 
 tinctions of the trinity, which we may for the sake of greater 
 simplicity in our subject, we shall readily see, that the doctrine 
 of spiritual agency is grounded in the simple doctrine of GOD'S 
 OMNIPRESENCE. Here it is in place. Of this, in fact, it is only 
 a member. 
 
 What do we mean by God's omnipresence ? If we speak 
 intelligently, not the extension, not the local diffusion of the 
 divine substance. We mean, negatively, that we can conceive 
 of no place above God's works or outside of them, where the 
 divine nature resides ; there is no such place. We are, there- 
 fore, obliged to think of God as in-resident in his works. Next
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 127 
 
 we mean, positively that God is potentially present, present in 
 act and sway, (whatever may be true of his substance or its 
 relations to space,) filling all things. The most ready illustra- 
 tion of this subject is the soul residing in the body. In what 
 precise organ its throne is we know not ; but virtually or ener- 
 getically, it is all in every part. It is there to perceive, to have 
 control and use, and it is one will which actuates and system- 
 atizes the action of all the parts together. 
 
 Let it not offend, that we reduce the warm and glowing doc- 
 trine of the agency of the Holy Spirit to mere cold omnipres- 
 ence. But rather let some just degree of warmth be given to 
 the latter, a doctrine chilled by the stagnant unbelief, and the 
 more stagnant philosophy of men. The true notion of omni- 
 presence shows God in action every where, as much as in the 
 matters of grace. He is in all things, not simply as staying in 
 them, perchance asleep; but he is in them by a presence of 
 power, design and feeling ; moving all, advancing in all, to- 
 wards his great appointed ends. God is not entombed in his 
 works. That vital touch, which the bier felt and sent into the 
 quickened youth, touches all things and they live unto God. 
 Forms are his pliant investiture. Laws are the currents of his 
 will, flowing towards the ends of his reason. The breast of 
 universal nature glows with his warmth. It enlivens even the 
 grave, and the believer's flesh, feeling the Lord of the resur- 
 rection by, resteth in hope. When we reduce the work of the 
 Spirit then in man, to a branch of the divine omnipresence, we 
 seem, on the other part, to hear the eternal voice lift up itself 
 to the worlds also, the forms, the forces, and thunder their 
 holy inaugural through the burnished pillars of the universe, 
 saying, " Know ye not, that ye are the temple of the living 
 God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you "! 
 
 But observe more distinctly, the doctrine of God's omnipres- 
 ence does not affirm, that he is present to all things in the same 
 sense. Presence being identical with act and sway, it has of 
 course this law in itself, that God is present to each thing ac-
 
 128 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OF 
 
 cording to what it is, and according to what he is doing with 
 it. Thus he is present to matter as matter and not as mind, 
 molding its forms, constructing its incidents. To vegetable 
 natures he is present according to what they are, and according 
 to their several growths and kinds. So to a man he is present 
 as animate in body, in spirit an image of himself! If man falls 
 into sin, he is then present to him as a sinner, offended by his 
 transgressions and averse to his character. If he undertake to 
 redeem, he is then present as prosecuting such an object ; con- 
 vincing of sin, righteousness and a judgment to come. And 
 now, if any one is brought to repentance, God is present to him 
 in a still more intimate and glorious way. In all the orders of 
 created being before named, God has found nothing to recipro- 
 cate his moral feelings; but here he finds something which 
 suits and sympathizes with his joys, his principles, his whole 
 spirit. Here his holiness enters into a resting place and a con- 
 genial hospitality. He calls it his home, his palace, his sanc- 
 tuary, and there he dwells, bestowing the cherishments of a 
 God in friendship. This, by way of eminence, is called the 
 indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But here the great law of om- 
 nipresence still pertains, God is present to believers accord- 
 ing to their character, their times, their works, their wants, 
 and the great result he purposes to bring them to. We are to 
 expect, of course, that there will be great variety in the man- 
 ner of his presence, or, what is the same, in the kind of act 
 and sway he will exert in them, He will strengthen what i.< 
 good, fan out what is evil, shed peace, impart knowledge and 
 understanding, invigorate hope, stimulate, try, purify, in a 
 word, he will order his agency in every way so as to commu- 
 nicate more of himself to them, and complete them in his like- 
 ness. So Paul, contemplating the Spirit in believers under the 
 figure of an air-medium, common, or present, both to the di- 
 vine mind and to ours, says, "the Spirit searcheth all things, 
 yea, the deep things of God." Like some breath of wind, 
 which has passed through fragrant trees and banks of flowers,
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 129 
 
 searching them and bringing grateful flavors of them ; so the 
 all-present Spirit ever wafts upon us the deep things, the 
 hidden fragrance and the treasured sweetness of the divine 
 nature. 
 
 The doctrine of divine agency in men amounts, then, to 
 this, that God is present to men, according to what they are 
 and his purposes in them, just as he is present to material na- 
 tures, according to what they are and what he will do with 
 them. No man who believes in the divine omnipresence, the 
 universal act and sway of God, can reasonably question the 
 work of the spirit in men. So far from being any presumptu- 
 ous claim in us, to think, that God works in us to will and to 
 do, that he may mold us unto himself, it is rather presumptu- 
 ous to question it. To believe, that God is present in act and 
 sway to the vital functions of a finger, and not to a mind, or 
 the character and welfare of a mind, is to reverse all notion of 
 justness and real dignity in the divine counsels. 
 
 If these reasonings concerning the doctrine of divine agency 
 are somewhat dry and abstruse to the general reader, it is yet 
 hoped, that such as are more practiced in questions of this sort, 
 will have a higher estimate of their importance. They enable 
 us to enter on the spiritual economy of revivals at a great ad- 
 vantage, and from ground high enough to command the whole 
 field. 
 
 It is too readily conceded, indeed it is often stoutly insisted 
 on, even by those who may be called extreme revivalists, that 
 every thing of a periodical or temporary nature in religion, is, 
 of course, dishonorable and suspicious. The adversaries of 
 revivals are ready, of course, to coincide. Further, they are 
 specially offended, when it is claimed, that God exercises any 
 temporary or periodical sway in men. In their view it is noth- 
 ing but a weak conceit, or the dream of a wild enthusiasm, 
 when God is supposed to be specially operative, in the conver-
 
 130 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OP 
 
 sion of men, at any particular time and place, or in any single 
 community. 
 
 But if a periodical agency be so derogatory to God's honor, 
 what shall be thought of the seasons, the intervals of drought 
 and rain, and all the revolving cycles of outward change? If 
 the adversaries of revivals believe in God's omnipresence, is 
 there not a presence of act in all these things, according to their 
 nature and his purpose in them, as there is supposed to be in 
 the spiritual changes which affect communities 1 On their prin- 
 ciple, nature ought to perfect her growths in the scorchings of 
 an eternal sun, or in the drenchings of an everlasting rain, and 
 the flowers ought to stand, from age to age, changeless as pet- 
 rifactions. They ought to see, from year to year, the same 
 clouds in the same shapes glued fast upon the sky, and the same 
 wind everlastingly exact to a degree of their thermometer, ought 
 to blow upon them. But no, nature is multiform and various on 
 every side. She is never doing exactly the same thing, at one 
 time, which she has done at another. She brings forth all her 
 bounties by inconstant applications and cherishments endlessly 
 varied. A single thought extended in this direction, were 
 enough,it would seem, to show us, that while God is unchange- 
 able, he is yet infinitely various, unchangeable in his purposes, 
 various in his means. 
 
 Is it said, that God however acts in nature by general laws? 
 So doubtless he does in the periodical and various cultivation 
 of his Spirit. All God's works and agencies are embraced and 
 wrought into one comprehensive system, by laws. (Even mir- 
 acles themselves, are credible only as being, in some sense, 
 subject to laws.) But he is no less the author of variety, that 
 he produces variety by system. 
 
 Is it said, that God produces the changes of nature by second 
 causes ? Is it meant, we ask in reply, to deny God's omnipres- 
 ence? Having instituted second causes to manage for him, 
 has the divine nature gone upon a journey, or is it, perad ven- 
 ture, asleep? Or is God still present, (present, remember, by
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 131 
 
 act and sway,) inhabiting all changes ? The notion of a second 
 cause in nature, consistent with the divine omnipresence. 
 meaning any thing by the term, it is somewhat difficult to 
 frame. And as God's omnipresence is an undoubted truth, it 
 " i better and more philosophic not to displace it, by one that is 
 Joubtful. 
 
 But we pass on. And it is instructing to advert as we pass, 
 to the various and periodical changes of temperament which 
 affect men in other matters than religion. Sometimes one sub- 
 ject has a peculiar interest to the mind, sometimes another. 
 Sometimes the feelings chime with music, which at others is 
 not agreeable. Society of a given tone is shunned to-day, 
 though eagerly sought yesterday. These fluctuations are 
 epidemical, too, extending to whole communities, and infecting 
 them with an ephemeral interest in various subjects, which 
 afterwards they wonder at themselves, and can in no way 
 recall. No observing public speaker ever failed to be con- 
 vinced, that man is a being, mentally, of moods and phases, 
 which it were as vain to attempt the control of, as to push 
 aside the stars. These fluctuations, or mental tides, are due, 
 perhaps, to physical changes, and perhaps not. They roll 
 round the earth like invisible waves, and the chemist and phy- 
 sician tax their skill in vain to find the subtle powers that 
 sway us. We only know, that God is present to these fluctu- 
 ations, whatever their real nature, and that they are all inhab- 
 ited by the divine power. Is it incredible, then, that this same 
 divine power should produce periodical influences in the matter 
 of religion, times of peculiar, various, and periodical interest 1 
 For ourselves we are obliged to confess, that we strongly sus- 
 pect that sort of religion which boasts of no excitements, no 
 temporary and changing states ; for we observe that it is only 
 towards nothing, or about nothing, that we have always the 
 same feeling. 
 Need we say, again, that progress towards some end, which
 
 132 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OP 
 
 is the law of all God's works and agencies, necessarily involves 
 variety and change. Spring, for example is the first stage of a 
 progress. The newness, therefore, of spring, the first begin- 
 nings of growth, must wax old and change their habit. So it is 
 impossible, that the first feelings of religious interest in the 
 heart should remain. There is a degree of excitation in the 
 strangeness of new feelings, and so likewise in the early scenes 
 of a revival of religion, which belongs to their novelty, and 
 which is by no means inconsiderable or improper. Such is hu- 
 man nature, that it could not be otherwise. In fact, there is no 
 reason to doubt, that God, in framing the plan or system of his 
 spiritual agencies, ordained fluctuations and changing types of 
 spiritual exercise, that he might take advantage, at intervals, 
 of novelty in arresting and swaying the minds of men. These 
 are the spring-times of his truth, otherwise in danger of uni- 
 form staleness. Thus he rouses the spiritual lethargy of men 
 and communities and sways their will to himself, by aid of 
 scenes and manifestations not ordinary or familiar. Nor is it 
 any thing derogatory to the divine agency in the case, that the 
 spiritual spring cannot remain perpetual ; for there is a pro- 
 gress in God's works, and he goes on through change and 
 multiform culture to ripen his ends. Doubtless, too, there may 
 be a degree of sound feeling, apart from all novelty, in a revi- 
 val of religion, which human nature is incompetent perma- 
 nently to sustain ; just as one may have a degree of intellec- 
 tual excitement and intensity of operation, which he cannot 
 sustain, but which is nevertheless a sound and healthy activity. 
 In writing a sermon, for example, every minister draws on a 
 fund of excitability, which he knows cannot be kept up beyond 
 a certain bound, and this without any derogation from his pro- 
 per sanity. 
 
 But we come to a stage in the subject, where the advantage 
 of our doctrine of spiritual agency is to be more manifest. God 
 has a given purpose to execute, we have said, in those who 
 have entered on the religious life, viz., to produce character
 
 REVIVALS OP RELIGION. 133 
 
 in them. To this end he dwells in them, and this is the object 
 of 'his spiritual culture. And here, at the beginning, he encoun- 
 ters the general truth, that varieties of experience and exer- 
 cise are necessary to the religious character. How then shall 
 he adjust the scale of his action, if not to produce all such vari- 
 eties as are necessary for his object? We have just remarked 
 on the changes of temperament in men and communities, by 
 which now one, now another theme is brought to find a respon- 
 sive note of interest What is the end of this ? Obviously it 
 is, that we may be practiced in all the many colored varieties 
 of feeling, and led over a wide empire of experience. Were it 
 not for this, or if men were to live on, from childhood to the 
 grave, in the same mood of feeling, and holding fast to the 
 same unvarying topic of interest, they would grow to be little 
 more than animals of one thought. To prevent which, and 
 rip en what we call natural character to extension and matu- 
 rity, God is ever leading us round and round invisibly, by new 
 successions of providence and new affinities of feeling. Pre- 
 cisely the same necessity requires, that religious character be 
 trained up under varieties of experience, and shaped on all 
 sides by manifold workings of the Spirit. Now excitements 
 must be applied to kindle, now checks to inspire caution or invig- 
 orate dependence. Now the intellect must be fed by a season 
 of study and reflection ; now the affections freshened by a sea- 
 son of social and glowing ardor. By one means bad habits are 
 to be broken up, by another good habits consolidated. Love, it 
 is true, must reign in the heart through all such varieties ; but 
 the principle of supreme love is one, that can subsist in a thou- 
 sand different connections of interest and temperaments of feel- 
 ing. At one time it demands for its music a chorus of swelling 
 voices, to bear aloft its exulting testimony of praise; at another 
 it may chime rather with the soft and melancholy wail just 
 dying on its ear. And so, in like manner, it needs a diversity 
 of times, exercises, duties and holy pleasures. It needs, and 
 12
 
 134 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OP 
 
 for that reason it has, not only revivals and times of tranquillity, 
 but every sort of revival, every sort of tranquility. Sometimes 
 we are revived individually, sometimes as churches, sometimes 
 ae a whole people, and we have all degrees of excitation, all 
 manner of incidents. Our more tranquil periods are sometimes 
 specially occupied, or ought to be, in the correction of evil 
 habits ; or we are particularly interested in the study of reli- 
 gious doctrines necessary to the vigor of our growth and use- 
 fulness; or we are interested to acquire useful knowledge of a 
 more general nature, in order to our public influence, and the 
 efficient discharge of our offices. In revivals we generally pre- 
 fer the more social spheres of religious exercise ; so now the 
 more private and solitary experiences may be cultivated. 
 Such is the various travail, which God has given to the sons of 
 men, to be exercised therewith. 
 
 Another end prosecuted by the Spirit, in his work, is the 
 empowering of the Christian body, and the extension of good, 
 through them and otherwise, to the hearts of others. Here 
 also there is no doubt, that changes and seasons of various ex- 
 ercise, like these called revivals, add to the real power of the 
 faith. We are so prone to think nothing of that which always 
 wears exactly the same color and look, that holiness itself need 
 to change its habit and voice to command notice, or impress 
 itself on the attention. The power too of the Christian body 
 rests, in the main, on its appearing to the world to be inhabited 
 and swayed by an agency above nature. And this can never 
 appear, except by means of changes and periodical exaltations 
 therein. Nature would make no manifestation of him who 
 dwells in her forms, if all stood motionless ; if the sun stood fast 
 and clear in everlasting noon ; if there were no births, decays, 
 explosions, surprises. Nature is called the garment of the 
 Almighty, but if there were no motion under the garment, it 
 would seem a shroud rather than a garment of life. God is 
 manifested in nature by the wheeling spheres, light, shade, 
 tranquility, storm, all the beauties and terrors of time. So the
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 135 
 
 Spirit will reveal his divine presence through the church, by 
 times of holy excitement, times of reflection, times of solitary 
 communion, times of patient hope. A church standing always 
 in the same exact posture and mold of aspect, would be only a 
 pillar of salt in the eyes of men, it would attract no attention, 
 reveal no inhabitation of God's power. But suppose, that now, 
 in a period of no social excitement, it is seen to be growing in 
 attachment to the bible and the house of God, storing itself 
 with divine or useful knowledge, manifesting a heavenly-mind- 
 ed habit in the midst of a general rage for gain, devising plans 
 of charity to the poor and afflicted, relbrming offensive habits 
 chastening bosom sins, suppose, in short, that principles 
 adopted in a former revival are seen to hold fast as principles, 
 to prove their reality and unfold their beauty, when there is no 
 longer any excitement to sustain them, here the worth and 
 reality of religious principles are established. And now let the 
 Spirit move this solid enginery once more into glowing activ- 
 ity, let the church, thus strengthened, be lifted into spiritual 
 courage and exaltation, and its every look and act will seem to 
 be inhabited by a divine power, it will be as the chariot of 
 God, and before it even stubbornness will tremble. 
 
 We have spoken already of the probable fact, that God has 
 designed to take advantage of novelty in his plan of spiritual 
 action. Quite as great an addition is made to the efficacy of 
 his operations, by the advantage he takes of the social instincts 
 of men. There is no impression which is not powerfully aug- 
 mented by participation. What a community, what a crowded 
 assembly feels is powerfully felt. Hence it is an article of the 
 divine economy in revivals, that whole communities shall be 
 moved together, as it were by common gales of the Spirit. 
 The hold thus taken of men is powerful, often to a degree 
 even tremendous, and many a covenant with death is disan- 
 nulled which no uniform or unvaried tenor of divine agency, 
 no mere personal and private dealing of the Sprit, would ever 
 have shaken.
 
 136 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OF 
 
 There is one more advantage taken of men by periodical or 
 temporary dispensations, in the very fact, that they are tempo- 
 rary. The judgment and observation of many who preach the 
 gospel will bear us witness, that the certainty felt by those 
 who are at any time enlightened and drawn by the Spirit, that 
 they will not long be dealt with in the same manner as now, 
 that by delay they may dismiss the present grace, and lose the 
 most favored moment given them to secure their salvation, is 
 the strongest and most urgent of all motives. This, in fact, is 
 absolutely requisite to the stress and cogency of all means and 
 agencies. Such is the procrastinating spirit of men, so fast 
 bound are they in the love of sin, that however deeply they 
 may feel their own guilty and lost estate, nothing but the fact 
 that God is now giving them opportunities and aids which are 
 peculiar and temporary, would ever foreclose delay. We need 
 look no farther to see the folly of supposing, that God must not 
 act periodically or variously, if he act at all, in renewing men. 
 Why act uniformly when it would defeat all the ends of action ? 
 
 This attempt to exhibit the spiritual economy of God in revi- 
 vals, might be prosecuted much farther. It would be useful, 
 too, if we could stop here to admire the wisdom of God's spirit- 
 ual husbandry, the systematic grandeur with which he com- 
 passes all his ends, and the illustrious honor, that shines in his 
 works of grace. 
 
 But we must hasten forward. And here, on the second side, 
 or the side of dishonor, we pass to views and exhibitions less 
 agreeable, though not, we hope, less welcome. 
 
 We should be sorry, if in what we have advanced, a shadow 
 of countenance has been given to the impression that the 
 Christian is allowed, at some times, to be less religious than at 
 others. He is under God's authority and bound by his law at 
 all times. He must answer to God for each moment and 
 thought of his life. His covenant oath consecrates all his life
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 137 
 
 to God, and stipulates for no intermission of service. At no 
 time can he shrink from religious obligation, without dishonor 
 to his good faith, together with a loss of character and of God's 
 favor. Furthermore still, it is his duty and privilege ever to be 
 filled with the Spirit. The believer is one chosen for his in- 
 dwelling. He is consecrated to be the divine temple, and God 
 will never leave his temple, except he is driven away by profa- 
 nationgrieved away. "I have somewhat against thee," 
 said the Saviour, "because thou hast left thy first love." He 
 did not require, of course, that the novelty and first excitement 
 of feeling should last, but that love, the. real principle of love, 
 should lose ground in them was criminal. Let us not be mis- 
 taken. The Christian is as much under obligation at one time 
 as at another, though not under obligation to be ever doing 
 the same things no intermission, no wavering or slackness 
 is permitted him ; nay, he is bound *to increase, or gather 
 strength in his religious principles, every day and hour of his 
 existence. 
 
 But how shall we harmonize this with what we have ad- 
 vanced in the first side of our subject? The answer is this 
 God favors and appoints different moods or kinds of religious 
 interest, but not backslidings, or declensions of religious prin- 
 ciple. There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit. 
 There are diversities of operation, but it is the same God 
 which worketh all and in all. There is a common mistake of 
 supposing that the Spirit of God is present in times only of re- 
 ligious exaltation, or if it be true, that such need be the case. 
 It is conceivable, that He may be doing as glorious a work in the 
 soul, when there is but a very gentle, or almost no excitement 
 of feeling. He may now be leading the mind after instruction, 
 teaching the believer how to collect himself and establish a 
 regimen over his lawless will and passions, searching the 
 motives, inducing a habit of reflection, teaching how to carry 
 principles without excitement, drawing more into communion 
 12*
 
 138 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OP 
 
 perhaps with God, and less for the time with men. And while 
 he conducts the disciple through these rounds of heavenly dis- 
 cipline, we are by no means to think, that he is, of course, less 
 religious, or has less supreme love to God, than he had in the 
 more fervid season of revival. A soldier is as much a soldier 
 when he encamps as when he fights, when he stands with his 
 loins girt about, and his feet shod with the preparation, as 
 when he quenches the fiery darts of the enemy. The Chris- 
 tian warfare is not all battle. There are times in it for polish- 
 ing the armor, forming the tactics, and feeding the vigor of 
 the host. 
 
 These remarks bring us to conclude, that there is, in what 
 we call revivals of religion, something of a periodical nature, 
 which belongs to the appointed plan of God in his moral opera- 
 tions ; but as far as they are what the name imports, revivals 
 of religion, that is, of* the principle of love and obedience, 
 they are linked with dishonor ; so far they are made necessary 
 by the instability and bad faith of Christ's disciples. But here 
 it must be noted, that the dishonor does not belong to the revi- 
 val, but to the decay of principle in the disciple, which needs 
 reviving. There ought to be no declension of real principle; 
 but if there is, no dishonor attaches to God in recovering his 
 disciple from it, but the more illustrious honor. Thus it is very 
 often true, when a revival seems to have an extreme character, 
 that the fact is due, not to the real state produced, but to the 
 previous fall, the dearth and desolation with which it is con- 
 trasted. And commonly, if the ridicule, thrown upon a revi- 
 val, were thrown upon the worldliness, the dishonorable loose- 
 ness of life and principle which preceded, it would not be 
 misplaced. 
 
 We now pass on to a stage, in which dishonor attaches to 
 the scene of revival itself. This is when it takes an extreme 
 character, which is not given it by the Spirit of God, but origi- 
 nates in some mistake of opinion, or extravagance of conduct 
 in the subjects and conductors. We cannot pretend here to
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 139 
 
 specify every sort of error which may vitiate a revival, or give 
 it an extreme character ; but we will note a few leading mis- 
 takes which have a prevalent influence. 
 
 And a capital mistake is that of supposing, that we ought to 
 have a revival, so called, or the exact mood of a revival, at all 
 times. It is taken for granted, when the peculiar fervor of the 
 work begins to abate, that the disciples are sinking into sloth 
 and criminal decay, and never, that the Spirit is now giving a 
 varied complexion to his work. Prodigious efforts are made 
 to rally the church to renewed activity. The voice of suppli- 
 cation is tried. But all in vain, it is praying against God and 
 nature, and must be vain. Not, that it must be vain in every 
 case ; but only in cases where God's plan is otherwise ordered, 
 or where the natural excitabilities of the church are so far ex- 
 hausted as to demand a different sort of exercise. Effort spent 
 in this way, produces additional exhaustion and discourage- 
 ment. A tedious intermission of life follows. At length the 
 susceptibilities of nature to excitement and attention recruit 
 themselves, as by a very long sleep, and there flames out an- 
 other period of over-worked zeal to be succeeded as before. 
 If, instead of such a course, the disciple was taught, as the 
 revival, so called, declines, that God is now leading him into a 
 new variety of spiritual experience, where he has duties to dis- 
 charge, as clear, as high, as in the revival itself; if he were 
 encouraged to feel, that God is still with him ; if he were shown 
 what to do and how to improve the new variety of state, 
 taught the art of growth in the long run, how to make the 
 dews, the rain, the sun, and the night, all lend their aid alike ; 
 in a word, if he were taught the great Christian art of discern- 
 ing the mind of the Spirit, so that he shall be ever pliant 
 thereto, and not to pass reluctantly into his progressive moods 
 of culture and duty ; can any one fail to see, that extremities 
 of action would thus be greatly reduced ? He has not some 
 etrained and forced sort of religion to live always, which, after
 
 140 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OF 
 
 all, no straining or forcing can make live. The pendulum 
 swings in smaller vibrations. There is no wide chasm of dis- 
 honor, no strained pitch of extravagance, but only a sacred 
 ebb and flow of various but healthful zeal. It is the great evil 
 in that sort of teaching, which insists on the duty of being 
 always in what is called a revival state, that it tries to force an 
 impossible religion. The supposed obligation is assented to, 
 and the Christian struggles hard to answer it. But nature 
 struggles against him, being utterly unable to keep up such a 
 state. At length he yields, in a perplexed and half-despairing 
 manner, not knowing what it means. Still he owns very duti- 
 fully, that it is his sin, and as he tries no more to avoid it, he 
 seems to himself to be sinning by actual and daily consent ; 
 and this becomes in fact the real temper of his heart. He 
 gives over all care of his spirit, violates his conscience in other 
 ways, since he must do it in one, and sinks into extreme 
 declension. More judicious views of duty would have saved 
 him. 
 
 The feeling, extensively prevalent, that if any thing is to be 
 done in religion, some great operation must be started, is an- 
 other pernicious mistake. The ordinary must give way to the 
 extraordinary. Machinery must be constructed, and a grand 
 palpable onset moved. Let it not be suspected that we are 
 afraid of all stir and excitement. The views advanced in the 
 former part of our subject should teach us higher wisdom. 
 The greatest and best actions have ever been performed in 
 stages of excited feeling and high personal exaltation. Noth- 
 ing was ever achieved, in the way of a great and radical 
 change in men or communities, without some degree of excite- 
 ment ; and if any one expects to carry on the cause of salva- 
 tion, by a steady rolling on the same dead level, and fears con- 
 tinually lest the axles wax hot and kindle into a flame, he is 
 too timorous to hold the reins in the Lord's chariot. What we 
 complain of and resist is, the artificial firework, the extraordi-
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION 141 
 
 nary, combined jump and stir, supposed to be requisite when 
 any thing is to be done. It seems often not to be known, that 
 there is a more efficacious way, and that the extraordinary got 
 up, in action, as in rhetoric, is impotence itself. It must come 
 to pass naturally, or emerge as a natural crisis of the ordinary, 
 if it is to have any consequence. How often would the minis- 
 ter of Christ, for example, who is trying to marshal a move- 
 ment, do a more effectual work in simply reviewing his own 
 deficiences of heart and duty, charging himself anew with his 
 responsibilities, and devoting himself more faithfully to his peo- 
 ple and to God's whole truth. A secret work thus begun, is 
 enough to heave in due time, a whole community ; and it is the 
 more powerful, because it moves in the legitimate order of 
 action. It begins, bowing to duty first and chief, and leaves 
 results for the most part to come in their natural shape. It 
 works in the hand of God, trustfully, humbly, pertinaciously, 
 and following whithersoever he leads. And when God leads 
 his servant, as certainly he will, into a crisis of great moment, 
 he is in it naturally, he molds it unto himself, as if constituted 
 for the time to be its presiding power. 
 
 Where too much is made of conversions, or where they are 
 taken as the measure of all good, it has a very injurious influ- 
 ence. The saying constantly repeated and without qualifica- 
 tion, that it is the great business of the gospel and of Christian 
 effort to convert men, has about as much error as truth in it. 
 As well might it be said, that the great business of travelers is 
 to set out on journeys. The great business of the gospel is to 
 form men to God. Conversion, if it be any thing which it 
 ought to be, is the beginning of the work, and the convert is a 
 disciple, a scholar, just beginning to learn. If all the attention 
 of the church then be drawn to the single point of securing con- 
 versions, without any regard to the ripening of them ; if it be 
 supposed, that nothing is of course doing when there are no 
 conversions ; if there is no thought of cultivation, no valuation 
 of knowledge and character, no conviction of the truth, that
 
 142 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OP 
 
 one Christian well formed and taken care of is worth a hundred 
 mere beginners, who are in danger perhaps of proving, that 
 they never begun at all; if revivals themselves are graduated 
 in their value, only by the number of converts, and Christians 
 in declension are called to repentance only for the sake of the 
 unconverted public ; the whole strain of movement and im- 
 pression is one-sided, distorted, and tinctured with inherent 
 extravagance. 
 
 We name only one more mistake having a pernicious influ- 
 ence on the character of revivals, which is, the want of a judi- 
 cious estimate of the advantages to be gained, in times of non- 
 revival. This is the great practical error of our times. Let 
 it startle no one, if we declare our conviction, that religion has 
 as deep an interest in the proper conduct of times of non-revi- 
 val, as in these periods of glowing excitement. For many reli- 
 gious purposes, and. those not the least important, a revival is 
 less advantageous than other times. There is very little trial 
 of principle in a revival, as is proved by facts always devel- 
 oped afterwards, in some of the brightest exam pies of supposed 
 conversion. The time, pre-eminently the time to strengthen 
 principle and consolidate character, is, when there is no public 
 excitement. And for this reason, God's spiritual husbandry 
 includes such times, and makes them so prolonged as to consti- 
 tute the greater part of life, showing very conclusively the esti- 
 mate he has of them. At such times, the disciple is occupied 
 more in study and doctrine, in self-inspection, in contemplation 
 of God, in acting from principle separately from impulse. In 
 times of revival, foundations are broken up, and new impulses 
 received; row, those impulses are consolidated into principle, 
 and permanently enthroned in the heart. This, at least, ought 
 to be so. And because it is not, revivals, when they come, 
 have less power, and a more limited sphere of influence. They 
 are looked on, often, by those who weigh their effects, as only 
 shallow frets of excitement, and in many cases, none but the 
 less considerate and feebler class of minds feel their power.
 
 REVIVALS OF REEIGION. 143 
 
 Let not the'intervals of revival be undervalued, or the duties 
 belonging to them discs teemed. Great occasions are not ne- 
 cess iry to good actions. To every thing there is a season, and 
 a time to every purpose under the sun. HE HATH MADE EVERY 
 
 THING BEAUTIFUL IN HIS TIME. 
 
 We have thus attempted to ascertain the divine economy in 
 revivals of religion. We see them to be in no degree desul- 
 tory, except as they partake of human errors and infirmities. 
 They lie imbedded in that great system of universal being and 
 event, which the divine omnipresence fills, actuates and warms. 
 Here they are cherished, and will be, as long as the redemp- 
 tion of man is dear to the eternal heart, and constitutes one of 
 the ends of God's pursuit. As the gospel is enlarged in the 
 world, and the Christian mind enlightened, they will gradually 
 lose their extremities and dishonorable incidents, and will con- 
 stitute an ebb and flow, measured only by the pulses of the 
 Spirit. The church will then make a glowing, various and 
 happy impression. Her armor, though changed, will always 
 shine, and will have a celestial temper in it. Changing her 
 front, she will yet always present a host clad in the full panoply 
 of God. 
 
 But really to act on views like these, and give them their 
 legitimate effect, would require the ministry, or many of them, 
 to change somewhat the tone, and enlarge the sphere of their 
 instructions. Many would need to acquire a nicer, more com- 
 plete and proportional sense of character themselves, and thus 
 learn to go beyond the line of exercises which only urge repen- 
 tance, and test the state of their people. By this confined 
 method, this continual beating on the same spot, they only pro- 
 duce a sense of soreness, which recoils from their attempts. It 
 were only necessary to open the epistles of Paul, we should 
 suppose, to see, that he moved into a range of topics and du- 
 ties which find no place in the concern of many modern preach- 
 ers, discontent, envy, anger, jealousy, ambition, gentleness,
 
 144 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY OF 
 
 purity, modesty, decency, candor, industry, a catalogue that 
 cannot be recited. We see at once, that he does not regard the 
 religious character in his converts as a thing by itself, a con- 
 version well tested and followed by a few duties specially reli- 
 gious. He considered the whole character of the disciple, 
 mind, manners, habits, principles, as the Lord's property. 
 He felt that the gospel was intended and fitted to act on every 
 thing evil and ungraceful in man's character, and applied it to 
 that purpose. And thus he sought to present his disciples per- 
 fect and complete in all the will of God, a much more difficult 
 and laborious way of preaching than the one to which indo- 
 lence, we fear, now adds prevalence. Let the minister of truth, 
 then, occupy such intervals as are suitable, and which we have 
 supposed to be ordered of the Spirit for that purpose, in forming 
 the character of his people to things lovely and of good report. 
 Let him take advantage of scripture history, and especially of 
 the history of Christ's life and manners, to draw out illustra- 
 tions of character, and beget what is so much needed by the 
 Christian body, a sense of character, of moral beauty and 
 completeness. Let him not use the parable of the talents al- 
 ways to enforce the duty of usefulness. Sometimes, at least, 
 let mention be made of doubling the talents, making the ten 
 twenty, the five ten. Let him follow the people into their busi- 
 ness, into their civil duties, and especially into their domestic 
 relations, shewing the manner in which children may be trained 
 up as Christians in the nurture of the Lord, seeking to sur- 
 round the Christian homes with Christian graces, teaching 
 how to make them pleasant to the youth, and at the same time 
 spiritually healthful. And let him do all this in the manner of 
 Paul or Oberlin, as a work of the Spirit, a work into which the 
 Holy Spirit leads him as truly as into any other. The tendrils 
 of the vines are small things, but yet they support the grapes. 
 In like manner this disposition to adorn the doctrine of Christ 
 by a nice obedience and a faithful copying of the Saviour, is that
 
 REVIVALS OP RELIGION. 145 
 
 which knits the Christian, tendril-like, to God's support. On 
 the other hand, the gross movement, always aiming at a chief 
 point of Christian character, without any care to finish a Chris- 
 tian conscience and a Christian taste, is only trying to make the 
 vines adhere by their trunks. 
 
 We are not without a sense of deep responsibility in giving 
 these views to the public. If they are misunderstood or mis- 
 applied, they may work incredible injury. We are anxious, 
 indeed, lest they be perverted to the justification of real declen- 
 sion from God and made to sanction a lower and perhaps more 
 inconstant piety than we now have. And yet we are sure that 
 they provide for a higher class of attainments, a more constant 
 growth towards God, and favor the preparation of a new order 
 of Christians who shall really walk by faith from year to year. 
 In showing the use and necessity of times of non revival, we 
 do not justify the present habit of Christian declension in these 
 intervals ; we rather show the sinfulness of it, that it is unne- 
 cessary, that it is a rank abuse of sacred means and privileges. 
 We make it possible for the Christian at such times to be as 
 holy, to do as good a work, to have the communion of God as 
 really as in a revival, and since it is possible to be done, it is 
 only faithlessness, without excuse, when it is otherwise. 
 
 Our doctrine naturally terminates here, in proving it to be 
 the great business and art of the Christian to watch for the 
 mind of the Spirit, and shape the life evermore pliantly thereto. 
 They that walk in the Spirit, shall be led by the Spirit; this 
 we firmly believe. Hence the Saviour was at great pains to 
 inculcate on the disciples, readiness, watching for their Lord's 
 coming, and observation of the signs of the times. And his 
 Spirit is to help their infirmity of discernment, and guide them 
 by his intercessions or inward intercourses, to such praying, 
 such work and occupations as are according to God's will. I 
 will guide thee with mine eye, is the sure declaration of God- 
 But in order to this, the Christian must look at the indications 
 
 of his eye ; and in order to this he must have a single eye him- 
 13
 
 146 SPIRITUAL ECONOMY, tc. 
 
 self. He must walk by faith, he must never acquiesce in sin, 
 he must never allow the world to get dominion over him. Do- 
 ing this, he will be directed what to do, where to go, exercised 
 in the best ways, perform the best service. The EYE OF THE 
 LORD will lead him about through all the rounds of the Spirit, 
 and the glory of the divine holiness will ever encompass him. 
 
 O Christian ! man renewed by grace, dost thou indeed be- 
 lieve that God inhabits thee with his holiness, and makes thee 
 his temple ? Be thou then a temple indeed, a sacred place to 
 him. Exclude covetousness ; make not thy Father's house a 
 house of merchandize; deem every sin a sacrilege. Let all 
 thy thoughts within, like white robed priests, move round the 
 altar and keep the fire burning. Let thine affections be always 
 a cloud, filling the room and inwrapping thy priest-like 
 thoughts. Let thy hallowed desires be ever fanning the 
 mercy-seat with their wings.* 
 
 * As nine years have elapsed since this article was written, it is only just to 
 say that, while a more enlarged experience has confirmed the general correct- 
 ness of the reasonings, it has also shown me that parts of the article might easily 
 be improved by reconstruction. But as something would be lost by violating its 
 historical integrity, I have concluded to give it again to the public without impor- 
 tant modifications.
 
 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, THE TRUE METHOD OF 
 CHRISTIAN PROGRESS.* 
 
 To roll a snowball and to grow an oak are not the same 
 thing. Enlargement of volume is a result in both cases ; but be- 
 yond this, they have nothing in common. In one, the result is 
 wrought by an external force ; in the other, by a vital force 
 within. In one, the swelling bulk receives all that will adhere 
 to it, snow, mud, or gravel, as it may happen, forming a pro- 
 miscuous conglomerate mass ; in the other, the new matter is 
 carefully selected, taken up internally, digested, assimilated, 
 and built into an organic, vital whole. In the snowball, there 
 is, at no time, any internal power of production or self-enlarge- 
 ment. Not one of the particles in its cold body can it quicken 
 or fructify ; whereas in the tree there is a vital, self-active 
 power, which can work, feed, and send out the extensions of 
 growth, as long as it lives. 
 
 The same distinction holds in reference to every organic and 
 vital being ; it must have its increase by a law peculiar to vital 
 being, that is, by its own internal activity and a development from 
 within. Nor is this less true of the mind, or intellectual life, 
 than of animal and vegetable natures. There is no true en- 
 largement of the mind, no increase of intellectual stature, save 
 that which is wrought in and through the internal activity of 
 the mind itself. To be a receiver only of the world's knowl- 
 
 * From the New Englander of 1844, Vol. IL
 
 148 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 edge, to pile up the treasures of libraries in the memory, to 
 overlay the soul with borrowed ornaments, and crowd its ca- 
 pacity with borrowed opinions and arguments, is no better 
 than to swell the body and shape it into proportion, by laying 
 on muscles of cloth or of clay. The creative and mercurial 
 energies of the soul itself must be called into action, the man 
 himself must grow. He must learn to think, to wrestle with 
 difficulties; his inventive and critical powers must sharpen 
 their action. What he receives, he must receive as by diges- 
 tion, and build it into the body of his intellectual being, by a 
 process of internal assimilation. Otherwise his soul will only 
 lie entombed in its knowledge. 
 
 So also with piety or Christian character. It must be a 
 growth. Its increase and beauty must be wrought by the ac- 
 tivity of spiritual life. Fires will not burn it into the soul. 
 Statutes and penalties will not force it. Self-tortures and 
 penances will as little avail. Sacraments and formal obser- 
 vances will not, of themselves, accomplish more. Its being is 
 its life as a spiritual creature of God, quickened by his light and 
 warmed by his love. Its volume is in its exercise, its aims and 
 objects, its internal struggles and conquests; by which it grows 
 tip into Him in whom it lives, showing first the blade, then the 
 ear, and after that the full corn in the ear. 
 
 Thus far we have spoken only of those vital natures which 
 are individual. But the same law holds in respect to society, 
 at least in many of its forms. Society is vital and organic. 
 The family, for example, is a living creature, an organic whole, 
 having a power of unlimited increase in its own vital and pro- 
 lific nature. A single family, proceeding thus from one parent 
 stock, will suffice to people a nation, nay, it has sufficed to 
 people even the world itself. It is not like a foundling hospital, 
 which is peopled from without, by in;i ates gathered from the 
 streets, and by no laws of production within its own nature ;
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. J4Q 
 
 but it is one regular coherent growth, a vital organism, unfold- 
 ing itself till it fills a nation or a world. 
 
 The same truth holds with suitable modifications, in the 
 civil state. The true increase of a nation is not that which is 
 made by conquest and plunder, but that which is the simple 
 development of its vital and prolific resources. Two centuries 
 ago, there came over to these western shores a few thousand 
 men. These were the germ of a great nation here to arise 
 and come into the public history of the world, possibly as a 
 leading member. Potentially speaking, these men had in them- 
 selves, that is, in their persons, their principles, their habits 
 and other resources, all that now is or is yet to be of power 
 and greatness in our republic. They went to work with a de- 
 gree of spirit and energy never before exhibited. Habits of 
 virtuous and frugal industry were unfolded by a wise and care- 
 ful training. Simplicity of manners, for the first time, appeared, 
 not as a barbaric virtue, but as the proper fruit of simplicity in 
 religion. The mental vigor, produced by the same causes, was 
 yet further sharpened by the necessities of a new state of exist- 
 ence. Population multiplied, wealth increased, the forest fell 
 away at the sound of their axes, the natives retired before the 
 potent and prolific energy of Saxon life, as before the Great 
 Spirit himself. Cities rose upon the shores, the waters whit- 
 ened to the sun under the sails of commerce, the civil order 
 unfolded itself, as it were naturally, from the germ that blos- 
 somed in the May Flower, and, behold, a great, wealthy, pow- 
 erful and free nation stalks into history with the tread of a 
 giant, fastening the astonished gaze of the world, all in the 
 Avay of simple growth ! We have made no conquests. We 
 have only unfolded our original germ, the mustard seed of our 
 first colonization. There is no other kind of national advance- 
 ment which is legitimate or safe. The civil order must grow 
 as a creature of life, and unfold itself from within. If a nation 
 
 will suddenly extend its boundaries and build up its splendor by 
 13*
 
 150 GROWTH, XOT CONQUEST, 
 
 conquest, as in the case of the Roman empire, or in the subju- 
 gation of Mexico by Spain, how different is the spectacle. The 
 elements of the civil order, being piled together by mere accre- 
 tion, are without coherency or unity. The public life does not 
 fill the public mass, and, without the organic power of life, it is 
 ready to fall to pieces at the earliest moment. Wealth itself is 
 poverty ; power is weakness ; breadth is dissipation; numbers, 
 discontent and anarchy. A nation built by growth is as differ- 
 ent from a nation built by conquest, as the tree that stands 
 erect, filled with vital sap, covered with joyful verdure, and, 
 when the winter comes, tossing its bare arms victoriously to 
 the storm, from a pile of drift-wood which the floods have 
 heaped upon the shore to rot and perish. Accordingly the very 
 word nation implies a nascent order and growth. It is no such 
 pile of ruins as the external accidents of force and conquest 
 may construct ; but it is a birth, the unfolding of a vital germ 
 through population, industry, art, literature, law and religion. 
 
 These illustrations bring us to the church of God. They 
 are offered with no other design than to show forth, in a clear, 
 intelligible manner, and, as far as their analogy will go, to 
 substantiate a great and momentous truth, in regard to the 
 increase of the church and the spread of the gospel, of which 
 the church is the embodiment. According to the opinion of 
 Christ himself, the church is as a grain of mustard seed, and 
 its future spread is to be as the growth of a tree. It is a crea- 
 ture whose vitality is spiritual life, and it can have its increase 
 only by the same law which pertains in all organic living 
 bodies, that is by development from within, not by external ac- 
 cretion. It must be, not as the snowball, not as the foundling 
 hospital, not as the empire hewn out by conquest, but as the 
 tree rather, the family, the nation, growing by its own internal 
 life. 
 
 There is no truth, which the church has, in all past times, 
 been so prone to overlook, or in the neglect of which she has
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. J51 
 
 suffered so many and terrible disasters. In fact, almost all the 
 desolations which have befallen the purity and success of the 
 church, have been wrought by attempts to propagate religion 
 and extend the reign of Christ, by forces and instruments that 
 were really external to the church, and not by virtue of spirit- 
 ual life in her own bosom. And if other desolations are here- 
 after to follow, as we have too much reason to fear, these also 
 will flow from the same fountain of mischief. And therefore it 
 becomes the church, now that she has undertaken in earnest 
 to achieve the universal reign of the Redeemer, to inquire 
 most carefully whether she is expecting to succeed, by the vital 
 power of her piety and by unfolding her own internal growth, 
 or by the clumsy expedients of mechanism and by instruments 
 that are carnal. 
 
 That, we may have our eyes opened to the fearful dangers 
 that beset the church, in her proneness to go after external 
 means and instruments, let us glance a moment at some of the 
 mischiefs she has suffered from this source. 
 
 First of all, she was seduced from her purity by an expecta- 
 tion of the splendid results to be secured by a union with philo- 
 sophy. Christianity, the doctrine of Christ and him crucified, 
 was true indeed, a good and heavenly truth ; but it was too 
 naked and bald, too destitute of learning and philosophy, to 
 command the respect of the world. And what might not be 
 expected from a union of the Christian doctrine with the wis- 
 dom of the schools ! Then it would be both true and wise to- 
 gether both pious and profound ; and the whole world would 
 be obliged to accept it speedily! "We must give to the 
 Greeks," says Clement, "who ask for that wisdom which is 
 in esteem among them, such things as they are accustomed to." 
 Actuated by the same general design, the church was moved 
 to interweave her doctrine with all the various schemes of phi- 
 losophy current in the world. She went out unto the world, 
 to borrow the world's wisdom, that so she might gain the world.
 
 152 GROWTH, NOT COXdUEST, 
 
 One teacher led her into the embrace of Gnosticism. Another 
 wove her a dress out of the shreds and patches of the Greek 
 wisdom. The Alexandrian teachers toiled with incredible 
 industry, to melt her doctrine into harmony with all the 
 wisdom of all the schools of the world, promising thus to 
 evolve, as the result, a scheme of universal truth. Nor is it to 
 be denied that the church thus drew to her bosom many nomi- 
 nal converts. The snowball rolled up rapidly, and became a 
 tumid mass, amid the applauses of courts and schools ; till, at 
 length, it was found that Christianity was perishing under the 
 very means that were extending her nominal dominion. Inter- 
 pretation was become a jingle of conceits, truth a bundle of 
 metaphysical vagaries, and the church naught but a monstrous 
 aggregation of scholastic rubbish, without spiritual life or unity 
 a conglomerate mass of dead and putrid members. 
 
 Next the church, as if she had no power to live in herself, 
 courted the alliance and protection of the civil state. Princes 
 and thrones became her patrons, parliaments the guardians of 
 her orthodoxy, tithes and excises the resources of her existence, 
 prisons and tortures and fires and chariots of war the instru- 
 ments of her power. Here again, she spreads her empire, and 
 enrolls nations as her disciples. Only it is proved in the end, 
 that she herself has no existence save her name, no organic 
 life of her own, no power, no purity, no fructifying element. 
 The hand that molds her is not her own. The strength that 
 maintains her is external. If indeed she has become a great 
 tree, there is yet no internal sap in her trunk ; her branches are 
 stuck on by civil enactments, her leaves made to adhere by the 
 screws of torture, her flowers the garish, artificial ornaments 
 of state formalities. 
 
 In connection too with these endeavors to find a power out of 
 herself, whereby she might strengthen her dominion, the 
 church has also courted an influence which is mechanical. We 
 speak now of her endeavor to supply spiritual power by means
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 153 
 
 of a grand artificial machinery of forms. According to the 
 true idea of Christ in the economy of the gospel, the church ia 
 to unfold herself outwards from the principle of spiritual life 
 within. Forms reverse the order. They are resorted to as an 
 extraneous power, which is to react on the religious spirit of 
 the world, and build the church inward, as ii were, from with- 
 out. First the forms are established, set up as an outward 
 shell ; then the world is to be taken within this shell, to be 
 wrought upon by the external influence by which it is invested. 
 The church is thus to be built, not by a growth outward, but 
 by virtue of instruments on the outside which are purely me- 
 chanical bows, crosses, pictures, penances, vows, sacraments 
 of a physical power, washings, and other carnal ordinances. 
 Here again, as before, the effort is to make the church power- 
 ful, by virtue of something external to the church by in- 
 struments as purely mechanical as thumb-screws or prisons. 
 The church in fact becomes a great ecclesiastical factory, run- 
 ning its thousand wheels to shape and polish and rub and grind 
 the people into Christian disciples. The work is to begin on 
 the outside, and it is expected to operate inward, and form, in 
 this manner, a spiritual church of God. The result we know, 
 darkness instead of light, credulity instead of faith, penance in- 
 stead of repentance, superstition instead of piety, pride and 
 bigotry instead of benevolence to man, the keeping of saints' 
 days instead of the spirit of saints, triumphal pomps instead of 
 spiritual liberty. 
 
 We see in this brief glance, how it is that the church has 
 been trying in all ages to increase, not by internal growth, but 
 by conquest and external accretion. She has gone after phi- 
 losophy, after the civil and military power, after mechanical 
 forms and instruments, alter any thing and every thing exter- 
 nal, by which she could hope to advance her dominion. 
 
 Nor is the reason difficult of discovery. How could she grow 
 by the simple development of spiritual life, when spiritual life
 
 ]54 GROWTH. NOT COXaUEST, 
 
 was extinct or nearly extinct in her bosom ? How could the 
 sap of the vine feed and extend the branches, when they them- 
 selves were not connected with the trunk ? Man is naturally 
 disinclined to faith, and therefore the church, as the life of God 
 abates and the carnal spirit enters, is ever flying to the senses 
 to seize upon external aids and instruments, and commence 
 building on the outside. Nor is it any matter how spiritual are 
 the doctrines and religious tests held by the church ; we need 
 only be sure that her piety wanes, to be also sure that, if she 
 does any thing for the cause of her Master, she will do it in 
 some work of mere outside industry. For she cannot exert 
 more of spiritual life than she has. The error may change its 
 forms, but its mischievous presence must continue as long as 
 the spiritual deficiency which creates it. Nay, she is the more 
 exposed to this error, in proportion as she is more active for 
 the truth without the spirit of action. Hence the necessity of 
 a thorough intellectual conviction of the great truth we are 
 now asserting a necessity which is rather increased than dimin- 
 ished, whenever she is engaged, as now, in great enterprises 
 to extend her dominion. 
 
 But it may be suspected that our doctrine is one which really 
 cuts off all such enterprises, that if the church is to have her 
 increase only by a vital growth or development, there is no 
 longer any room for the employment of aggressive agencies. 
 We must therefore go into some illustrations, to show the true 
 meaning and exhibit the spirit of our doctrine. 
 
 Do we then maintain that the church is simply to stay within 
 herself and grow? Is she never to go forth to them that are 
 without, to make no converts, traverse no seas, go not near the 
 temples of the idols ? Is she to light her lamp, retire within 
 her bushel, and stay there till the bushel itself takes fire from 
 the intensity of the inward heat, and the parts adjacent are 
 illuminated by a spontaneous combustion that can not suppress
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 155 
 
 itself? We need not be reminded that this was not the man- 
 ner of the Apostles. As little need we be informed that it is the 
 genius of Christianity itself to go about doing good. Nay, it is 
 the genius of the trees also, that they go after foreign matter in 
 the earth and air, by the reduction and assimilation of which, 
 they fill out their volume and put forth their extensions. So far 
 even vegetable growth is aggressive. When therefore, we 
 maintain that the church has no legitimate increase, except by 
 a vital growth from within, we do not say that she is to be in- 
 active, or that she is never to act aggressively. We only say 
 that all activity or aggression which exceeds the measure of 
 spiritual life is fictitious and dangerous ; that whatever attempt 
 she puts forth without life or beyond the compass of her own 
 piety, is really not put forth by the church at all. She is not to 
 deceive herself by such efforts. They are forced and spasmod- 
 ical, like the galvanic grasp of a hand that is cut off from the 
 body. But spiritual life is not restrained within local bounda- 
 ries. Its only limit is its degree. It quickens activities that 
 reach beyond the ocean, or across empires and continents, as 
 easily and as naturally as those that range within parish limits, 
 or within the disciple's own bosom. Whatsoever man or 
 church is alive unto God, is alive unto all that God has made. 
 In fact, nothing is necessary, nothing is now so much wanted, to 
 increase and energize the activity of the church in her aggres- 
 sive plans, as more of spiritual life. Hear, O ye people of 
 God! this is the language of our doctrine think not that ye 
 can do in the flesh what belongs to the spirit. The kingdom of 
 Christ is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, 
 how then will ye roll it onward with your hands ! Q,uit all 
 formal charities and efforts that outreach your love. As your 
 first offering bring your heart to your Redeemer. If your work 
 is holy, let your spirit be gracious. If it be a work of love, let 
 love animate the work. Be no more alienated from the life of 
 God ! The life is more than meat, and the body than raiment.
 
 156 GROWTH, NOT CONdUEST, 
 
 Under the pretext that the church has no legitimate increase 
 except by a law of growth, some have maintained, we believe, 
 that our missionary expeditions are inconsistent with the true 
 economy of the gospel. The church, they say, must grow so 
 as to roll over her boundaries, and thus have her extension 
 only as she acts, by her virtues and her spirit, on the neighbor- 
 hood adjacent. But we must not imagine that the church has 
 any boundaries. God has given her the world. Ail that Christ 
 her divine Head reigns over and claims for his own domain, is 
 hers also. She never goes abroad, except as locomotion is pre- 
 dicated of her members. Locally speaking, there is no exter- 
 nal region into which she may sally after conquests. The 
 world is all her own. She is every where at home in it, as a 
 nation within its boundaries, and her only problem is to unfold 
 her resources on her own proper soil, and, by the activity of 
 her heavenly lile, assimilate all that live to the person of her 
 Redeemer. She is not a crusader because she endeavors to fill 
 her own domain. The very endeavor, if actuated by spiritual 
 life, is in the nature of growth. 
 
 At the same time, it must not be withheld, that the great law 
 of Christian advancement we are asserting, is of a nature to 
 suggest some uncomfortable, though we trust, salutary suspi- 
 cions, in regard to our present movements for evangelizing the 
 world. The church can not be too fully aware that this new 
 era of missions portends some serious result. If it is begun 
 and actuated by a true apostolic piety, it will triumph. This 
 we verily believe, though in spite of many discouraging symp- 
 toms that fill us with uneasiness and profound anxiety. If it be 
 otherwise, if the work is begun by a mere sally of impulse and 
 prosecuted only as a dull mechanical labor, apart from any real 
 union to God, and without any sober apprehension of its agree- 
 ment with his heavenly designs, not only will it fall to nothing, 
 but the churches engaged Will either be prostrated or effectu- 
 ally revolutionized. The old vegetable, or rather mineral habit
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 157 
 
 of the church, which preceded these efforts, is already broken 
 up. Piety has now become more nearly, perhaps too nearly, 
 synonymous with action. In our endeavor to persuade our- 
 selves that we exist only for the accomplishment of benevolent 
 works, we have at least learned to shape all our views of God 
 and divine government by this principle. Theological changes, 
 extensively imputed to other causes, have been really due, in 
 the remoter sense, to a change in the practical habit of Chris- 
 tian life. If now our missionary enterprises fall to nothing, 
 where will they leave us ? We have swung our anchor, and 
 the quiet narrow bay that lies sheltered between original sin 
 and divine efficiency, headed by Mount Predestination, is already 
 so far behind us that only the top of the said mountain is visible. 
 We can lie there on deck basking in the sun no more that day 
 is over. Our practical and theological habits are already 
 changed, and if changed by efforts that must fail because there 
 is too little of spiritual life in them to suffer their success, what 
 shall be the result? Some new era of darkness, doubtless, 
 analogous to that which an alliance of the church with philoso- 
 phy and the civil state and mechanical forms produced a dark 
 age of Protestantism. And what more appropriate or likely, 
 than that our speculations concerning God's benevolence, sepa- 
 rated, by a failure of our plans, from all vital benevolence in 
 ourselves, should bring us to our theologic and moral level, in 
 that sea of water-gruel philanthropy, sometimes called Univer- 
 salism. 
 
 Furthermore, is it not an appalling fact, that while the church 
 of God has been launching forth into undertakings so vast and 
 holy, it has, at the same time, manifested so little corresponding 
 growth in spirituality and faith in the Redeemer. How many 
 of those who contribute to missions, and perhaps even bounti- 
 fully, do it only as paying a church rental to the kingdom of 
 heaven, without any earnest prayerful desire for the Redeem" 
 er's triumph. How few practically live for this object? In 
 14
 
 158 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 how few minds is the power of the world practically relaxed ? 
 In how many Christian bosoms has this work of missions lost 
 all impulse, save that of mere engagement itself, and degener- 
 ated into flat formality 1 We have great societies on foot to 
 prosecute and direct these undertakings. They were founded, 
 we believe, in a spirit of faith. The new desire to propagate 
 the gospel, in which they sprung, we believe was kindled from 
 above. The blessing of God has visibly rested on their plans. 
 But how manifest is it that these societies become mere dead 
 machines outside of the church, unless they are filled and pene- 
 trated, through and through, by the life of the Christian body. 
 A mere society engine fed by money, is as truly external to the 
 church, as the Parliament of England or the Germanic Diet ; 
 and it is an instrument as irrelevant to the extension of the 
 church, as any of the human expedients by which it has hith- 
 erto been corrupted. How often too, and how earnestly, do 
 the conductors of these societies testify the anxiety they feel, 
 lest the inconstancy experienced in the flow of their resources, 
 may indicate the fact that they flow from no settled principle of 
 love to the cause engaged in. Nor is it an auspicious sign, if 
 the church, as we often hear, has reached her highest point or 
 maximum, in the scale of her contributions. This apparent fact 
 may be due to commercial causes. If not, the sign is a bad one. 
 It indicates a want of spiritual life; for life will never suffer a 
 stand. Its very instinct is growth and extension. To be sta- 
 tionary is to die. 
 
 Is there not also much of very idle declamation on the subject 
 of the press ? As if God would offer to man a mechanical en- 
 gine for converting the world with the least possible expendit- 
 ure of piety ; or as if types of lead and sheets of paper may be 
 the light of the world. The press is a new tongue given to the 
 church. But if she talks more, she must for that reason live 
 more ; for talk, without the life to give it power and unction, 
 degenerates into empty noise and clatter. The press, there-
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 159 
 
 fore, in order not to be another external instrument, as mis- 
 chievous as state patronage or the mechanical forms of prela- 
 cy, must be attended in the church by extraordinary gifts of 
 holiness and self-denial, and worke.d, if we may so express it, 
 by spiritual life. To hang any, the least expectation on the 
 press, as a substitute for piety, or a piety-saving machine, is an 
 egregious delusion. 
 
 We offer these suggestions, not to create discouragement, 
 but to show the scope and spirit of our doctrine. It is much that 
 we find nothing wrong in our objects, or in the means devised 
 for their attainment. They only cease to come within the prin- 
 ciple of growth by a deficiency of vital piety and faith in God, 
 a deficiency that unmakes or vitiates every thing, even the sac- 
 rifices of God's altar. And is it not time for the church to re- 
 ceive this lesson, to assure herself in every member, that if she 
 extends her domain, she must grow, and that if she grows she 
 must live 1 Is it not time for the ministers of religion to preach 
 despair and a curse to all dead charities, to tell their flocks 
 that this gift of power cannot be bought with money, that the 
 church is in jeopardy through her very efforts, and that all at- 
 tempts to push her forward without piety or beyond it, must 
 end in disaster 1 
 
 Some persons may be apprehensive that the spirit of our doc- 
 trine of internal growth, is adverse to all suitable efforts to se- 
 cure the conversion of those who are without. Rather is it the 
 only sound law of such efforts. If they may not be actuated 
 by a vital Christian love, or if they expect to prevail by other 
 influences than those of Christian truth, they ought to be with' 
 held. No one can doubt that instruments of bribery or torture, 
 to gain men to Christ, are external to the church, and essen- 
 tially spurious. There are other instruments that are not more 
 to be commended. If a great scene must be compassed ; if a 
 preacher who is noted as having a wondrous faculty to convert 
 men must be sent for as indispensable ; if a mill of mechanism
 
 160 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 must be planned, it would not seem that the church, as a living 
 embodiment of God's truth and Spirit, has much to do with the 
 contrivance in any way. So of all efforts to bring men to 
 Christ by means and instruments not included in Christian truth 
 and the persuasive power of holy living. So again if the whole 
 attention of the church is bent to this one object of making con- 
 versions, and there is no endeavor to cherish them after they 
 are made ; if nothing is valued but conversions, and these are 
 taken as the measure of all good ; if revivals of religion are 
 sought, not for the reviving of piety, but simply and only for 
 the subjugation of the unbelievers ; then is it clear, that the 
 idea of growth is lost in the idea of conquest. It is not spiritual 
 life that prompts such efforts ; for, if it had its presence in them, 
 it would also move the Christian body in its own inward expe- 
 riences and struggles, and make it something to have graces 
 and attainments of its own. Rather must we judge, in such 
 cases, that the church wants some easier work than to grow 
 herself unto God, and prefers rather to see a prodigious slaugh- 
 ter among them that are called sinners. Furthermore, in these 
 scenes of mere conquest, there are commonly found too many 
 signs of a ferocious and fanatical spirit, to suffer the conviction 
 that spiritual life, with its holy calm, its peaceful elevation, its 
 genial affections, actuates the movement. We seem to look, 
 not upon the burning bush where Jehovah dwells, but on a 
 mere human conflagration, roasting and consuming all whom 
 it reaches. Contrary to all this, when simple love to God is 
 breathed out in love to men, and efforts to convert those with- 
 out receive a strenuous and persuasive character from the 
 fervor of this Christian love, the object here is not conquest, 
 but assimilation, which is itself a function of growth. Or, if we 
 call it conquest, it is such only in that milder and more figura- 
 tive sense, which consists with a true Christian zeal. This is 
 that conflagration which reveals the true presence of God, 
 which burns and consumes not !
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. '161 
 
 Our doctrine of growth excludes all efforts to reform the 
 world by the mere force of public opinion. How many Chris- 
 tian reformers, for the want, shall we say, of a living piety and 
 a confidence in truth, fly to the help of public opinion, as a 
 shorter method, and one that lies within their range. Public 
 opinion is their argument ; to array public opinion against the 
 practices they combat, their chief hope, and the ma,in effort of 
 their industry. I do not doubt the use of public opinion, in its 
 place, or the validity of its power. But if it were possible to 
 make public opinion the law and sanction of virtue, how does it 
 appear that an alliance of church and state is any more adverse 
 to the purity of the Gospel, than an alliance of the church with 
 public opinion, or a submission of the church and of God's laws 
 to its patronage ? And why may not the moral duties of life 
 as well be enforced by the sword, as by public opinion ? No 
 instrument of moral reform, surely, can be more essentially ex- 
 ternal to the church, or foreign to its spirit , than the public opin- 
 ion of the world. In the same view, all reliance on the prog- 
 ress of society, as being in itself g. ground of hope to the cause 
 of Christ, is vicious and deceptive, except as God is supposed to 
 be Himself the directing law of society. 
 
 By these illustrations, the spirit of our principle is sufficiently 
 displayed. It forbids all substitutes for piety, and all hope of 
 success without or apart from piety. It requires every activity 
 to proceed from within. It commands the church first of all to 
 live, demands of every Christian, who will add strength to the 
 cause of Christ in the world, that he contribute first of all a 
 holy life. It declares that bustle can not save the world, re- 
 presses all flippant zeal and forwardness, distinguishes the 
 money giver from the Christian, and warns the church that she 
 is about to perish by the magnitude of her schemes, if she can 
 not sustain them by a proportional measure of holiness and 
 
 faith in God. 
 
 14*
 
 162 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 But we need to see the power and the animating grandeur 
 of our principle, as well as its spirit and its lines of application. 
 When we say that the church is to have her extension by a law 
 of growth, it is supposed that she has within herself certain 
 prolific resources waiting for their development. It is with her 
 as with a nation. As then we might show a foreigner the re- 
 sources of future grandeur possessed by our republic, in our cli- 
 mate, our soil, our mines and forests, our rivers and ports, our 
 constitutions and laws, our schools, the spirit of our people, the 
 health and vigor of our stock ; so, in like manner, we may lay 
 open the resources of the church the heavenly nation and 
 show its capacity to fill and sway the world. 
 
 To begin with those least spiritual, there is, in the church, 
 Ave affirm, a much greater capacity to generate wealth, than 
 there is in the world external to the church. True piety is 
 itself a principle of industry and application to business. It sub- 
 ordinates, according to its measure, the love of show and all 
 the tendencies to extravagance. It rules out those licentious 
 passions that war with order and economy, and hurry so many 
 thousands into profligacy. It excludes those vices which prey 
 upon the health and substance of their victims. It moderates 
 that exceeding haste to be rich, by which so many overreach 
 themselves, and even make shipwreck of their character. Piety 
 is itself a basis of credit, and credit is capital. Transplant a 
 Christian church into the wilderness, without money or resour - 
 ces, other than what they have in their own persons, and it 
 will not be long before you shall see them in a condition of com- 
 fort, and displaying all the ordinary tokens of substantial opu- 
 lence. A band of adventurers, thrown together in the same 
 place, would soon be involved in scenes of violence and disor- 
 der, and, having no industry or laws to secure the rights and 
 gains of industry, would probably perish. Nor is this a mere 
 theoretical opinion, or one that we draw from our fancy. The 
 history of our own New England yields the same lesson-
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. ]63 
 
 Whence comes it, that upon her rocky and stubborn soil under 
 harsh and frowning skies, we behold so much of high prosper- 
 ity and substantial wealth so much of physical well-being and 
 ornament? The (act is attributed, by some, to our sharpness 
 and parsimony. But the real sharpness of which we hear is in 
 the church of God, which has cast the habits of our people, 
 made them patient in their industry, given them character and 
 credit, cut off profligacy and profusion, sent up its warmth into 
 the frigid skies, and won from Him who is throned above them, 
 smiles of plenty, more genial than our niggardly climate seem- 
 ed to offer. And, as to the parsimony, it is enough to ask, in 
 what part of the world only equal in ability, so much is given, 
 with so free a spirit, to every rational object of public benefi- 
 cence and Christian charity ? There are then mines in the 
 church of God, that can never fail. A law of production is dis- 
 covered, under her divine economy, which pertains no where 
 else ; and it is clearly seen that she can never want resources 
 for any undertaking it is in her heart to attempt. The wealth 
 of the world runs towards her, by a fixed ordinance of heaven, 
 Wealth too is power. So that she is set on high, by her piety, 
 to work her beneficent will, and extend her holy principles, by 
 means of that which her principles have created, till she has 
 both enriched and regenerated the world. 
 
 The same general principles and habits that secure a more 
 rapid development of wealth, make it also sure, that more of 
 personal talent will be unfolded in the church than out of it. 
 Furthermore, Christian piety is the friend of mental liberty and 
 of education. The very principles of religion, too, require 
 every man to educate himself as long as he lives, to make his 
 ten talents twenty, his five ten. He can not discharge himself 
 to Christ, except as he multiplies his abilities. It will also be 
 found, that Christian families abound with influences specially 
 favorable to the awakening of the intellectual principle in child- 
 hood. Religion itself is thoughtful. It carries the child's mind
 
 164 GROWTH, NOT COXGin.ST. 
 
 over directly to unknown worlds, fills the understanding with 
 the sublirnest questions, and sends the imagination abroad to 
 occupy itself where angel's wings would tire. The child of a 
 Christian family is thus unsensed, at the earliest moment, and 
 put into mental action: this, too, under the healthy and genial 
 influence of Christian principle. Nor should we omit to notice 
 how the soul of every disciple is, of necessity, exalted and em- 
 powered by union to God. Hei e he begins to partake the ele- 
 vation of an angelic nature. All that is neglectful, low, pas- 
 sionate and brutish, in his make, is refined away. His judg- 
 ment is clarified, his reason put in harmony with truth, his 
 emotions purified and increased in volume, his imagination fired 
 by the objects of faith and hope. There is, in short, more of 
 talent in a man, more capacity to think high thoughts and burn 
 with great emotions, simply for being brought unto God. Nor 
 would it be difficult to show, by a comparison of Christendom 
 with the other parts of the world, and the more spiritual parts 
 of Christendom with those that are less, that the church, as a 
 fact, has unfolded more of talent than the world external to it, 
 and more in proportion to its spirituality. The church is God's 
 university, and it lies in her foundation as a school of spiritual 
 life, to energize all capacity and make her sons a talented and 
 powerful race. And talent is the greatest of all merely human 
 gifts. A great man has more of power over the world than a 
 great army. He can march through obstacles, that no army 
 can force. If then we find that the church of God has it in her 
 nature to unfold double the talent unfolded without, to pro- 
 duce, out of a given number of persons, a twofold proportion 
 of able and great men, it requires no special power in arithme- 
 tic to make it clear, that she has such an advantage over the 
 world, as to make her ultimate triumph certain. 
 
 We find a third resource of the church in the fact that she 
 has, within herself, as a spiritual nation, a peculiar and distinct 
 law of spiritual population. We verily believe that it is the 
 plan of God, in the household covenant, to bring the law of lam-
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 165 
 
 ily increase directly into the church, and make it also a law of 
 spiritual increase. Though we are painfully aware, that the 
 views of this covenant and of Christian education, current in 
 the church, have no practical agreement with our own. Indeed, 
 if we advance our subject by this head, we not only need to 
 cite but to make the material of our argument, by first revolu- 
 tionizing that unbelief or misbelief, through which, as it seems 
 to us, the opinions of the church, in reference to Christian 
 childhood, are so injuriously preoccupied. This we can not do, 
 by any discussion within our present compass. And, therefore, 
 we will only state or suggest our views of the subject, leaving 
 it to our readers to weigh our suggestions by themselves. 
 
 We reject the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, as held by 
 Episcopalians ; first, because it makes nothing of faith in the 
 parents, thrusting them away by the interposition of sponsors, 
 and assuming that the priest may take any child and translate 
 him at once into the kingdom of heaven by his own act ; sec- 
 ondly, because there is no evidence that any child is or can be 
 spiritually regenerated, in the moment of baptism, and by vir- 
 tue of that ordinance. In place of a doctrine so false and perni- 
 cious, we hold that children are, in a sense, included in the faith 
 of their parents, partakers with them in their covenant, and 
 brought into a peculiar relation to God, in virtue of it. On this 
 ground, they receive a common seal of faith with them, in their 
 baptism ; and God, on his part, contemplates, in the rite, the 
 fact that they are to grow up as Christians, or spiritually re- 
 newed persons. As to the precise time or manner in which 
 they are to receive the germ of holy principle, nothing is affirm- 
 ed. Only it is understood, that God includes their infant age in 
 the womb of parental culture, and pledges himself to them and 
 their parents, in such a way, as to offer the presumption, that 
 they may grow up in love with all goodness, and remember no 
 definite time when they became subjects of Christian principle. 
 Christian education is, then, to conform to this view, and noth- 
 ing is to be called Christian education which does not. As
 
 166 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 Baxter, who was long perplexed with suspicions, that his piety 
 was only his education, because he could remember no time 
 when he began to be exercised with right feeling, removed his 
 difficulty by the happy discovery, " that education is an ordi- 
 nary way for the conveyance of God's grace, and ought no 
 more to be set in opposition to the Spirit, than the preaching of 
 the word." 
 
 We think it is no objection to this view, that the children of 
 Christian families so often grow up in sin, and die in manifest 
 impenitence. For it is nothing new that Christians fail of their 
 duty and cast away their privilege. At the same time, we may 
 safely enough indulge the suspicion, that a large share of those 
 who seem co be renewed at a later period of life, only experi- 
 ence a resuscitation of that holy principle, which was planted 
 in their childhood ; for if a child only receives the law of the 
 house as good and right, it is difficult to conceive that it does 
 not involve the germ of a right character. The Moravians, 
 too, have very nearly realized our doctrine. As many as nine out 
 of ten in that most interesting church, we are assured, have 
 no conception of a time when they entered on a Christian 
 life. Besides, the practical disbelief of our doctrine is itself a 
 good and sufficient reason why our Christian families do not 
 realize its results. It vitiates the whole spirit and aim of their 
 education. It leads them even to discourage every ingenuous 
 effort of holy virtue in childhood. They take their own chil- 
 dren to be aliens, even under the covenant, train them up 
 to be aliens, and even tell them that they can do nothing right 
 or acceptable to God till after their hearts are changed ; or, 
 what is the same, till after they have come to some advanced 
 age. They are thus discouraged, and even taught to grow up 
 in sin ; which if they fail to do, it is because a bad education is 
 not able to accomplish its legitimate results. 
 
 Nor is our view any infringement upon the doctrine of de- 
 pravity, in whatsoever manner it may be held. It only de-
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 157 
 
 clares that depravity is best rectified when it is weakest, and 
 before it is stiffened into habit. 
 
 Neither does it infringe at all upon the doctrine, that spirit- 
 ual agency is the operative cause of Christian piety. Whatso- 
 ever the parent does for his child, is to have its effect by a di- 
 vine influence. And it is the pledge of this, which lies at the 
 basis of the household covenant, and constitutes its power. 
 
 As little does it falsity the oft repeated text, which declares 
 that all are not Israel who are of Israel. This declares a fact, 
 and the fact is, alas ! too true. Or, if it be supposed to speak 
 of an electing purpose of God, God has no such purpose, irre- 
 spective of means and conditions; and the question is still open, 
 whether parental misbelief and a failure of duty are not the 
 reasons why the offspring of Israel are aliens. 
 
 On the other hand, it is the express direction of God, that 
 children should be trained up in the way that they should go, 
 not that they should be trained up in the wrong way, which 
 afterwards they are to repent of and forsake. Bring them up 
 in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, not in evil and 
 graceless impenitence. Faith too is to be an heir-loom in the 
 family, and descend upon the child; the faith that dwelt first in 
 his grandmother Lois ; and in his mother Eunice, is last of all 
 to be in him also. 
 
 This view, too, is the only one that gives household baptism 
 any meaning, or any real place in the Christian system. We 
 admit, in words, that baptism introduces the child to member- 
 ship of some kind in the church ; but we see no place for him 
 there, any more than for a vegetable. We thus stand for a 
 rite- that is insignificant, or even absurd. Or if we call it a- 
 dedication of the child, the child is only dedicated to our own 
 unbelief, not to the grace of God ; for we do not really suppose 
 that the grace of God can have any thing to do with it, till 
 after it is of an age to dedicate itself. Is it not more reasonable, 
 to receive the rite as a seal of faith, a token of spiritual reno- 
 vation, understanding that God has graciously included him
 
 168 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 in the covenant with us. given us the helm of his moral exist- 
 ence, authorized us to ask a rite for him before he is of an age 
 to ask it for himself, and empowered us, by virtue of His own 
 co-operation, so to guide him that, when we give him over the 
 helm, we shall give it to him as a Christian youth. This is 
 Christian education, not the Baptist scheme of individualism, 
 which conceives it to be absurd for the parent to work any 
 thing spiritual in his child's infancy, lest he should not believe 
 for himself; which tells the church that after she has given 
 existence, and the egg of immortality is produced, her motherly 
 duty is, to copy the instinct of the Nubian ostrich, and leave it 
 hidden in the sand ! 
 
 If, too, our view is false, or the current opinion is true, how 
 miserable is the age of childhood ! If it may not grow up in 
 holy virtue, if it must grow up in sin, till it comes to some 
 definite age, before it is a candidate for repentance and a new 
 life, then, during that interval, is it seen to lie under a doom 
 more dismal and hapless than any other we are acquainted 
 with in this world. Capable of sin incapable of repentance ! 
 This too of an age most amiable and lovely and nearest to inno- 
 cence ! Might not the church better say, in her Saviour's name, 
 " Of such is the kingdom of heaven," and clasp it to her arms. 
 If our views on this head are admitted, if if is God's design 
 in the household covenant, that the children shall grow up to 
 be Christians, and this result may and ought to be realized, 
 then, most clearly, is it seen that there is a law of spiritual 
 population in the church, analogous to the law of physical pop- 
 ulation in states. This we verily believe, and we consider it 
 to be one of the mightiest elements of growth and power in the 
 grand economy of the church ; for it is demonstrable, that by 
 virtue of this simple element of internal growth, the church of 
 Christ will soon fill the world. As the Saxon race, when they 
 came to these western shores, lived down the native inhabit- 
 ants, and rolled the tide of population over them, so if the 
 church were fulfilling the design of God in the household cove-
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 169 
 
 nant, and training up the generations of her children in piety, 
 she would, by this simple law of internal increase, and without 
 a single conversion from without, overlive the world and make 
 it her own. For it will be observed, that a large proportion of 
 the world without are continually perishing by vice and extrav- 
 agance, and, when they do not perish themselves, are entail- 
 ing the effects of their profligacy on the diseased and half-en- 
 dowed constitution of their families. This is not true in the 
 families of the church. Habits of holy virtue too, as we have 
 already shown, would secure the means of living in greater 
 abundance, and thus make the Christian families, on the aver- 
 age, more vigorous and healthy. And thus, by a stronger law 
 of increase, the church must, at some day more or less distant, 
 over-multiply the world, and take possession of the whole 
 planet. What but this is the promise of the covenant itself, 
 " I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the 
 sand which is upon the sea shore ; and thy seed shall possess 
 the gate of his enemies ; and in thy seed shall all the nations 
 of the earth, be blessed ?" The family of Abraham was iden- 
 tical with the church, and the promise is, that it shall over- 
 populate and fill the world. 
 
 A fourth resource of the church, lies in her capacity to un- 
 fold more of character than the world without. We here speak 
 of character, not in its most internal sense, or as related to 
 God, but of character as a power over men, to influence their 
 feeling and command their homage. Christian character, in 
 this view of it, is that which by principle and worth and beauty 
 of feeling in one man, approves itself to another, and becomes 
 a controlling and assimilative power over him. It is no easy 
 thing to beget, in minds not brought up in society, even a sense 
 of character. The million live and die without once conceiv- 
 ing it. But no man, however dull or rude, can become a Chris- 
 tian without, at least, having some conception of character 
 awakened. He must know himself and God, and himself as 
 15
 
 170 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 morally related to the moral goodness and excellence of God. 
 He can not smite upon his breast, like the publican, without a 
 painful discovery of himself to prompt it ; nor without so much 
 as daring to lift his eyes to heaven, can he cry, with the publi- 
 can, " God be merciful to me a sinner," and not have felt, in 
 some degree, the greatness and purity of God. Behold a vile, 
 brutish person, bowed in tears, and trembling with inward hor- 
 ror, before the tremendous majesty and glory of God ! Some 
 elementary notion of character is there descending upon him, 
 in that shuddering before Jehovah ; it is the sense of character 
 that makes him shudder. And how can a life be spent in holy 
 communion with God, the infinitely perfect, how modeled 
 after Christ, the only perfect life ever displayed in humanity, 
 without attaining to a nicer and more heavenly sense of cha- 
 racter, and receiving its impress. The principles of religion, 
 too, truth, justice, rectitude, benevolence, are all such as need 
 to lie at the basis of a good and great character. The feelings 
 and manners of Christian piety courtesy, gentleness, conde- 
 scension, pity, gratitude, forgiveness, charity are all such as 
 can not be dispensed with, in the construction of a worthy and 
 beautiful character. Then consider the whole discipline of a 
 Christian life, as a perpetual exercise in character . No sooner 
 does one become a disciple, than he is put upon it as a study, 
 how to honor his calling, to be neither too much nor too little, 
 to be just and yet merciful, to be charitable and yet judicious, 
 when to resist enemies and when to suffer them, to be cheerful 
 without being light, serious yet not morose, when to argue and 
 when to be silent, when to forgive and when to bring to jus- 
 tice, when to feel and when to reason, to have high emotions 
 and not be a framist, to be independent without obstinacy, to 
 believe without credulity, to have high experiences without 
 advertising closet transactions, to have a speech seasoned with 
 salt yet clear of cant, to be united to God and not disunited 
 from man. How can a disciple be drilled in such exercises, all
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 171 
 
 his life long, without becoming more or less expert in discrimi- 
 nating character in himself and others? 
 
 The church then is to her disciples a perpetual school of char- 
 acter. We by no means affirm that all who take the Chris- 
 tian name become examples of moral excellence and beauty. 
 Many seem never to have a thought about character, after 
 they have once become satisfied of their conversion. We say 
 of such, when they die, perhaps, that in the judgment of char- 
 ity they were Christians, and truly our charity covers a multi- 
 tude of sins. At the same time, there are unfolded in the 
 church innumerable examples of character from all the walks 
 of life, such as can not be found elsewhere examples which 
 dignify eminence and power, cause obscurity to shine, and 
 make adversity smile the gentle, the pure, the good, the up- 
 right, the firm, the heroic, the holy. 
 
 And how great a power is character ! Out of God's own 
 person and his truth, there is no other so mighty and persua- 
 sive. It is that eloquence which man least knows how to re- 
 sist. It provokes no resistance. Being itself only truth in life, 
 it suffers no answer. If the beholder turns away to escape the 
 homage he feels, its image still goes with him, to reprove his 
 evil deeds and call him every hour to God. 
 
 Truth is another of the resources of the church, a power 
 that God has deposited in her bosom to be developed there. 
 Having the Christian Scriptures, she may therefore boldly say, 
 what is denied to all the schools of philosophy, that she has the 
 truth of God. Hence it comes to pass that, while they are ever 
 displacing each other, and after their short day of splendor IB 
 over, retiring into oblivion, the church still holds her place, 
 gathers new strength from every assault, and stands erect as 
 the pillar and ground of the truth. The great masters of phi- 
 losophy and champions of infidelity die, by turns, into glimmer 
 and darkness ; but Christ the Messiah is the sun of righteous- 
 ness rolling up into noon and the fullness of day. Already has
 
 172 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 it been proved, by an experience of eighteen hundred years, 
 that the church's truth is invincible. It speaks to man, and its 
 words have their own evidence in them. If reason reels away 
 from its mysteries, reason yet returns dissatisfied without 
 them. If human wisdom invents a better God, and a govern- 
 ment more according to its mind, human wisdom is soon frozen 
 by its own meager truth, and returns to Christ for warmth. 
 Such is the Christian truth, the virtues it teaches so excellent, 
 the hopes it offers so definite and so consonant to human wants 
 it brings God so near and displays the divine feeling so at- 
 tractively, it paints human character so truly and offers a rem- 
 edy so adequate, that if spurned or rejected, it will yet be 
 sought. 
 
 We do not say that all the points of Christian doctrine are 
 settled, or that nothing remains to be done to unfold their rela- 
 tions, and set them forth in the harmony of their reasons. 
 Neither do we say that there is no disagreement about the es- 
 sential truths of the Christian scheme. That were to main- 
 tain that its victory is already complete. We only say that 
 God's everlasting truth is now in the bosom of the church. 
 There is a process going on too, in the church, from age to 
 age, whereby her views of the Christian plan are being filled 
 up, rectified, and systematized in their reasons. She is in- 
 structing herself also by her own lapses and apostasies. Almost 
 all the possible errors she has invented and tried out. Those 
 bold extravagancies of human learning, now so prevalent, and 
 by which so many are perhaps unduly frightened, are among 
 the last, and, we trust, not least fruitful efforts of aberration. 
 Taken in the larger view, she is, in all these, only making her 
 experiments to settle the truth, unmasking her artillery, draw- 
 ing it forth into ranks and orders, and preparing by her lines 
 of battle encircling the globe, to complete her warfare against 
 unbelief, by a universal and sweeping defeat. 
 
 But the greatest of all resources possessed by the church, to
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 173 
 
 be developed by growth, is drawn from her internal union with, 
 and participation of, the divine nature greater than either 
 wealth, talent, internal population, character, or truth greater 
 than all together, and that, because it includes them all. The 
 church of God is a habitation of the Spirit, the body itself of 
 Christ, and so the fullness of him that filleth all in all. Let it 
 not be deemed an irreverence, if we speak of a progressive de- 
 velopment of this divine element in the church. 
 
 The piety of the church is itself such. The life of Christian 
 piety is the life of God ; its growth a development of that life. 
 When the holy life begins, in a renewed mind, whether infant 
 or adult, it is only a capacity or seed of future growth ; that 
 growth but a fuller participation of the divine nature, in its 
 power, goodness, and beauty. The same is true of the church 
 in its collective capacity. The amount of her existence is 
 measured, not by her numbers or the noise she makes, but by 
 her participation of the life of God. According to her measure 
 in this, is she clear in understanding, benevolent in emotion, 
 self-denying in action, patient in suffering, powerful in exam- 
 ple. Additions of grace are indispensable to all increments of 
 power. A small root cannot support a large tree. An army 
 of spiritual invalids can not vanquish the world. Union to God 
 is the soul and success of all good efforts. Without this, we 
 only drag the church on painfully after us, as if it were an idol 
 car, by the pull of many hands. But if we are filled with holy 
 piety, and earnest practical love to the cause of salvation, (hen 
 the church has liberty and inspiration, becomes itself a crea- 
 ture of life, like the wheels of Ezekiel, because the spirit of the 
 living creatures is in it. 
 
 There is also another aspect to this growth of piety. .\ot 
 only does the internal life of the tree extend its reach, but the 
 outward bulk manifests the fact. The church, in like manner, 
 is to the world's eye a development of God. Being the body of 
 
 Christ, she is, in some sense, though not in the sense of Mr. 
 15*
 
 174 GROWTH, NOT 'CONQUEST, 
 
 Brownson and the Papists, a perpetual Christ in the earth in 
 the sense, we mean, not oi'her political organization, but of her 
 practical or internal spirit. By this she becomes the light of 
 the world, as her Saviour was a perpetual manifestation of 
 the Spirit, or what is the same, of the Divine Nature. This too 
 is the main source of her power over the world. It is not be- 
 cause she runs to and fro, because she strives and cries, but be- 
 cause she lives a life above nature, herein lies her capacity of 
 impression. Without saying, ' this is God,' the world is moved 
 as by the presence and power of God. Her Christ-like graces 
 of love, purity, truth, and beneficence, are a divine atmosphere 
 about her, and her atmosphere enters the breath and the blood, 
 while her arguments only play about the head. To approach 
 her is to be convinced of sin. righteousness, and a judgment to 
 come. To be thus, in her Christian growth, a demonstration 
 of the Spirit, to have the divine nature flowing out thus im pal- 
 pably but really on the world, gives her an assimilative power 
 in the nature of vitality. So that if she gains a convert, wheth- 
 er at home or in the ends of the earth, (for place is nothing,) it 
 is not by external conquest but by virtue of her own internal 
 life the life of God. 
 
 Furthermore, there is, we apprehend, a certain fixed relation 
 between those exertions of spiritual influence which are imme- 
 diate, and those which flow mediately through the church ; else 
 why has not the Spirit left the church behind and poured itself, 
 as a rushing mighty wind, into the bosom of the whole world in 
 a day ? There needed to be an objective influence, as well as 
 one internal; else the subject of the Spirit would not know or 
 guess to what his internal motions are attributable, and might 
 deem them only nervous or hysteric effects, or possibly, if a 
 heathen, the work of some enchanter or demon. But the ob- 
 jective influence of a holy life, coupled with holy teachings from 
 the church, starts the contemplative powers, occupies the 
 knowing principle, explains the immediate influence and its
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OP CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 175 
 
 object, offers to view in its own holy exercises the molds of ex- 
 ercises to be wrought in the observer, and, by its own assimi- 
 lative and persuasive sympathies gives to the new feeling in 
 him its own heavenly type and form. If we are right in this 
 view, if there is a fixed relation between the mediate and im- 
 mediate influences of the Spirit, such that one measures the 
 other, (and we could urge many additional reasons for the 
 opinion, ) then are we brought fairly out upon the sublime con- 
 clusion, that the growth or progress of Christian piety in the 
 church, if it shall take place, offers the expectation of a corres- 
 pondent progress in the development of those spiritual influen- 
 ces that are immediate. The mediate and immediate are both 
 identical at the root. If therefore the church unfolds her piety 
 as a divine life, which is one, the divine life will display its ac- 
 tivity as much more potently and victoriously without, which 
 is the other. And as the kingdom of heaven, which was first 
 as a grain of mustard seed, advances in the last days towards 
 the stature of a tree, the more it may advance ; for the Holy 
 Spirit will pour himself into the world, as much more intensely 
 and profusely. Grant us, O God ! that we may not disappoint 
 ourselves of a hope so glorious, by attempts to extend thy 
 church without that holy growth of piety on which our success 
 depends. Pour thyself in thy fullness, and as a gale of purity, 
 into our bosom ! Expel all schemes that are not begun in Thee ! 
 Let there be good desires in us, that our works may be truly 
 good ! And that Thou mayest do .thy will in the earth, do it 
 in us perfectly ! 
 
 We offer these thoughts to the public, not without having 
 duly considered their import. We commend them to the 
 special regard of all thoughtful Christians. Do we not give 
 utterance to a great and salutary truth one that ought to 
 preside over all Christian plans and efforts, one that is a ne- 
 cessary guard against all Christian dissipation, and one that is
 
 ]76 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 specially needed in this day to stimulate that measure of piety 
 which our undertakings presuppose and require ? If what we 
 have said throws a heavy shade of discouragement over all 
 dead works and formal charities, can it be too heavy ? At the 
 same time, could we otter a truth that is more cheering to all 
 that is worthy of encouragement 1 
 
 It would be well if we might recur, in closing, to all the 
 points presented in our enumeration of the resources of growth 
 in the church, and rectify some deficiencies and errors that are 
 frequently noticeable in regard to them. We hope we have 
 left an impression that more piety, a closer and more practical 
 union to God, is indispensable. If we might speak of the 
 talents of the church, we would say, read the parable of the 
 talents. It is the duty of every Christian, as he hopes to be 
 accepted of his Judge, to take his mind out of the napkin, to 
 double all his powers by cultivation, a duty that is grievously 
 neglected, and one most intimately connected with the triumph 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 There is a great and lamentable deficiency of what we have 
 called character. We have much to say (not too much) of the 
 heart, the internal principle of religion, and the state of the 
 disciple as related to God. But we either say too little, or 
 what we say has far too little effect, of those charities, those 
 duties of society, of good neighborhood and good citizenship, 
 in which human life is spent, the kind and graceful feelings, 
 honesty, mercy, generosity, every thing that is necessary to 
 outward dignity and beauty, in one word, character. Many 
 Christians seem never to attain to a proper sense of character. 
 Indeed the attainment is a somewhat difficult one, to those who 
 have not been trained to it, in their early education. The 
 church suffers an immense loss of weight and influence from 
 this source. Those who are called Unitarian Christians, it 
 will be observed, on the other hand, have much to say of char- 
 acter, and less of the distinguishing principle of piety, as inter-
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. 177 
 
 nal. Nor is what they say without effect. If they encourage 
 or leave room for the error of supposing that the substance of 
 piety is made up of those individual acts, which are properly 
 only so many manifestations of it, and not of internal principle 
 as related to God, they do at least secure, in many cases, acts 
 and manifestations that extort praise and respect. We have 
 sometimes thought, that if a practical Unitarian and an ortho- 
 dox disciple could -be melted into one, they would make a Chris- 
 tian. This at least will do to illustrate our meaning. There 
 needs to be more done for character to produce a sense of 
 character, what it is, what is necessary to it, and why it is ne- 
 cessary. A rude, graceless piety, a zeal that hurries by things 
 that are of good report, is needlessly odious. If it be a well 
 tempered, it is yet an awkward instrument, wherewith to con- 
 vert the world. Should not the preachers of Christ have more 
 to do with his external life, which is itself the model of Chris- 
 tian beauty and goodness? Might they not often instruct 
 themselves as well as their people, by this model of character ? 
 If they had a nicer sense of character themselves, might it not 
 add much to the dignity and power of their ministry, as well 
 as to their personal acceptableness ? moderating austerity, 
 softening hardness, expanding contractedness, making the un- 
 worldly spirit amiable, assisting them to be accessible with 
 dignity, and dignified without distance, and preparing them to 
 be pastors, not drivers of their flocks or in failure of that, 
 driven by them. 
 
 In regard to family training we have more to say. We have 
 spoken of the immense resource, the fertile capacity of internal 
 growth possessed by the church in her children, if trained up 
 in piety according to the intent of the household covenant. By 
 the prevalent misconception of this covenant and of Christian 
 education under it, we suffer manifold and grievous mischiefs. 
 First of all we lose our children, which is too great a loss. 
 Next, what is scarcely less deplorable, we pervert the style 
 and habit of our piety.
 
 ]78 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 One principal reason why we are so often deficient in char- 
 acter, or outward beauty, is, that piety begins so late in life, 
 having thus to maintain a perpetual and unequal war with pre- 
 .vious habit. If it was not true of Paul, it is yet too generally 
 true, that one born out of due time will be found out of due 
 time, more often than he should be afterwards unequal, in- 
 consistent with himself, acting the old man instead of the new. 
 Having the old habit to war with, it is often too strong for him. 
 To make a graceful and complete Christian character, it needs 
 itself to be the habit of existence ; not a grape grafted on a 
 bramble. And this, it will be seen, requires a Christian child- 
 hood in the subject. Having this, the gracious or supernatural 
 character becomes itself more nearly natural, and possesses 
 the peculiar charm of naturalness, which is necessary to the 
 highest moral beauty. 
 
 It results also from our mistaken views of Christian training, 
 that we fall into a notion of religion that is mechanical. We 
 thrust our children out of the covenant first, and insist, in spite 
 of it, that they shall grow up in the same spiritual state as if 
 their father and mother were heathens. Then we go out, at 
 least on certain occasions, to convert them back, as if they ac- 
 tually were heathens. Our only idea of increase is of that 
 which accrues by means of a certain abrupt technical experi- 
 ence. Led avvay thus from all thought of internal growth in 
 the church, efforts to secure conversions take an external char- 
 acter, which is not proper to them. Accretion displaces 
 growth. The church is gathered as a foundling hospital, and 
 lest it should not be so, its own children are reduced to found- 
 lings. Immediate repentance proclaimed, insisted on and real- 
 ized in an abrupt change, proper only to those who are indeed 
 aliens and enemies, is the only hope or inlet of the church. We 
 can not understand how the spiritual nation should grow and 
 populate and become powerful within itself; nothing will 
 serve but the immediate annexation of Texas !
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. J79 
 
 Piety becomes inconstant, and revivals of religion take an 
 exaggerated character from the same causes. If all Christian 
 success is measured by the count of technical conversions from 
 without, then it follows that nothing is done when conversions 
 cease to be counted. The harvest closes not with feasting but 
 with famine. Despair cuts oft' Christian motive. The tide is 
 spent, let us anchor during the ebb. It is well indeed to live 
 very piously in the families, still there is nothing depending on 
 it. The children will be good subjects enough lor conversion 
 without. The piety of the church is thus made to be desultory 
 and irregular by system. The idea of conquest displaces the 
 idea of growth. Whereas, if it were understood that Christian 
 education, or training in the families, is to be itself a process 
 of domestic conversion, that as a child weeps under a frown 
 and smiles at the command of a smile, so spiritual influences 
 maybe streaming into his being from the handling of the nur- 
 sery and the whole manner and temperament ol the house, pro- 
 ducing what will ever after be fundamental impressions of his 
 being ; then the hearth, the table, the society and affections of 
 the house, would all feel the presence of a practical religious 
 motive. The homes would be Christian homes, and life itself 
 a stream of genial pietyy 
 
 Here too is the greatest impediment to a true missionary 
 spirit. The habit of conquest runs to dissipation and irregular- 
 ity. It is as if a nation, forgetting its own internal resources, 
 were scouring the seas, and trooping up and down the world, 
 in pursuit of prize money and plunder, forsaking the loom and 
 the plow, and all the regular growths of industry. Whereas, 
 if the church were unfolding the riches of the covenant at her 
 firesides and tables if the children were identified with religion 
 from the first, and grew up in a Christian love of man, the mis- 
 sionary spirit would not throw itself up in irregular jets, but 
 would flow as a river. And so much is there in this, that we
 
 180 GROWTH, NOT CONQUEST, 
 
 do not believe it possible to produce a steady, patient, practical 
 spirit of missions, except through the education of childhood. 
 
 We ask then of every parent, that he will seriously review 
 his impressions on this subject. Let him study the ductility of 
 childhood to parental influence, and observe how easily reli- 
 gious impressions are excited, and all the prejudices of the soul 
 turned on the side of religion. Let him try the conjecture, how 
 far God has made, or will, by his presence, make what is lov- 
 ingly exhibited in his own life, communicable or translatable to 
 the childish mind. Dropping the idea of a technical experience, 
 as proper to older persons, let him see how far by the divine 
 aid, really good and right dispositions toward God and man 
 may be called into exercise. And if he has hitherto considered 
 Christian education to be synonymous with lecturing and re- 
 proof, lei him consider the text, Fathers provoke not your 
 children to wrath lest they be discouraged. Let family religion 
 be a domestic miniature of heaven, not a dull formality. Let 
 him be there, as the gardener among his opening flowers, ex- 
 pecting their fragrance and beauty, not that they will all be 
 thistles expecting it, because God hath promised, and the 
 dews of his grace are perpetually felt. 
 
 But we must not leave our subject in words of reproof and 
 correction. The truth we have endeavored to set forth, is one 
 of high promise to the church. To see its whole import at a 
 glance, imagine the church of God to be a spiritual nation, 
 founded or begun by a Colony descended from the skies. It 
 alights upon our globe as its chartered territory. Can this 
 Spiritual Colony spread itself over the whole territory of the 
 planet, and absorb all the human races in its dominion ? You 
 find that it can unfold more of wealth and talent, by far, than 
 the present living races of inhabitants. It has within itself a 
 stronger law of population, as well as a mighty power to win 
 over and assimilate the nations. Its people have more beauty 
 and weight of character, to exalt their predominance. They
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS. Igl 
 
 have great truths for their armor of assault and defense, which 
 the world can not match or parry, and the superior wisdom of 
 which they must ultimately yield to. And what is more than 
 all, they are found to be all partakers of the DIVINE NA- 
 TDRE, which they have brought down with them to be un- 
 folded in their history and make it powerful. Having in itself 
 elements of power and precedence like these, not to believe that 
 the Heavenly Colony will finally overspread and fill the world, 
 is to deny causes their effects, and pronounce a sentence of 
 futility on the laws of nature themselves. God too has testified 
 in regard to this branch of his planting THEY SHALL INHERIT 
 THE LAND. 
 
 16
 
 THE ORGANIC UNITY OF THE FAMILY, 
 
 JKR. 7 ; 18. The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and 
 the women knead dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out 
 drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 
 
 IN this lively picture, you have the illustration of a great and 
 momentous truth the Organic Unity of the Family. If it be 
 an idolatrous family, worshippers of the moon, for example, such 
 is the organic relation of the members, that they are all invol- 
 ved together, and the idol worship is the common act of the 
 house. The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, 
 the women prepare the cakes for an offering, and the queen of 
 heaven receives it, as one that is the joint product of the whole 
 family. The worship is family worship ; the god of one is the 
 god of all ; the spirit of one the spirit of all. 
 
 And so it is with all family transactions and feelings. They 
 implicate ordinarily the whole circle of the house, young and 
 old, male and female, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. 
 They act together, take a common character, accept the same 
 delusions, practice the same sins and ought, I believe, to be 
 sanctified by a common grace. 
 
 This most serious truth is one that is exceedingly remote 
 from the present age, and from no part of the Christian world 
 more remote than from us. \ All our modern notions and spec- 
 ulations have taken a bent towards individualism.\ In the state,
 
 184 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 we have been engaged to bring out the civil rights of the indi- 
 vidual, asserting his proper liberties as a person, and vindica- 
 ting his conscience, as a subject of God, from the constraints of 
 force. In matters of religion, we have burst the bonds of church 
 authority, and erected the individual mind into a tribunal of 
 
 | judgment within itself, we have asserted free will as the ground 
 of all proper responsibility, and framed our theories of religion 
 BO as to justify the incommunicable nature of persons as distinct 
 units. While thus engaged, we have well nigh lost, as was to 
 i be expected, the idea of organic powers and relations. The 
 state, the church, the family, have ceased to be regarded as 
 such, according to their proper idea, and become mere collec- 
 tions of units. A national life, a church Hie, a family life, is no 
 longer conceived, or perhaps conceivable by many. Instead of 
 being wrought together and penetrated, to some extent, by his- 
 toric laws and forces common to all the members, we only seem 
 
 I to lie as seeds piled together, without any terms_oconnexion, 
 save the accident of proximity, or the fact that we all belong to 
 the heap. And thus the three great forms of organic existence, 
 which God has appointed for the race, are in fact lost out of 
 mental recognition. The conception is so far gone that, when 
 the fact of such an organic relation is asserted, our enlightened 
 public will stare at the strange conceit, and wonder what can 
 be meant by a paradox so absurd. 
 
 My design, at the present time, is to restore, if possible, the 
 conception of one of these organic forms, viz. the family. For 
 though we have gained immense advantages, in a civil, eccle- 
 siastical and religious point of view, by our modern development 
 of individualism, we have yet run ourselves into many hurtful 
 misapprehensions on all these subjects, which, if they are not 
 rectified, will assuredly bring disastrous consequences. And 
 nowhere consequences more disastrous than in the family, 
 where they are already apparent, though not fully matured ; 
 for the very change of view, by which we have cleared individ-
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 185 
 
 ual responsibility, in our discussions of free will, original sin 
 and kindred subjects, has operated, in another direction, to di- 
 minish responsibility, where most especially it needs to be felt, 
 that is, in Christian families. 
 
 What then do we mean by the organic unity of the family ? 
 It will be understood, of course, that we do not speak of a phys- 
 ical or vascular connexion, for, after birth, there is no such con- 
 nexion existing, anymore than there is between persons of dif- 
 ferent families, i In so far, however, as a connexion of parentage, 
 or derivation ha"affected the character, that fact must be inclu- 
 ded, though it cannot be regarded as a chief element in the 
 unity asserted. Perhaps I shall be understood with the great- 
 est facility, if I say thai the family is such a body, that a power 
 over character is exerted therein, which cannot properly be 
 called influence. We commonly use the term influence to de- 
 note a persuasive power, or a governmental power, exerted 
 purposely, and^jyith a conscious design to effect some result in 
 the subject. In maintaining the organic unity of the family, I 
 mean to assert, that a power is exerted by parents over chil- 
 dren, not only when they teach, encourage, persuade and gov- 
 ern, but without any purposed control whatever. .\ The bond is 
 so intimate that they do it unconsciously and undesignedly 
 they must do it. Their character, feelings, spirit and principles 
 must propagate themselves, whether they will or not. How- 
 ever, as influence, in the sense just given, cannot be received by 
 childhood, prior to the age of reason and deliberative choice, 
 tW control of parents purposely exerted, must be regarded, - 
 during that early period, as an absolute force, not as influence. ~i 
 All such acts of control therefore must, in metaphysical propri- 
 ety, and as far as the child is concerned, be classed under the 
 general denomination of organic causes. And thus whatever 
 power over character is exerted in families one side of consent, 
 in the children, and even before they have come to the age of 
 16*
 
 136 TIIE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 rational choice, must be taken as organic power, in the same 
 way as if the effect accrued under a law of simple contagion. 
 So too when the child performs acts of will, under parental 
 direction, that involve results of character, without knowing 
 or considering that they do, these must be classed in the same 
 manner. 
 
 In general, then, we find the organic unity of the family, in 
 every exertion of power over character, which is not exerted 
 and received as influence ; that is with a design to address the 
 choice on one side, and a sense of responsible choice on the 
 other. Or, to use language more popular, we conceive the 
 manners, personal views, prejudices, practical motives and 
 spirit of the house, as an atmosphere which passes into all and 
 pervades all, as naturally as the air they breathe. This, how- 
 ever, not in any such absolute or complete sense as to leave no 
 room for individual distinctions. Sometimes the two parents 
 will have a very different spirit themselves, though the grace 
 of God is pledged to make the better, if it be truly right and 
 hindered by no gross inconsistencies, victorious. Sometimes 
 the child, passing into the sphere of other causes, as in the 
 school, the church, neighboring families, or general society, 
 will emerge and take a character partially distinct partially I 
 say, never wholly. The order of the house will always be in 
 his garments, and the internal difficulties with which he has to 
 struggle, will spring of the family seeds planted in his nature. 
 
 Having carefully stated thus what I mean by the organic 
 unity of the family, I next proceed to inquire whether any such 
 unity exists ? And here it is worth noticing 
 
 1. That there is nothing in this view, which conflicts with 
 the proper individuality of persons and their separate responsi- 
 bility. We have gained immense advantages, in modern times, 
 as regards society, government and character, by liberating 
 and exalting the individual man. Far be it from me to under-
 
 OP THE FAMILY. 187 
 
 r~- 
 
 rate these advantages, or to bring them into jeopardy. UBut a 
 child manifestly cannot be a proper individual, before he is one. 
 Nothing can be gained by assujning that he isjand, if it is not 
 true, much is sure to be lostj Besides, we are never, at any 
 age, so completely individual astp be clear of organic connex- 
 ions, that affect our character. \To a certain extent and for 
 certain purposes, we are individuals, acting each from his own 
 will. Then to a certain extent and for certain other purposes, 
 we are parts or members of a common body, as truly as the 
 limbs of a tree. We have an open side in our nature, where a 
 common feeling enters, where we adhere, and through which, 
 we are actuated by a common will. There we are many her e 
 we are one. 
 
 It is remarkable too how often, without knowing it, and, as it 
 were instinctively, we assume the fact and act upon it. We 
 do it, for example, as between nations, where it is not so much 
 the moral life as the national that constructs the supposed unity. 
 One nation, for instance, has injured or oppressed another 
 sought to crush, or actually crushed another by invasion. A 
 century or more afterwards, the wrong is remembered and the 
 injured nation takes the field, still burning for redress. The 
 history of Carthage and Rome gives us an example. But, sup- 
 pose it had been said ' This is very absurd in you Carthagi- 
 nians. The Romans, who did you the injury, are all dead, and 
 those who now bear the name are their children's children. 
 They have done you no injury any more than the people of 
 Britain, or India. Neither is it the walls, or streets, or temples 
 of Rome that have injured you. The Roman territory is mere 
 land and this has not injured you. Why then go to war with 
 the Romans? How absurd to think of redressing your old inju- 
 ries, by a war with men who have done you no harm !' Now 
 it was by just this kind of sophistry, that Mr. Jefferson proved, 
 that a public debt is obligatory for only one generation, and pos- 
 sibly the Carthaginians might have been epeculatively stum-
 
 188 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 bled by such reasonings. Still they could not have been quite 
 satisfied. I think, of their validity. Against all speculation, 
 they would still have felt that the proposed war was somehow 
 reconcilable with reason. The question is not whether, on 
 Christian principles, they were right, but whether, on natural 
 principles, they were absurd. This probably no reader of the 
 history has ever felt. For, whether it squares with our specu- 
 lative notions or not, we do all tacitly assume the organic unity 
 of nations. The past we behold living in the present and all 
 together we regard as one, inhabited by the common life. How 
 much more true is this (though in a different way) in families, 
 where the common life is so nearly absolute over the members ; 
 where they are all enclosed within the four walls of their dwell- 
 ings, partakers in a common blood, in common interests, wants, 
 feelings and principles. 
 
 2. We discover the organic unity of families, in the fact that 
 one generation is the natural offspring of another. And so 
 much is there in this, that the children almost always betray 
 their origin, in their looks and features. The stamp of a com- 
 mon nature is on them, revealed in the stature, complexion, 
 gait, form and dispositions. Sometimes we seem to see remark- 
 able exceptions. But, in such cases, we should commonly find, 
 if we could bring up to view the ancestors of remoter genera- 
 tions, that the family bond is still perpetuated, only by a wider 
 reach of connexion. There are said to be two maiden sisters, 
 the last of a distinguished family, now living in England, who 
 having no resemblance to any near ancestor, have yet a very 
 striking resemblance to the portrait, still hanging in the family 
 mansion, of an ancestor seven generations back. Indeed I have 
 myself distinguished, by their looks, the relationship of two per- 
 sons, connected by a common derivation eight generations back, 
 and who more closely resembled each other in their persons, 
 than either his nearest kindred. So that, in cases where there 
 seems to be no transmission of resemblances, there is yet a prob-
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 189 
 
 able transmission, only one that is covert and more compre- 
 hensive. Now strong external resemblances may coexist with 
 marked external differences, and therefore do not prove a coin- 
 cidence of character. And yet it cannot be denied that, as far 
 as they go, they argue a transmission of capacities and dispo- 
 sitions, which enter into character, as remote causes, or occa- 
 sions. Nor does it make any difference, as regards the matter 
 in question, whether souls, or spiritual natures come into being 
 through propagation, or not. If they are created, as some 
 fancy, by the immediate inbreathing of God, still they are meas- 
 ured by the house they are to live in, and the outward man is, 
 in all cases, a fit organ for the person within. The dispositions, 
 tempers, capacities, the natural and, to a great extent, the 
 moral character have the outward frame, as a fit organ of use 
 and expression. It will even be observed too that, in cases 
 where there is a remarkable changeofcharacter.it will be sig- 
 nified, indue time, by a change of manner, aspect and expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Besides it is well understood that qualities received by train- 
 ing and not in themselves natural, do also pass by transmis- 
 sion. It is said, for example, that the dog used in hunting was 
 originally trained by great care and effort, and that now almost 
 no training is necessary ; for the artificial quality has become, to 
 a great extent, natural in the stock. We have also a most 
 ominous example of this fact in the human species. I speak of 
 the Jewish race. The singular devotion of this race to money 
 and traffic is even a proverb. But their ancestors, of the an- 
 cient times, were not thus distinguished. They were a simple, 
 agricultural people, remarkable for nothing but their religions 
 opinions and, in a late period of the commonwealth, for their 
 fanatical heroism and obstinacy. Whence the change ? His- 
 tory gives the mournful answer, showing them to view, for 
 long ages, as a hated and down-trodden people, allowed no 
 rights in the soil, shut up within some narrow and foul precinct
 
 190 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 in the cities, compelled to subsist by some meagre traffic, denied 
 every possession but money, and suffered to keep in security 
 not even that, save as they could hide it in secret places and 
 cloak the suspicion of wealth under a sordid exterior. They 
 have thus been educated to be misers by the extortions and the 
 hatred of Christendom ; till finally an artificial nature, so to 
 speak, has been formed in the race, and we take it even as the 
 instinct of a Jew, to get money by small traffic and sharp bar- 
 gains. So there is little room to doubt that every sort of cha- 
 racter and employment, even, passes an effect and works some 
 predisposition in those who come after. 
 
 Coiild we enter into the mental habits of those children, who 
 are spoken of in my text, and trace out all the threads of their 
 inward character and disposition, we should doubtless find some 
 color of idolatry in the fibre of their very being. They are not 
 such as they would be, if their parents, of this and remote gen- 
 erations,' had been worshippers of the true God. Their tal- 
 ents, dispositions, propensities are different. The idol god ia 
 in their faces and their bones, and his stamp is on their spirit. 
 Not in such a sense that the sin of idolatry is in them that is 
 inconceivable; for no proper sin can pass by transmission but 
 that they have a vicious, or prejudicial infection from it, a dam- 
 age accruing from their historical connection and that of their 
 progenitors with it. 
 
 Nor, with these familiar laws of physiology before us, is it 
 reasonable to doubt that, where there is a long line of godly 
 fathers and mothers, kept up in regular succession lor many 
 generations, a religious temperament may at length be pro. 
 duced, that is more in the power of conscience, less wayward 
 as regards principles of integrity and more pliant to the Chris- 
 tian motives. More can be said with no confidence ; for the 
 best-Christians have but a mixed character. 
 
 3.VyVe shall find that there is a law of connection, afterbirth, 
 under which power over character is exerted, without any de-
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 191 
 
 sign to do it. For a considerable time after birth, the child 
 has no capacity of will and choice developed, and therefore is 
 not a subject of influence, in the common sense of that term. 
 He is not as yet a complete individual, he has only powers and 
 capacities that prepare him to be, when they are unfolded. 
 They are in him only as wings and a capacity to fly are in the 
 egg. Meantime he is open to impressions from every thing 
 he sees. His character is forming, under a principle, not of 
 choice, but of nurture. , The spirit of the house is breathed into 
 his nature, day by day.) The anger and gentleness, the fret- 
 fulness and patience, the appetites, passions and manners, all 
 the variant moods of feeling, exhibited round him, pass into 
 him as impressions and become seeds of character in him not 
 because the parents will, but because it must be so, whether 
 they will or not. They propagate their own evil in the child, 
 not by design, but under a law of moral infection. Before the 
 children begin to gather wood for the sacrifice, the spirit of the 
 idol and his faith has been communicated. The airs and feel- 
 ings and conduct of idolatry have filled their nature with im- 
 pressions, which are back of ah 1 choice and memory. Go out 
 to them then, as they are gathering faggots for the idol sacri- 
 fice, ask them what questions they have had about the service 
 of the god; what doubts, whether any unsatisfied debate or 
 perplexing struggle has visited their minds, and you will pro- 
 bably awaken their first thoughts on the subject by the inquiry 
 itself. All because they have grown up in the idol worship, 
 from a point back of memory. They received it through their 
 impressions, before they were able to receive it from choice. 
 And so it is with all the moral transactions of the house. The 
 spirit of the house is in the members by nurture, not by teach- 
 ing, not by any attempt to communicate the same, but because 
 it is the air the children breathe. 
 
 >Now it is in the two fold manner set forth, under this and 
 the previous head of my discourse, that our race have fallen,
 
 192 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 as a race, into moral corruption and apostasy. In these two 
 methods, the race have been subjected, as an organic unity, to 
 evil; so that when they come to the age of proper individual- 
 ity, the damage received has prepared them to set forth, on a 
 course of blamable and guilty transgression. The question of 
 original or imputed sin has been much debated in modern times, 
 and the effort has been to vindicate the personal responsibility 
 of each individual, as a moral agent. Nor is any thing more 
 clear, on first principles, than that no man is responsible for 
 any sin but his own^ > rhe sin of no person can be transmitted, 
 as a sin, or charged )$o the account of another. But it does not 
 therefore follow that there are no moral connections between 
 individuals, by which one becomes a corrupter of others^Jlf we 
 are units, so also are we a race, and the race is one one fam- 
 ily, one organic whole ; such that the fall of the head involves 
 the fall of all the members. Under the old doctrines of ori- 
 ginal sin, federal headship and the like, cast away by many, 
 ridiculed by not a few, there yet lies a great and momentous 
 truth, announced by reason as clearly as by scripture that in 
 Adam all die, that by one man's disobedience many were made 
 sinners, that death hath passed upon all men for that all have 
 sinned. Not that this original scheme of unity is any disad- 
 vantage. I firmly believe and think I could show the contrary 
 even. Enough that so the Scriptures speak, and that so we 
 see, by inspection itself. There can be no greater credulity, 
 than for any man to expect that a sinful and death-struck 
 being, one who has fallen out of the harmony of his mold by 
 sin, should yet communicate no trace of evil from himself, no 
 diseased or damaged quality, no moral discolor to the genera- 
 tioas that derive their existence from him. To make that pos- 
 sible, every law of physiology must be adjourned and, what is 
 more, all that we see with our eyes, in the eventful era of im- 
 pjpessions, must be denied. 
 v I ani well aware that those who have advocated, in former
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 193 
 
 times, the church dogma of original em, as well as those who 
 adhere to it now, speak only of a taint derived by natural, or 
 physical propagation, and do not include the taint derived after- 
 wards, under the law of family infection. It certainly can be 
 no heresy to include the latter and, since it is manifest that 
 both fall within the same general category of organic connec- 
 tion, it is equally manifest that both ought to be included and, 
 in all systematic reasonings, must be. If, during the age of 
 impressions in the child, and previous to the development of 
 will, a power is exerted over character exerted necessarily 
 both as regards the sinful parent and the child, and that as truly 
 as if it fell within the laws of propagation itself it cannot be 
 right to attribute the moral taint wholly, or even principally, 
 to propagation. Until the child comes to his will, we must re- 
 gard him still as held within the matrix of the parental life, and 
 then, when he is ripe for responsible choice, as born for action 
 a proper and complete person. Jaking this comprehensive 
 view of the organic unity of successive generations of men, the 
 truth we assert of human depravation is not a half-truth exag- 
 gerated (which many will not regard as any truth at all) but 
 it is a broad, well authenticated doctrine, which no intelligent 
 observer of facts and principles can deny. It shows the past 
 descending on the present, the present on the future, by an inev- 
 itable law, and yet gives every parent the hope of mitigating 
 the sad legacy of mischief he entails upon his children, by what- 
 ever improvements of character and conduct he is able to make 
 a hope which Christian promise so far clears to his view, as 
 even to allow him the presumption that his child may be set 
 forth into responsible action, as a Christian person. 
 
 In offering these thoughts, it will be seen that I have not di- 
 gressed from my subject, but have extended the proof of my 
 doctrine rather, discovering, within its scope, the fall of man 
 itself. As a farther proof of the organic unity of the family, I 
 
 allege 
 
 17
 
 194 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 4. The fact that, in all organic bodies known to us, states, 
 churches, sects, armies, there is a common spirit, by which 
 they are pervaded and distinguished from each other. And we 
 use this word spirit, in such cases, to denote a power interfu- 
 sed, a comprehensive will actuating the members, regarding 
 also the common body itself, as a larger and more inclusive 
 individual. How different, for example, is the spirit of France, 
 from the spirit of England ; the spirit of both from that of the 
 United States; and that from the spirit of the Spartan, or 
 Athenian republic. This national spirit too is, as it were, a 
 common power in each, by which the subordinate, individual 
 members, are assimilated and made to have a kind of organic 
 character. And so much is there in this, that an Englishman 
 cannot make to himself a French character, or any one of us an 
 English character. We can not act the character one of anoth- 
 er ; for so distant are the feelings, prejudices and temperaments 
 of each, that they can not ever be accurately conceived and 
 reproduced, unless we are actually enveloped in them as an 
 atmosphere. 
 
 In the same manner, there is a peculiar spirit in every 
 church. Whether you take the larger divisions, the Jewish, 
 the Greek, the Roman, the Episcopal, the Presbyterian, the 
 Baptist, the Congregational, or descend to the particular 
 churches of a given city, you will find something characteristic 
 in each a common power, which gives a common stamp to 
 the members peculiar to themselves. Or if you visit a Quaker 
 settlement, where a few men and women are gathered into a 
 kind of church family, you will discover that the members are 
 pervaded, all, by a peculiar spirit, as distinct from the world 
 around them, as if they were a new discovered people. And 
 these Quaker settlements may be taken as a kind of interme- 
 diate link, between the church state and the family. 
 
 Passing then to families, you are not surprised to discover 
 the same thing. This is specially evident, where the family is
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 195 
 
 isolated and does not mingle extensively with the world. You 
 can scarcely open the door and take a seat in their house, least 
 of all can you go to their table, or spend a night in their hospi- 
 tality, without being impressed by the fact. And this family 
 spirit will sometimes be exceedingly opposite to the spirit of 
 goodness. Here it is money, money, written on every face. 
 Here it is good living ; here show ; here scandal and detraction. 
 Sometimes the sense of religion and of spiritual things will 
 seem to be nearly lost, or obliterated. Sometimes a positive 
 hatred of God and all good men and principles will constitute 
 the staple of family feeling. Sometimes a dull and sullen con- 
 te,mpt of such things will hold the place of open animosity. 
 
 ^iow it is true that the family spirit does not always perfectly 
 master and assimilate all the members. You will find a Chris- 
 tian son, or daughter, here and there, in spite of the ruling 
 spirit of the house. This, however, simply because families 
 mingle, in some degree, with the world, falling thus under the 
 power of another spirit, that masters the spirit reigning at 
 home. Tjhe children go into other families, where they are vis- 
 ited by other feelings. They go into the church of God, where 
 the church spirit breathes another atmosphere. In the school, 
 they are penetrated by the school spirit. In the shop, or in the 
 transactions of trade, the same is true. Were it not for this, 
 I doubt whether the family spirit would not, uniformly, be 
 found to rule the character of all the members. Who ever ex- 
 pects that an idolatrous religion, in the house, will not uniformly 
 produce idolaters'? So the Mohammedan spirit makes only 
 Mohammedans. In like manner, a thievish house perpetuates 
 a race of thieves. Consider also the ductility and the perfect 
 passivity of childhood. Early childhood resists nothing. What 
 is given it receives, making no selection. To expect therefore 
 that a child will form to himself a spirit opposite to the spirit of 
 the family, without once feeling the power of a counteractive 
 spirit, would be, in the highest degree, unreasonable. Doubt-
 
 196 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 less he has a conscience, which is the law of God in his breast, 
 and he has a will free to choose what his conscience requires. 
 But his passions are unfolded before his discretion, his prejudi- 
 ces bent before he assumes the function of self-government. 
 He breathes the atmosphere of the house. He sees the world 
 through his parents' eyes. Their objects become his. Their 
 life and spirit mold him. If they are carnal, coarse, passionate, 
 profane, sensual, devilish, his little plastic nature takes the 
 poison of course. Their very motions, manners and voices, 
 will be distinguishable in him. He lives and moves and has his 
 being in them. 
 
 I do not say, of course, that he will exactly resemble them in 
 character. Were he to receive a contagious disease, he would, 
 doubtless, be differently handled under it, from the person who 
 gave the infection. I only say that the moral disease of the 
 family he assuredly will take, and that probably, without ever 
 a question, or a cautious feeling started. If some other spirit, 
 from other families, or the church, or the world, do not reach 
 him, the organic spirit of the house will infallibly shape and 
 subordinate his character. 
 
 5. We are led to the same conclusion, by considering what 
 may be called the organic working of a family. The child be- 
 gins, at length, to develop his character, in and through his 
 voluntary power. But he is still under the authority of the 
 parent, and has only a partial control of himself, in the exten- 
 sion of which, he is gradually approaching a complete person- 
 ality. Now there is a perpetual working in the family, by 
 which the wills both of the parents and the children are held in 
 exercise, and which, without any design to affect character on 
 one side, or conscious consent on the other, is yet fashioning 
 results of a moral quality, as it were, by the joint industry of 
 the house. And these results are to be taken, according to our 
 definition, as included in the organic unity of the family. I ex- 
 cept, of course, all the voluntary actings that are designed to
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 197 
 
 influence the child and are yielded to by him, as consciously 
 good or wrong. 
 
 The truth here brought to view is graphically set forth in 
 my text. Whatever working there is in the house, all work 
 together. If the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead 
 the cakes, the children will gather the wood, and the idol wor- 
 ship will set the whole circle of the house in action. The child 
 being under the law of the parents, they will keep him at work 
 to execute their plans, or their sins, as the case may be ; and, 
 as they will seldom think of what they do, or require, so he will 
 seldom have any scruple concerning it. The property gained 
 belongs to the family. They have a common interest and every; 
 prejudice, or animosity, felt by the parents, the children are 
 sure to feel even more intensely. They are all locked together, 
 in one cause in common cares, hopes, offices and duties ; for 
 their honor and dishonor, their sustenance, their ambition, all 
 their objects are common. So they are trained of necessity to 
 a kind of general working, or co-operation, and, like stones 
 rolled together in some brook or eddy, they wear each other 
 into common shapes. If the family subsist by plunder, then the 
 infant is swaddled as a thief, the child wears a thief's garments 
 and feeds the growth of his body on stolen meat ; and, in due 
 time, he will have the trade upon him, without ever knowing 
 that he has taken it up, or when he took it up. If the father is 
 intemperate, the children must go on errands to procure his 
 supplies, lose the shame that might be their safety, be immersed 
 in the fumes of liquor in going and coming, and why not re- 
 warded by an occasional taste of what is so essential to the 
 enjoyment of life? If the family subsist in idleness and begga- 
 ry, then the children will be trained to lie skillfully and mam- 
 tain their false pretences with a plausible effrontery all this, 
 you will observe, not as a sin, but as a trade. 
 
 Nor does what I am saying hold, only in cases of extreme 
 viciousness and depravity. Whatever fire the fathers kindle, 
 17*
 
 198 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 the children are always found gathering the wood always 
 helping as accessaries and apprentices. If the father reads a 
 news paper, or a sporting gazette on Sunday, the family must 
 help him find it. If he writes a letter of business on Sunday, 
 he will send his child to the office with the letter. If the mother 
 is a scandal monger, she will make her children spies and eaves- 
 droppers. If she sends word to her servant to say, at the door, 
 that she is not at home, she will sometimes send it by her child. 
 If she is ambitious that her children should excel in a display 
 of finery and fashion, they must wear the show and grow up in 
 the spirit of it. If her house is a den of disorder and filth, they 
 must be at home in it. Fretfulness and ill temper in the parents 
 are provocations and, therefore, somewhat more efficacious 
 than commandments to the same. The proper result will be a 
 congenial assemblage, in the house, of petulance and ill nature. 
 The niggardly parsimony, that quarrels with a child, when ask- 
 ing for a book needful for his proficiency at school, is teaching 
 him that money is worth more than knowledge. If the parents 
 are late risers: the children must not disturb the house, but stay 
 quiet and take a lesson, that is to assist their energy and prompt- 
 ness, in the future business of life. If they go to church only 
 half of the day, they will not send their children the other half. 
 If they never read the bible, they will never teach it. If they 
 laugh at religion, they will put a face upon it, which will make 
 their children justify the contempt they express. This enu- 
 meration might be indefinitely extended. Enough that we see, 
 in the working of the house, how all the members work togeth- 
 er. The children fall into their places naturally, as it were, and 
 unconsciously, to do and to suffer exactly what the general 
 scheme of the house requires. Without any design to that 
 effect, all the actings of business, pleasure and sin, propagate 
 themselves throughout the circle, as the weights of a clock 
 maintain the working of the wheels. Where there is no effort
 
 OF THE FAMILY. (99 
 
 to teach wrong or thought of it, the house is yet a school of 
 wrong, and the life of the house is only a practical drill in evil. 
 
 Having sufficiently established, as I think, by these illustra- 
 tions, the organic unity of families, it remains to add some prac- 
 tical thoughts ofa more specific nature. And 
 
 1. It becomes a question of great moment, as connected with 
 the doctrine established, whether it is the design of the Chris- 
 tian scheme to take possession of the organic laws oi'the fam- 
 ily and wield them as instruments, in any sense, of a regener- 
 ative character ? And here we are met by the broad principle, 
 that Christianity endeavors to make evejy object, favor and 
 relation aflrtnstrument of righteousness, according to its original 
 design. Vj^hat intelligent person ever supposed that this 
 original constitution, by which one generation derives its exist- 
 ence and receives the bent of its character from another, was 
 designed of God to be the vehicle only of depravity ? 4t might 
 as well be supposed that men themselves were made to be 
 containers of depravity ! The only supposition that honors 
 God is that the organic utlfty of which I speak, was ordained 
 originally for the nurture of holy virtue in the beginning of each 
 soul's history ; and that Christianity, or redemption, must of 
 necessity take possession, of the abused vehicle and sanctify it 
 for its own merciful uses.j That an engine of so great power 
 should be passed by, when every other law and object in the 
 universe is appropriated and wielded as an instrument of grace, 
 and that in a movement for the redemption of the race, is in- 
 conceivable. The conclusion thus reached does not carry us, 
 indeed, to the certain inference that the organic unity of the 
 family will avail to set forth every child of Christian parents, 
 in a Christian life. But if we consider the tremendous power 
 it has as an instrument of evil, how far short of such an opin- 
 ion does it leave us, when computing the reach of its power as 
 an instrument of grace?
 
 200 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 Passing next to the scriptures, we find our reasonings jus- 
 tified, as explicitly as we can desire. I am not disposed to 
 press the language of scripture, which is" popular, to extreme 
 conclusions. But I observe that Christ is called a second Adam 
 and a last Adam, language, to say the least, that suits the idea 
 of a proposed union with the race, under its organic laws as 
 if, entering into the Christian family, his design were to fill it 
 with a new family spirit, which shall controvert and master the 
 old evil spirit. The declaration corresponds that as by one 
 man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedi- 
 ence of one shall many be made righteous language that 
 measures the grace by the mischief, and shows it flowing in a 
 parallel, but fuller stream. It may not. be easy to settle, beyond 
 dispute, the relation of the old covenant to the new ; but there 
 can be no question that the church, under Abraham, was meas- 
 ured, in some sense, by the organic unity of the family of Abra- 
 Jham. The covenant was a family covenant, in which God 
 engaged to be the God of the seed, as of the father. And the 
 feeal of the covenant was a seal of faith, applied to the whole 
 house, as if the continuity of faith were somehow to be, or some" 
 how might be maintained, in a line that is parallel with the 
 continuity of sin, in the family. Nor was the result to depend 
 on mere natural generation, however sanctified, but on the 
 organic causes also, that are involved in family nurture, after 
 birth. For we are expressly informed, Gen. xviii. 19, that God 
 rested his covenant, or engagement on the conduct of Abra- 
 ham " for I know him, that he will command his children and 
 his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the 
 Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring 
 upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." And thus 
 we see that the old church, beyond any possible question, was 
 to have its line of perpetuity, in and by the same laws of organic 
 unity, which sin has made the vehicle of depravity. Descend- 
 ing then to the New Testament, under Jesus the Redeemer, 
 he is declared to have suffered " that the blessing of Abra-
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 201 
 
 ham might come on the Gentiles.'' The Gentiles are said to 
 be "graffed in." The new " seed," viz. " Christ," are said to 
 be the seed of Abraham and " heirs of the promise" made to 
 him. The old rite of proselyte baptism, which made the fami- 
 lies receiving it Jewish citizens and children of Abraham, was 
 applied over directly to the Christian disciples the rite went 
 by "households." The new promise was declared to be " to 
 you and to your children." Even the old Jewish law that one 
 Jewish parent made a Jewish child, is brought into the church, 
 and one believing parent ' ' sanctifies" the child. In all of which, 
 it seems to be clearly held that grace shall travel by the same 
 conveyance with sin, that the organic unity, which I have 
 spoken of chiefly as an instrument of corruption, is to be occu- 
 pied and sanctified by Christ and become an instrument also of 
 mercy and life. And thence it follows that the seal of faith, ap- 
 plied to households, is to be no absurdity ; for it is the privilege 
 and duty of every Christian parent that his children shall come 
 forth into responsible action, as a regenerated stock. The 
 organic unity is to be a power of life. God engages, on his 
 part, that it may be, and calls the Christian parent to promise, 
 on his part, that it shall be. Thus the church has a constitu- 
 tive elemenHrom the family in it still, as it had in the days of 
 Abraham. iThe church life, that is the life of Christ, collects 
 families into a common organism, and then, by sanctifying the 
 laws of organic unity in families, extends its quickening power 
 to the generation following, so as to include the future and 
 make it one with the past. \ And so the church, in all ages, be- 
 comes a body under Christ the head, as the race is a body un- 
 der Adam the head a living body quickened by him who hath 
 life in himself, fitly joined together and compacted by that 
 which every joint supplieth. 
 
 2. The theological importance of our doctrine of organic 
 unity, when brought up to this point, is exhibited in many 
 ways, and especially in the fact that it gives the only true solu>
 
 202 TH E ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 tion of the Christian church and of baptism as related to mem- 
 bership. I hardly dare attempt to speak of the " sacramental 
 grace," supposed to attend the rite of baptism, under the 
 priestly forms of Christianity ; for I have never been able to 
 give any consistent and dignified meaning to the language, in 
 which it is set forth. That there is a grace attendant, falling 
 on all the parties concerned, is quite evident, if they are doing 
 their duty ; for no person, whether laic or priest, can do, or in- 
 tend what is right, without some spiritual benefit. But the child 
 is said to be ' regenerate, spiritually united to Christ, a new 
 creature in Christ Jesus,' under the official grace of baptism. 
 Then this language, so full of import, is defined, after all, to 
 mean only that the child is in the church, where the grace of 
 God surrounds him translated, (not internally but externally,) 
 from the sphere of nature into a new sphere, where all the aids 
 of grace, available for his salvation, are furnished. Sometimes 
 it is added that his sins are remitted, though no reasonable man 
 believes that he has any sins to remit; or, if the meaning be 
 that the corrupted quality, physiologically inherent in his na- 
 ture, is washed away, he will show in due time that it is not ; 
 and no one in fact believes that it is. Then if it be asked 
 whether the new sphere of grace will assuredly work a gra- 
 cious character? no, is the answer. If the child is not faithful, 
 or hinders the grace he will lose it that is he will not stay -re- 
 generate. And then as the child, in every case, is sure, in 
 some bad sense, not to be faithful, he is equally sure to lose the 
 grace and be landed in a second state that is worse than the 
 first. And thus it turns out, after all, as far as I can see, that 
 the grace magnified in the beginning, by words of so high an 
 import, is a thing of no value it is nothing. It is, in fact, one 
 of our most decided objections to this scheme of sacramental 
 grace, (paradoxical as it may seem,) that, really and truly, 
 there is not enough of import left to save the meaning of the 
 rite. The grace is words only, and an air of imposture, (I
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 203 
 
 speak constructively,) is all that remains. The rite is fertile 
 only in maintaining a superstition. Practically speaking, it only 
 exalts a prerogative. By a motion of his hand, the priest 
 breaks in, to interrupt and displace all the laws of character in 
 life communicating an abrupt, ictic grace, as much wider of 
 all dignity and reason, than any which the new light theology 
 has asserted, as the regenerative power is more subject to a 
 human dispensation. A superstitious homage collects about 
 his person. The child looks on him as one who opens heaven 
 by a ceremony ! The ungodly parent hurries to him, to get the 
 regenerative grace for his dying child. The bereaved parent 
 mourns inconsolably, and even curses himself that he neglect- 
 ed to obtain the grace for his child, now departed. The priest 
 in the eye displaces the memory of duty and godliness in the 
 heart. A thousand superstitions, degrading to religion and 
 painful to look upon, hang around this view of baptism. Not to 
 produce them the doctrine must yield up its own nature. 
 
 In all this, I speak constructively, as reasoning from the doc- 
 trine asserted, and as I am able to understand it. Constructive 
 results are never more than partially verified by historic facts ; 
 for great truths, blended with the error, qualify and mitigate 
 its effects. 
 
 Let us see now, whether, taking our stand before the doc- 
 trine asserted in this discourse, we can discover a real and 
 proper ground for infant baptism. To open the path, observe 
 that the church of God is not gathered, or organized by baptism. 
 Baptism simply indicates, or manifests a membership already 
 existing. Therefore, in adults, it follows belief. It is the seal 
 of a faith which Abraham had, being yet uncircumcised. The 
 church of God is not a mechanical but a vital creature. It is 
 organized by spiritual life and cannot, as a vital creature, be 
 organized by any thing else. But spiritual life is, in itself, invisi- 
 ible, and the next problem is to make the organism, quickened 
 thereby, a visible organism. This will be effected, to a certain
 
 204 THE OR.GANIO UNITY 
 
 degree, naturally, by a manifestation of its power in Christian 
 fruits. By their fruits ye shall know them. Every man who 
 bears the Christian fruits is seen to be in the visible church of 
 God priests, covenants, sacraments, all out of the question. 
 Though it is hardly conceivable that any one should reject 
 God's ordinances, for a length of time, without reflecting some 
 suspicion of obliquity by such a fruit. But to end all debate 
 and suspicion, and comJbrt the church visible by some definite 
 rule of measurement, God appoints a formal badge of visibil- 
 ity, viz. baptism, constituting, thus, a formal visible church. 
 To illustrate by a civil analogy, we are all American citizens, 
 but the elector's oath is a formal badge of citizenship, appoint- 
 ed by the laws. And these electors are, in a certain sense, the 
 nation, though not more really citizens than before. 'Jn a like 
 sense, baptized persons constitute the church ; inasmuch as 
 they stand forth to represent, by a formal embodiment, the 
 Christian spirit, or spiritual lifej. Still they were in the church 
 before, in virtue of spiritual life. And so others are in it now, 
 e. g. the Quakers, who are not baptized united to the head 
 and showing that union by their fruits. 
 
 But where now is the faith, the spiritual life, presupposed in 
 baptism, when a child is the subject? It is in the parent, I an- 
 swer, as the head of an organic unity in the house. ^Or, as it 
 may better suit the Episcopal habit of thought, it is in the 
 church of God, the body of Christ, considered as inhabited and 
 quickened by his Spirit which quickening Spirit, as was just 
 now showed under my last head, organizing the whole body, 
 travels through the parent, and mainly through him reaches 
 the child. The child therefore is in the church, in virtue of the 
 church life, as our Episcopal brethren require, for the church 
 life is but another name for the life of God which organizes the 
 church, and sets the past in connexion with the future, through 
 the organic laws of the family.' Next he is in the formal visible 
 church through baptism, the rite by which a formal embodi-
 
 OP THE FAMILY. 205 
 
 ^\ 
 
 ment of the church is made. -The church meantime has not 
 superseded the family. The child is still within the known laws 
 of character in the house, to receive, under these, whatever 
 good may have reached him not snatched away by an abrupt, 
 fantastical and therefore incredible grace. lUe is taken to be 
 regenerate, not historically speaking, but presumptively, on the 
 ground of his known connexion with the parent character and 
 the divine, or church life, which is the life of that character. 
 Perhaps I shall be understood more easily, if I say that the child 
 is potentially regenerateTpeing regarded as existing in con- 
 nexion with powers and "causes that contain the fact, before 
 time and separate from time. For when the fact appears his- 
 torically, under the law of time, it is not more truly real, in a 
 certain sense, than it was before. And then the grace confer- 
 red, being conferred by no casual act, but resting in the estab- 
 lished laws of character, in the church and the house, is not lost 
 by unfaithfulness, but remains and lingers still, though abused 
 and weakened, to encourage new struggles. 
 
 Should it not be some comfort also that we can find a view 
 of the church, which, under all names and varieties, saves its 
 unity a view which excuses the necessity of odious exclusions 
 and offensive assumptions, which makes us brothers still and, 
 as we hold the head, unites us evermore in the bonds of a broth- 
 erly feeling. What heart retaining even a trace of Christian 
 magnanimity, what heart not pinched, by bigotry, to a narrow- 
 ness that even scants the magnanimity of nature, will not be 
 disposed to accept results of a character so truly Catholic ? 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the doctrine of organic unity I have 
 been asserting, proves its theologic value, as an adequate solvent 
 for all the difficulties of this very difficult subject. Only one dif- 
 ficulty remains, viz. that so few can believe the doctrine. 
 
 2. It is evident that the voluntary intention of parents, in re- 
 gard to their children, is no measure, either of their merit, or 
 their sin. Few parents are so base, or so lost to natural affec- 
 18
 
 206 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 tion, ae really to intend the injury of their children. However 
 irreligious, or immoral, they more commonly desire a worthy 
 and correct character for their children, often even a Christian 
 character. But, injhe great and momentous truth now set 
 forth, you perceive it is not what you intend forvour children, so 
 much as what you are. that is to have its effect.! They are con- 
 nected, by an organic unity, not with your instructions, but with 
 your life. And your life is more powerful than your instructions 
 can be. They might be jealous of intended corruption and 
 withstand it, but the spirit of the house, which is your spirit, 
 the whole working of the house, which is actuated by you, is 
 what no exercise of will, even if they had more of it than they 
 have, could well resist. Therefore, what you are they will 
 almost necessarily be, and then, as you are responsible for what 
 you are, you must also be responsible for the ruin brought on 
 them. And, if you desired better things for them, as you prob- 
 ably say, the more guilty are you that, knowing and desiring 
 better things, you thwarted your desires by your own evil 
 life. 
 
 So there are Christians, who intend and do many things for 
 their children, arid thus acquit themselves of all blame in re- 
 gard to their character. Here, alas ! is the perpetual error of 
 Christian parents, so called, that they endeavor to make up, by 
 direct efforts, for the mischiefs of a loose and neglectful life. 
 They convince themselves that teaching, lecturing, watch, dis- 
 cipline, things done with a purpose are the sum of duty. As 
 if mere affectations and will- works could cheat the laws of life 
 and character ordained by God ! Your character is a stream, 
 a river, flowing down upon your children, hour by hour. What 
 you dt> here and there to carry an opposing influence is, at best, 
 only a ripple that you make on the surface of the stream. It 
 reveals the sweep of the current, nothing more. If you expect 
 your children to go with the ripple, instead of the stream, you 
 will be disappointed. I beseech you then, as you love your chil-
 
 OP THE FAMILY. 
 
 dren, to admit other and worthier thoughts, thoughts more safe 
 for them and certainly for you. Understand that it is the family 
 spirit, the organic life of the house, that which works by an 
 unconscious, unseen power, and perpetually the silent power 
 of a domestic godliness this it is which forms your children to 
 God. And if this be wanting, all that you may do beside, will 
 be as likely to annoy and harden as to bless. 
 
 3. It seems to be a proper inference from the doctrine I have 
 exhibited, that Christian parents ought to speak freely to their 
 children, at times, of their own faults and infirmities. If they 
 are faithful, if they live as Christians, if the spirit of Christ 
 bears rule in the house, they will yet have faults and they ought 
 to make no secret of the 1'act. The impression should be made, 
 that they themselves are struggling with infirmities ; that they 
 are humbled under a sense of these infirmities ; that there is 
 much in them for God to pardon, much for their children to 
 overlook, or even to forgive ; and that God alone can assist 
 them to lead themselves and their family up to a better world. 
 Instead of lecturing their children, always, on their peccadillos 
 and sins, it would be better, sometimes, to give a lecture on 
 their own. This if rightly done, would attract the friendly sym- 
 pathy of their children, guard them against the injurious im- 
 pressions they make when they trip themselves, and unite the 
 whole family in a common struggle heavenward. There is no 
 other way to correct the mixture of evil you will blend with the 
 family spirit, but to deplore it and make it an acknowledged 
 truth, that you, too, are only a child in goodness. But if you 
 take a throne of papal infallibility, in your family, and endeavor 
 to fight out, with the rod, what you fail in by your misconduct, 
 you may make your children fear you and hate you, but you 
 will not win them to Christ. Alas ! there are too many Chris- 
 tian families, that are only little popedoms. The very rule is 
 tyranny infallibility assumed, then maintained, by the holy 
 inquisition of terror and penal chastisement! God will not 
 smile on such a kind of discipline.
 
 208 THE ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 4. It is evident what rule should regulate in the society and 
 external intercourse of children. It is a very great mercy, as 
 I have said, that the children of a bad or irreligious family are 
 sometimes permitted to be inmates elsewhere ; to go into vir- 
 tuous and Christian families, where a better spirit reigns. 
 There they see, perhaps, the genuine demonstrations of order, 
 of purity and of good affections ; they hear the voice of prayer, 
 they come where the spirit of heaven breathes. It is a new 
 world, and they are filled with new impressions. So if a child 
 may go to a school where order, right principle, virtuous man- 
 ners and the love of knowledge reign, and find a respite there 
 from the shiftlessness, vice and brutality at home, how great is 
 the privilege ! In this view, a good school is almost the only 
 mercy that can be extended to the hapless sons and daughters 
 of vice. Their good most dismal thought ! is to be delivered 
 from their home to escape the spirit of hell that encompasses 
 their helpless age, and feel, though it be but a few hours a day, 
 the power of another spirit ! 
 
 But I was speaking of the rule to be observed in the society 
 of children. Let every Christian beware how he makes his 
 children inmates in an irreligious family. It will do, sometimes, 
 to allow the children of an irreligious family to be inmates, tem- 
 porarily , in your own. You may do it for their advantage, and 
 if you can enlist the hearts of your children in the merciful in- 
 tentions you cherish, it may even be a good exercise for them. 
 But it is a very different thing to place your children within the 
 atmosphere of another house. Send them not where the spirit 
 of evil reigns. Understand how plastic their nature is, how 
 easily it receives the contagion of another spirit. You your- 
 selves may have intercourse with ungodly persons, it may be 
 your duty to seek it for their benefit. But you may well be 
 cautious, how far you subject your children, especially in early 
 years, to the intercourse of irreligious families. 
 And what shall I say to parents, who are themselves irreli-
 
 OF THE FAMILY. 209 
 
 gious ? Perhaps you make it your boast that you give your 
 children their liberty, that you mean to allow them to be just as 
 religious as they please. And is that enough, do you think, to 
 discharge your duties to them ? Is it enough to breathe the 
 spirit of evil and sin into them and around them every hour, to 
 give them no Christian counsel, to train them up in a prayer- 
 less house, drill them into conformity with all your worldly 
 ways, and then say that you allow them full liberty to be Chris- 
 tians ? Having them under your law, determining yourselves 
 that organic spirit, which is to be the element, the very breath 
 of their moral existence, will you then boast that you mean to 
 allow them to be as virtuous as they please ? Ah, if there be 
 any argument, which might compel you to be Christians your- 
 selves, it is these arguments of affection, that God has given 
 you. But if you will not be Christians yourselves, then, at 
 least, show your children some degree of mercy, by delivering 
 them, as much as possible, from yourselves ! Send them, as 
 often as you may, where a better spirit reigns. Make them in- 
 mates with Christian families, as you have opportunity. Let 
 them go where they will hear a prayer, and see a Christian 
 Sabbath. Send them, or take them with you, to the church of 
 God. and the sabbath school. Give them a respite often from 
 the family spirit and the organic law of the house. If you 
 yourselves will not fashion them for the skies, let others, more 
 faithful than you, and more merciful, do it for you. 
 
 18*
 
 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH, 
 
 ACTS 2 : 44-47. And all that believed were together, and had all things com- 
 mon ; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every 
 man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and 
 breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and single- 
 ness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord 
 added to the church daily such as should be saved. 
 
 THIS whole passage is remarkable, as being an external de- 
 scription of the first disciples. It describes them, not by their 
 inward experiences, or spiritual exercises, but by their outward 
 demonstrations. It exhibits the first spring time and the first 
 blossoms of love. The beauty of the scene consists in the fact, 
 that the disciples hardly know, as yet, what their love signifies. 
 Assembled as pilgrims, from all parts of the world, the Chris- 
 tian love has fallen upon them, and they find, what is altogether 
 new and strange, that rich and poor, honorable and base, 
 despite of all distinctions, they love one another as brethren! 
 Not knowing what to make of it, or apparently, whether they 
 are hereafter to have any thing to do but to love one another, 
 they give themselves wholly up to love, as children to a play- 
 come what will, they are all agreed in this, that they want only 
 fellowship with each other, fellowship in doctrine, fellowship in 
 praise, fellowship in bread and why not also in goods ? 
 
 How sad ! many will exclaim, that a scene so amiable and 
 lovely could not continue, and that all Christian disciples, to 
 the end of the world, could not fall into the same delighful
 
 212 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 picture, in their conduct ! Just as sad, I answer, as it is that 
 children cannot always be children; for these are the children 
 of'love, acting out the simple instinct of love, and wholly igno- 
 rant, as yet, of the the cares, labors and confused struggles, in 
 which their Christian spirit is to have its trial. Doubtless we 
 are to regret, as a loss, whatever departure we may have suf- 
 fered from the spirit of these first disciples ; for the spirit of 
 Christian life is one and the same, in all diversities of form and 
 conduct. But it is plain to any one, who will exercise the least 
 consideration, that it was just as impossible to perpetuate these 
 first demonstrations, as it is to preserve the infantile airs of 
 children after childhood is passed, carrying them still on through 
 the sturdy toils and cares of a mature age. The moment we 
 leave these first scenes and pass on, down the course of time, 
 to an age where the gospel is familiarly known, its institutions 
 incorporated with society, taking our stand, we will say, in an 
 old Christian parish, we see at once that a body of disciples, 
 now, living in the same spirit, must of necessity exhibit, in 
 their outward conduct, a picture exceedingly different. Some 
 things will be discontinued, which are here prominent. Others 
 will be varied in their form, or be reproduced under new com- 
 binations. Still other instrumentalities and methods of action 
 will be introduced, or created. 
 
 My object, in pursuing this subject, is to arrive at a concep- 
 tion, if possible, of the arrangements, views, modes of proceed- 
 ing, and Christian conduct, by which practical religion may 
 best be advanced, in a modern Christian parish. And, that I 
 may do this, in the most effective and satisfactory manner, I 
 have chosen to connect my subject with the pentecostal assem- 
 bly ; that we may see by what law of change our modern ar- 
 rangements and demonstrations are produced, and how it is 
 the genius of Christianity to modify methods and create forms 
 for itself. I am determined also to this way of handling my 
 subject, by the fact that we seem to have derived certain views
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH, 213 
 
 of religious conduct from the scene of the pentecost, which are 
 not properly derivable from it, and which need correction. 
 
 Neglecting logical precision, in the distribution of my subject 
 I shall enumerate 
 
 I. Some of the points, in which it must be admitted, by all 
 intelligent persons, that the modern Christian parish is not to 
 be conformed to the scene of the pentecost. And then, 
 
 II. Give a connected view of the conduct of a modern con- 
 gregation, in points where we are likely to suffer some diver- 
 sity of impression. 
 
 The scene of the pentecost was altogether new and strange; 
 being, as it were, a Solemn Inaugural of the doctrine of the 
 Holy Spiric. Doubtless the reality of a divine power, exer- 
 cised in human souls, had before been experienced experi- 
 enced, I may say, in every soul that ever had lived. Such a 
 grace is once or twice named and sought for, in prayer, in the 
 Old Testament. Still the doctrine of a systematic, quicken- 
 ing, sanctifying agency, or inbreathing love, as connected with 
 Jesus, the world's Redeemer, was not yet conceived. Indeed, 
 such an agency could not be sufficiently developed, until after 
 the redeeming purposes of God had first been set forth to the 
 race, in Jesus the Messiah. This being done, it was next to 
 be shown that God is not withdrawn, in the ascension of Jesus, 
 but abide th with us still subjectively, living as a secret pres- 
 ence in the race, to prosecute the same gracious designs, and 
 draw all hearts unto Himself. And how could such a truth be 
 revealed except through physical demonstrations and objective 
 shapes or incidents ? For whatever power He might exert, 
 in the recesses of the human spirit, it would probably occur to 
 no one to refer the effects wrought, to a Divine Agency. 
 Hence the wondrous character of the scene, which here bursts 
 upon the world, a sound from heaven, a rushing mighty wind 
 sweeping tlirough the hall, lambent tips of fire resting on the
 
 214 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 heads of the assembly, wondrous utterances or tongues, aston- 
 ishment, awe, guilty convictions struggling in each bosom, 
 wills bowing to the divine messiahship of Jesus, pardon, peace, 
 new feelings, joys and principles. 
 
 Now the physical incidents of this scene had nothing to do 
 with its substantial import, save as they were added to suggest 
 the idea of a Divine Agency. They hold the same mechanical 
 relation to the Spirit, as a vehicle, that the human nature of 
 Jesus held to the Divine Word. They are the body, the sen- 
 sible show of the Spirit, the smoke by which the fire was re- 
 vealed. So of the tongues. They were the sign of a power 
 that was playing the action of the inner man and making audi- 
 ble, as it were, the activity within, of a Divine Influence. All 
 these, like the miraculous gifts so conspicuous in the subse- 
 quent history, were manifestations of the Spirit given to profit 
 withal ; but being only accidents or exponents, were, of course, 
 to be discontinued, when the doctrine of a spiritual influence 
 from God was sufficiently developed. And as these are dis- 
 continued, so the spiritual influence itself, when once inau- 
 gurated, by these bold and almost violent displays of energy, 
 may be expected, for much the same reasons, to move upon 
 the world in a less imposing method to remit, in some de- 
 gree, the extraordinary, and, as life is itself ordinary, become, 
 to the human spirit, what the air is to the body, a Perpetual 
 Element of inbreathing love ; to dwell in the families, to follow 
 the individual and whisper holy thoughts, in solitary places and 
 silent hours. He is to fill the world, and be a spirit of life and 
 love, present to all human hearts. He will produce the same 
 exercises produced in the first disciples in the scene of the pen- 
 tecost ; sometimes too he will glorify himself in scenes of social 
 effect and power. But the grand reality revealed is that he is 
 never far from any one of us ; a good presence, illuminating 
 our darkness, helping our weakness, and working in us motions 
 and desires that cannot be uttered.
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 215 
 
 Other incidents, or demonstrations of the scene, are refer- 
 able to the fact that these first converts, or subjects of grace, 
 are not at home. They are mostly Jewish pilgrims, who have 
 come up from all parts of the world to attend the festivals. 
 Their property, for the most part, their business and their fam- 
 ilies are left behind. Many of them are poor persons, wholly 
 unable to support the expense even of a short stay at Jerusa- 
 lem. The others cannot, of course, leave them to suffer. So 
 they divide their resources with the poor ; and some, who be- 
 long at Jerusalem, are moved by the overflowing love of Christ 
 in their hearts, to part with their whole property, that they 
 may relieve the necessities of the brotherhood. Only a few 
 days, or weeks are thus spent together. Probably, within 
 three months, they are every man at home in his own house, 
 providing for his own family, out of the increase of his own in- 
 dustry and prosperity. During their short stay at Jerusalem, 
 they had nothing to do but to exercise their religion. Accord- 
 ingly they gave themselves wholly up to it. Now the religious 
 occasion is past. The extraordinary is over and the ordinary 
 has returned. By this time, they have learned, probably, and 
 received it even as a Christian! maxim, that one who does not 
 provide 1'or his own denies the faith and is worse than an 
 infidel. 
 
 Again, these first disciples had not yet' been called to blend 
 their piety with the common cares and duties of life. Q,uite 
 likely, they did not for some time, consider whether they should 
 hereafter have any thing more to do with these gross and 
 earthly callings. But we, at least, have learned what they 
 must also have learned very soon, that though we cannot live 
 by bread alone, it is yet difficult to live without bread. We 
 have learned that the very Church of God itself is perpetuated 
 in part, by industry and production, that it cannot live by ex- 
 penditure, that we have something therefore to do, besides 
 breaking bread from house to house ; six days to labor, a spec- 
 tacle of thrift to present to mankind, as a proof that Christian
 
 216 THE SCENE OF THE PEIS'TECOST, 
 
 virtue has its blessings. We must shine as good citizens, 
 neighbors, parents, friends. Life is no mere camp meeting 
 scene, but the greatest of all Christian attainments, we find, 
 is precisely that which the first disciples had not yet thought 
 of, the learning how to blend the spiritual and economical, or 
 industrial together ; to live in the world and not be of it ; to 
 labor in earthly things and maintain a conversation in heaven ; 
 to unite thrift with charity, and separate gain from greediness ; 
 to use property and not worship it ; to prepare comfort without 
 pursuing pleasure. For it is, by just this kind of trial, that 
 all spiritual strength is gotten and the Christian life becomes a 
 light to men. 
 
 It is also clear that these first disciples were wholly occupied, 
 for a time, with their high frames and the strange ardor of 
 their new experiences; ignorant, therefore, for so long a time, 
 of the extent to which new principles depend for their support 
 and consolidation, on the regulative force of habit. They had 
 none of them been educated in the new religion. They had 
 all come into it suddenly from without, under a mysterious 
 power. To have spoken to them now of habit would have 
 been to chill their joy in its birth. They seemed to have a 
 new character by inspiration, what need then of so low an in- 
 strument as custom, to fortify a life that was divine ? And yet, 
 within a year, they began every one of them, I am quite sure, to 
 think of habit. Old habit began to return upon them, as the 
 impulse of feeling abated, and they groaned under its terrible 
 power. Now they saw that nothing good is firmly established 
 in the soul, till it gets the force of a santified habit. They 
 struggled on with holy pertinacity, through many mistakes and 
 lapses, after a more purified and habitual union to God. 
 And so they learned, by degrees, to make less of mere frames 
 and sudden revolutions, and more of results that came to pass 
 imperceptibly. Rendering thanks to God, who had called them 
 out of darkness into light, by his quickening Spirit, they saw
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 217 
 
 the reality of the change, less in the frames experienced, and 
 more in the principles accepted. They discovered that it is not 
 so much extasies that men want in religion, as it is principles, 
 and that no romantic, or enthusiastic flights of experience, unr 
 aided by habit, can settle a new principle into practical domin- 
 ion over the mind. And now, yielding up the hope, which per- 
 haps they had first entertained, that the new religion was to 
 blaze across the world in a series of pentecostal scenes, they 
 fell, gradually, into the conviction that disciples were to be 
 trained for the church, as catechumens, under the power of a 
 spiritual discipline, and partly within the laws of habit. Influ- 
 ences that operate gradually, imperceptibly and through the 
 medium of godly exercise in the truth, became more impor- 
 tant, and the Holy Spirit, being now fully revealed, was ac- 
 cepted as the attendant of ordinary life, the support of its strug- 
 gles and the hope of all Christian efforts. 
 
 Closely connected with the point we are considering, it is 
 very evident that the first disciples, at Jerusalem, must have 
 suffered a great change of view, when they returned to their 
 homes, in respect to Christian training in the lamily. In the 
 first weeks of their joyful experience, it probably had not once 
 occurred to them that the Christian training of children was, 
 hereafter, to be one of the great sources of power to the gospel 
 and a fruitful spring of supply to the church. But descending 
 from the almost romantic pitch of feeling, by which they have 
 been exercised, finding themselves at home again, among their 
 children, now arises the question what Christ will do with 
 their children, and what they are themselves to do for them? 
 The inquiry ends in a discovery that the children are to be 
 trained up in Christ, not to be gathered as new recruits from 
 the world. Here opens a new era. Henceforth it is not the 
 breaking of bread from house to house, no frames of fellow- 
 ship, or sudden rhapsodies of feeling, nothing that belongs to a 
 
 group of pilgrims resting for a lew weeks in a foreign land, and 
 19
 
 218 THE SCENE OP THE PENTECOST, 
 
 there surprised by the love of Jesus, but it is what godly fathers 
 and mothers may do at home results to be compassed not in 
 a day, but gradually and carefully, by making the family itself 
 a holy element and the church a school of love, to all whom it 
 may gather from the world, fer Christian nurture and instruc- 
 tion. The very ministrations of religion, too, must be differ- 
 ent ; for now it is not only one of the duties of the Christian 
 minister to convert men, but also to educate, instruct, edify. 
 The casual, in fact, is not all now, as it was at the pentecost, 
 but the permanent has come into its place. Nothing casual, in 
 fact, is left, save what may be the minister of permanent 
 growth and supply ; for Christ is now brought, not into some 
 meeting or caravan of pilgrims, but he has taken possession of 
 the society of man itself. 
 
 In the same way, Christianity, in passing into the form of a 
 settled institution, suffers another change, which, to the first 
 disciples, was quite inconceivable. At the first promulgation 
 of the gospel, on the day of pentecost, the question lay between 
 belief and rejection. And beside this, there was, for a long 
 time, no other. Hence belief was taken to be the sure condition 
 of salvation. But, when Christ and his gospel had entered into 
 eociety itself, and generations had been trained up in Christian 
 churches and families, it resulted, of course, that many would 
 be found in the assemblies, Avho honor the gospel, and, in some 
 proper sense, believe it, but manifestly do not live by its prin- 
 ciples. Now the question lies between outward assent and 
 practical reception. Two classes also of men are found enga- 
 ged together to uphold the Christian institutions. They have 
 relations to one another and to the word ministered, such as 
 before did not exist. And now it is no longer means to an end, 
 in preaching the word, to publish the story of Jesus, and authen- 
 ticate the same by witnesses, as was done amid the scenes of 
 the pentecost, but the labor of preaching henceforth is to make 
 men follow, in practice, what they believe. Or if miracles were
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 219 
 
 added then, to conclude all unbelief, it is now the labor, since 
 they can not any longer be seen by the eyes, to prove the mira- 
 cles. At first there were only friends and enemies, worshippers 
 and scoffers. I\ow there is a large body of intermediates, or 
 half believers, who desire and support the worship, and who, 
 if they are to be gained, must be gained by methods suited to 
 their case. Sometimes they will be drawn to a new and ab- 
 rupt change of life, in scenes like that of the pentecost, as if 
 coming in from an outpost of enmity or derision ; quite as often, 
 perhaps, they will come into the truth, if at all, imperceptibly, 
 by years of exercise, the fruit of which will display itself only in 
 the final results wrought. 
 
 A very great change, also, is ere long to appear, as you will 
 perceive, in the entrance of diverse opinions, thus of sects and 
 controversies consequently new modes of duty , cast by new re- 
 lations. The simplicity of mere love, displayed, as it was, in the 
 first scenes of the gospel, could not continue, however desirable 
 it may seem. Men must think as well as love, and thought must 
 make its inroads on mere relations of feeling. Now there must 
 be formulas, organized combinations, weary debates and, as 
 love is imperfect, strifes and jealousies. And thus a long pro- 
 cess of forming and re-forming must go on, till the Christ of the 
 head becomes as catholic as the Christ of the heart. Mean- 
 time all must stand for the truth. There must be no counte- 
 nance given to error. The happy days of Christian childhood 
 are left far behind, and every church is set in relations of duty 
 that are partly antagonistic. It must take a form required by 
 its new necessities. What to do for the truth, whom to ac- 
 knowledge, when to resist and when to forbear, how much con- 
 sequence to attribute to opinions, over what errors to spread 
 the mantle of charity, how to maintain a polemic attitude in the 
 unity of the Spirit these are the grave questions that are to 
 occupy ministers and churches, and, in the ri^ht exercise of 
 which, they are to justify their Christian name. And on this
 
 220 TIIE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 will depend the power of religion, quite as much as on the du- 
 ties done to those, who are aliens and unbelievers. 
 
 Next we pass on to a field where the new creating power of 
 the gospel is displayed yet more distinctly. The first disciples, 
 probably, had no thought but to swim in the strange joy they 
 felt, as forgiven of God and filled with the love of Jesus. Of 
 Christianity, as a fixed institution, taking the whole society of 
 man into its bosom, and becoming the school of the race, they 
 had probably, at first, no conception. Passing thence to the 
 modern Christian faith, how great is the change. What a 
 variety of means, instruments and arrangements has it created, 
 maintaining all from age to age, by a charge, compared with 
 which, the casual contributions to poor saints at Jerusalem, 
 were far less significant in their effects, and, perhaps, not more 
 to be commended, as proofs of a Christian spirit. 
 
 First a house of worship, and, in order to this, the new spir- v 
 itual life must become a holder of real estate, and be acknow- 
 ledged as such in the laws. To make the place worthy of the 
 cause, genius and taste are to be called into exercise, and a new 
 Christian art developed. 
 
 To maintain expenses and repairs, there must be officers 
 created, and this requires an organized responsibility. 
 
 Mere forms and sacraments being insufficient, preachers of 
 the word must be carefully trained for the service and in- 
 stalled therein, to feed the intelligence of the flock, and lead 
 them into the truth. Their official rights and duties must be 
 ascertained and, correspondent!)', the rights and duties of the 
 flock matters all how distant from the scene of the pentecost. 
 
 The times and forms of worship need to be settled ; for, 
 whether a liturgy is used or not, no organic action can be main- 
 tained without forms of some kind, to serve as laws of concert 
 and rules of order. 
 
 Christian music, as a new art, must be created, and the chil- 
 dren and youth must be trained therein, so that all may bear
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 221 
 
 their part in the worship, and the worship exercise and inspire 
 a devout feeling in all. 
 
 There must be a punctual and regular attendance ; for the 
 habit of worship is necessary to its value, as a power over char- 
 acter. Hence there must be a common responsibility all must 
 be enlisted. There must be a church spirit, and, in order to 
 this, a fraternal spirit in the members, verified by mutual sym- 
 pathy and aid, under the common burdens of life a kind of ser- 
 vice, I will add, which is often far more beneficent than a com- 
 munity of goods would be ; for this latter might be only a pre- 
 mium given to idleness, while the other is but a good encour- 
 agement to the ingenuous struggles of industry. There must, 
 however, be some Christian provision for the poor, that they 
 also may have their part in the Christian flock, and the bless- 
 ings of charity descend upon it and dwell in it. 
 
 Nor is the article of dress, in a Christian assembly, too insig- 
 nificant to be a subject of care. Probably no one had a thought 
 of this in the pentecostal assembly, but we find the apostles, not 
 long after, giving serious lectures to the disciples upon their 
 dress. Dress and manners, manners and morals, morals and 
 piety, are all connected by an intimate or secret law. A people 
 therefore, who are careful to appear before God, in a well cho- 
 sen, modest and appropriate dress, one that is neither careless 
 nor ostentatious, one that indicates sobriety, neatness, good 
 sense, and a desire to be approved of God more than to be, seen 
 of men, will avoid barbarous improprieties of every sort. Their 
 manner will express reverence to God. What they express 
 they will be likely to feel, and if they become true disciples of 
 Christ, as there is greater reason to hope, their manners will 
 have a nicer propriety, and their whole demeanor will be more 
 thoughtful, consistent and lovely. 
 
 Sometimes it will be the duty of a Christian parish, inas- 
 much as its hope, for the future, is in the youth and children, to 
 
 maintain a parish school. A Sunday school to employ, in 
 19*
 
 222 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 Christian studies and good works, the talents of the brother- 
 hood, and exert a Christian power over children who would 
 otherwise receive no religious instruction, we now regard as 
 indispensable. 
 
 You begin to see. in the inventory I have here made out, 
 and which might be indefinitely extended, how many things 
 Christianity must gather to itself, as it passes into the form of 
 a settled institution. Not one of the articles I have here named 
 ever entered the mind, probably, of the first disciples, at Jerusa- 
 lem. And yet they are all necessary, and being necessary, 
 exist, in so far, by a divine requirement. It now remains 
 
 II. Extending the comparison thus begun between the scene 
 of the penteoost and a modern Christian parish, to bring into 
 view, under cover of what I have advanced, a few points where 
 we appear to suffer impressions, that are partially erroneous 
 and need correction. And here the question is, under what 
 views, by what modes of conduct and proceeding, in a modern 
 Christian congregation, we may advance the power of religion 
 most effectually? And 
 
 1. Is there not some reason to think that we have derived, 
 from the scene of the pentecost, a view of spiritual influence, 
 which it \vas not designed to teach and which needs a degree 
 of qualification ? It cannot be questioned that a mind, exer- 
 cised under sin, must be exercised, in some sense, now as then ; 
 for sin is the same, in its nature, as it then was, and turning 
 from sin to God is the same exercise. Still it remains as a 
 first question, and one of radical importance, whether the Holy 
 Spirit, revealed in that scene, was revealed principally as a 
 spirit of scenes, or as the indwelling quickener and sanctifier 
 of man. It cannot be wrong, when a community is deeply, but 
 soberly and reasonably moved by the things of religion* to re- 
 fer the fact to the same Divine Agency there exhibited. But 
 if one professes, now, to speak with tongues, by the same 
 Spirit, it may not be so readily believed. There is, probably,
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 223 
 
 as little reason for this gill of tongues now, as there is for the 
 reappearance of Jesus in Galilee, or Paul in Damascus. There 
 certainly is much in the scene of the pentecost that is only oc- 
 casional, a temporary show work, which belonged to the inau- 
 gural of the Spirit, but not to the doctrine of the Spirit. And 
 now that the doctrine is intellectually produced and appre- 
 hended, what does it affirm ? a Scene-Spirit, or something far 
 more august and worthier of our thanksgiving, that Jehovah, 
 the Eternal Life, is dwelling as a power of good, a light, an aid, 
 a regenerator and sanctifier, in the bosom of the world a 
 Spirit from God inhabiting the church as a church life, the 
 Christian house, as a house life, the individual from infancy to 
 to the grave as the life of Reason and Love Christ himself, 
 present invisibly to all, breathing his own nature and begetting 
 his own image in their heart. This, in fact, we all believe, 
 but we seem to fancy still that the Scene-Spirit is the greater 
 gift. Practically, if not theoretically, we hold this gift in so 
 high estimation that the Abiding Spirit is left in shadow. We 
 extol the abiding grace, in words, and yet we practically as- 
 sume that a Christian can be revived, or an ungodly person 
 converted, only by the grace of a scene, or pentecostal occa- 
 sion. Even the ordinary means, which God has instituted for 
 the advancement of practical religion, such as preaching, fam- 
 ily training and godly living itself, we appear to suppose can 
 have no renewing efficacy, apart from a scene of revival and 
 the peculiar mode of spiritual influence there exerted. 
 
 Most certain it is that we separate, just here, from the mass 
 of the Christian world. Never, before, in any church known 
 to us in history, has the impression prevailed that prevails in 
 our American churches. And have we not some reason, in 
 such a fact, to presume that our view of spiritual influence is, 
 at least, partially mistaken? Under the prelatical forms of 
 Christianity, the doctrine of the Spirit has been reduced to an 
 abiding presence, in sacraments, in priestly ministrations and
 
 224 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 the regulative guidance of church opinions ; which is very 
 nearly the same thing as a complete denial of the doctrine, for 
 it takes away that which is liveliest and dearest in the grace of 
 the Spirit his immediate intercourse with souls leaving only 
 a mediate grace that goes to exalt and deify, so to speak, the 
 church prerogatives, enthroning, thus, a barren superstition 
 and distilling upon men, not as sinners but as prisoners rather 
 to a narrow idolatry. We have endeavored to restore the 
 doctrine of an immediate intercourse of grace with souls, and 
 in so doing, we seem to have thrust ourselves into an opposite 
 extreme, the belief in an occasional Spirit an extraordinary 
 Spirit. Therefore, when we see no extraordinary movement, 
 when there is no revival of religion, we say that the Spirit is 
 withdrawn. And though we consciously speak in a figure, we 
 practically mean more than perhaps we suppose. There is, if 
 I am not deceived, a general impression, in our churches, 
 which is nearly equivalent to a theoretic belief, that the Holy 
 Spirit is not an abiding and always available grace. He is not 
 so much a perpetual spring of motion, as an occasional power 
 of corn-motion. What minister of God's truth expects the 
 word to be fruitful, what Christian really expects to grow, 
 what ungodly person thinks it in order to repent of his sins, 
 when there is no revival of religion? The very idea of true 
 piety is clouded by the same illusion. It is a frame. It is more 
 resembled to heat, than to a patient life of duty and faith. It is 
 only once in a few years that Christian efforts are means to 
 ends. How different the result if we truly held the faith of an 
 abiding Spirit, present to every good thought and righteous 
 struggle, upholding and cherishing all weakness; drawing us 
 ever to a closer and purer fellowship with God, pervading the 
 family, filling the church, fertilizing the word, and connecting 
 duty with fruit by an infallible law. Then every walk of life 
 would be sanctified by a religious spirit. Piety would be con-
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 225 
 
 slant, and every breath we draw would infuse some flavor of a 
 heavenly character. 
 
 Believing, as I think we have reason to believe, that this is 
 the real doctrine of the Spirit that was revealed, through the 
 scene of the pentecost, as an occasional and extraordinary 
 scene, I make no question that there will often be scenes now, 
 as there always have been, of peculiar power and activity in re- 
 ligious impulses. As Christians are human, they will some- 
 times be unfaithful and sink into a decline of piety, requiring 
 thus to be re-animated. Besides it is quite probable that, if 
 there were no periodical fluctuations, or exaltations in the 
 church, the memory of a Divine Agency in souls would die 
 out and the reality of the doctrine perish. I only deplore the 
 certain loss we suffer, when we practically cease to hold any 
 thing but exaltations ; for then also has perished all that is 
 most genial and worthiest of God in the doctrine, and the part 
 we retain sinks into a partial superstition, because the continu- 
 ity of the doctrine is lost. 
 
 2. It is to be considered whether worship, as compared with 
 preaching, is not to be held as a principal, or more effective 
 means of grace. It was not so in the scene of the pentecost, 
 for the subjects of that scene were not prepared to worship 
 worship, as a public Christian rite, was not yet instituted. But 
 with us, in an established Christian parish, it is otherwise. 
 The assembly are called, every time they meet, to exercise 
 themselves not only in hearing, but also in acts and feelings 
 directly related to God. The worship is before all and for all, 
 and, if what I have said of the Spirit as an abiding grace is 
 true, it is for all times. Nor is there any thing which, taken 
 as a presentation of Christian truth, presents it with such vivid- 
 ness and power to the mind, as worship itself. This is truth 
 in act. It presents the Christian soul before God, struggling 
 up unto His bosom, in sentiments appropriate to the relation of 
 creature and a sinner to his almighty Father and Redeemer.
 
 226 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 Abstractions are here forgotten, all doubtful and debateable 
 matter, such as confuses the mind, is left behind. And the 
 truth presented is received in the molds of exercise, not in those 
 of cogitation. It comes not as to a questioning, judging fac- 
 ulty, but it passes, in all who worship, directly into a feeling. 
 They become, in their own persons, the working organs of 
 truth. It passes directly into the spiritual chemistry of the 
 soul, as spirit and life. 
 
 If then all who are present, the guiltiest as well as the 
 purest, can feel that they are not here to be spectators, but to 
 worship ; that they are called to pour out their souls in the 
 supplications, thanksgivings and praises of the assembly, and 
 to believe that the Abiding Spirit is here, to enlighten their un- 
 derstanding, to move their sluggish heart and assist them to 
 exercise the believing and godly spirit, how manifest is it that 
 the worship may be a most effective means of grace to all. In 
 this point of view, or as calling a whole assembly into action, 
 it is not to be disguised that the liturgical plan has some ad- 
 vantage, if only it were limited to what may be called the 
 standing offices of worship, in distinction from those which are 
 occasional, and sufficient cautions were applied, to distinguish 
 between saying prayers and being Christians. The Moravi- 
 ans gain the same results, in part, by a very abundant use of 
 singing, as an instrument of devotion for all the assembly. 
 However, the same result, for the most part, can be gained, 
 under a more extempore form of worship ; and would be, if it 
 were not hindered by teachings, that discourage and repel a 
 part of the assembly. I speak of that part of the assembly who 
 do not regard themselves as spiritual disciples. They are told, 
 and rightly, that God will not accept the sacrifices of the 
 wicked, also that the prayers of the wicked are an abomination. 
 But they are left under the impression that they must undergo 
 a spiritual renovation of character, before they have any right 
 to think of offering acceptable worship. And why not ? How
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 227 
 
 can the unbeliever pray, if his prayer is only sin? He should 
 pray, I answer, not as an unbeliever, but as one renouncing hia 
 unbelief and seeking a deliverance from the power of evil. If, 
 up to this time, he has lived in sin, that is the very reason why 
 he should pray, and why God calls him to pray. He is only 
 not to pray as adhering to wickedness ; for it is that which is 
 an abomination to God. The true doctrine, therefore, of wor- 
 ship is that all is for all. When we come before God we come 
 as sinners, and, as such, are to worship. The penitence, the 
 holy desires, the thanks, the praises are for all, and lor one as 
 truly as for another. If there be a man present who had never 
 a serious thought in his life, then let him have one. If he never 
 worshipped, then let him begin to worship. Let him take up 
 every expression of Christian feeling and make it his own. Let 
 the christless come to Christ, here to begin their alphabet and 
 make the spirit of the godly life their spirit. There is not a 
 hand breadth of wall standing, any where, to keep them from 
 God. He will come over even mountains of sin to meet them. 
 He is here, by his Holy Spirit, to draw them unto his bosom. 
 Holding such a view of worship, is it not clear that it may be 
 even a more powerful instrument of grace than preaching 1 
 Growing up in it from childhood, exercised in it, as their own 
 exercise, taught how to worship and how to discriminate true 
 worship from that which is false, is it credible that they may 
 not be trained to love it, as a privilege, and receive, through 
 means of it, though perhaps imperceptibly, the true Christian 
 spirit. 
 
 But we seem to hold that men must be converted under 
 preaching, as in the scene of the pentecost, before they are 
 called to worship. And this not only discourages the exercise, 
 but it creates a false estimate of preaching. How shall they 
 hear without a preacher, we say, holding the inference that 
 preaching is God's chief instrument, and not observing how 
 this language had its truth, in the fact that the apostle was
 
 228 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 speaking 1 of persons who were yet ignorant of Christ, and that, 
 under established Christian institutions, a wholly different case 
 is presented. Assuming thus that all must be converted, un- 
 der preaching, as at the day of pentecost, we over magnify 
 preaching. Our assemblies are gathered, not for the worship 
 of God, but to hear preaching. Their religion often is to be 
 critics of preaching. They bear the worship as a tax, or pen- 
 ance, on the way to come at the sermon. Sometimes it will 
 be observed that the audience are pitched about, into all dull 
 and listless postures, during the worship, and then, coming to 
 the sermon, they will begin to stir themselves and draw them- 
 selves up into position, as if they were now to receive something 
 of consequence ! How could they express a worse irreverence 
 for God, or one more offensive to pious feeling, than to say, by 
 signs so unequivocal, that they care more for hearing a man 
 discourse, than they do for communion with God Himself! I 
 do not say that any such irreverence is intended, and yet there 
 is a power of reaction in signs and postures, appropriate to 
 irreverence, to beget unconsciously the feeling they express. 
 And the contrary is equally true, so that if a Christian assem- 
 bly are seen bowing themselves upon the worship, as the prin- 
 cipal good of the occasion, it is natural and right to expect that 
 they will have a correct, sober, thoughtful spirit. 
 
 Nor is the error, of which I complain, attributable, as many 
 suppose, to the defect of a liturgy certainly not as a neces- 
 sary, or unavoidable result. But it comes as a natural re- 
 sult, for the most part, of the doctrine, often formally assert- 
 ed, that a large part of the audience have really nothing to do 
 with the worship, until after they are converted, and that 
 preaching is God's chief instrument of conversion a doctrine 
 which operates, first, to give the minister an exaggerated opin- 
 ion of preaching, and tempts him thus to dispatch the worship 
 with too little effort to give it interest and power ; then, sec- 
 ondly, encourages the assembly, since many of them can do
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 229 
 
 nothing better, to busy themselves as amateur hearers and 
 critics of preaching. Besides, it is not to be withheld, that one 
 of the reasons why so muchis made, comparatively, of worship, 
 in those forms of order which embrace a liturgy, is that the 
 preaching is frequently so inefficient. When the sermon is 
 nothing better than an Apology for the want of one, a brief, 
 pointless homily, without either unction, or argument, or fire, 
 to kindle the mind to a glow, what is there left but to make 
 something, if possible, out of the liturgy ? And this brings me 
 to speak 
 
 3. Of the kind of preaching necessary to the highest religious 
 effect, in a modern Christian congregation. For here also there 
 seem$ to be erroneous impressions in many of our churches, as 
 well as in respect to the relative importance of preaching. The 
 preaching of Peter on the day of pentecost, was scarcely more 
 than a mere delivery of news. And how often is this exam- 
 ple held up for imitation. ' See how simple it was, how easy 
 of apprehension, and then what power it had' ! As if the telling 
 over and over of old news, announcing again facts that have 
 been known to every hearer from his childhood up, as famil- 
 iarly as he knows his right hand, could have the same value and 
 be means to ends, for producing the same effects ! ' See, too, 
 it is said on every side, how immediate the results which fol- 
 lowed.' And since the results were conversions to Christ, the 
 inference is taken that every sermon ought to aim at the imme- 
 diate conversion of the hearers, and be an appropriate instru- 
 ment for a day of pentecost. Let the subjects be few, the illus- 
 trations low, the action extravagant, conversions counted the 
 measure of success. As if it were the errand of Christianity 
 to get by the need of intelligence, and beget a sanctity that has 
 no fellowship with dignity ! Such views and methods of preach- 
 ing are doubtless somewhat less absurd, when there is no end 
 in view but to serve an occasional effect ; but they can have no 
 
 other result, when continued in the same assembly, than to 
 20
 
 230 THE SCENES OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 produce, first, soreness and distaste, finally, a settled disgust 
 towards every thing sacred. A camp meeting, or a band of 
 pilgrims gathered, for a single week, a thousand miles from 
 home, may well enough desire such kind of preaching as will 
 serve the zest of the occasion. But a regular established 
 Christian congregation, who expec^to live and grow on the 
 same spot, from age to age, must be required to gird up the 
 loins of their mind. They must reject the diluted drinks and 
 betake themselves to meat. An evangelist, or preaching va- 
 grant, who goes about from place to place to carry on conver- 
 sion as a trade, may get on with a very slender furniture. A 
 few stories, intermixed with exhortations and rhapsodies, and 
 supported by new machinery, will suffice. But the life of a 
 Christian congregation, it will be found, depends not on scenes 
 and machineries, not on storms and paroxysms, but on a capacity 
 rather to receive instruction ; to be exercised in high argument, 
 to bear with patience the discovery how little they know, and 
 on a good healthful appetite for Christian food. To be able to 
 burn in a fire decides nothing. They must know how to supply 
 the fuel of devotion, out of their own exercise in God's truth. 
 They mustl ove a ministry of doctrine, or intellectual teaching. 
 Neither is it doctrine, as many fancy, when they complain of a 
 want of doctrinal preaching, to get a few stale dogmas im- 
 pounded in the head, or stuck in the brain, as dead flies in oint- 
 ment all the rich treasures of thought and high motive and sol- 
 emn contemplation, garnered up in God's word, must be brought 
 out, seen, understood and fall upon the soul, as manna from the 
 skies. Like manna, too, it must be the supply of to-day only. 
 A new shower must be gathered for to-morrow, and the mind 
 of the people must be kept in active and progressive motion. 
 
 Such a kind of preaching will feed the intelligence of the hear- 
 ers, and raise up pillars in the churches. And here is the great 
 distinction between the preaching proper to the scene of pente- 
 cost, and that of an established Christian congregation. It is
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 231 
 
 the difference between Peter, giving news to the pilgrims, and 
 Paul offering some things hard to be understood, to churches of 
 organized disciples. Such preaching is required in an estab- 
 lished congregation, as will exert an educating power. And 
 yet it will, in that way, be a converting power, as efficacious as 
 any other, if only it is expected to be. When the community 
 is more deeply moved by spiritual things, it will, of course, vary 
 its tone and its subjects to suit the occasion, perhaps multiply 
 its efforts ; but never as being in a hurry, lest the grace of the 
 occasion may be capriciously withdrawn, never over-preach- 
 ing, or preaching out, as if nothing were to be done by thought 
 in the hearers, but all by the power of a commotion round 
 them ; for it is not the same thing to fall out of dignity and self 
 possession, as to get rid of sin, neither is a fever, or a whirl- 
 wind any proper instrument of sanctification. Mournful proofs 
 have we to the contrary. Better is it to reserve a power for 
 the ordinary, even when we are in the extraordinary. It is 
 not wisdom to overwork the harvest, so that we have no 
 strength left for the bread. Rather let the preacher believe in 
 the Abiding Spirit and count upon a kind of perpetual harvest. 
 Let him think to gain many to Christ imperceptibly, by keep- 
 ing alive the interest of God's truth and letting it distil upon 
 the hearers as a dew, and through them on the rising families. 
 Whatever he gains in this way will assuredly remain ; for it is 
 not the birth of an occasion, but of quiet conviction. It par- 
 takes the nature of habit. It is the fruit of a godly training. 
 Seldom therefore will it fall away, or disappoint expectation. 
 
 Holding this view of preaching, it will be seen that I do not 
 undervalue its power in a Christian assembly, when I give pre- 
 cedence to the rites of worship. If preaching be foolishness, it 
 is yet the power of God. Without the advantage of earnest, 
 intellectual preaching, it is impossible to produce an energetic, 
 manly race of disciples, Lej any American Christian visit the 
 nations of the old world, where pageants, forms, sacraments
 
 232 THE SCENES OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 and liturgies have been, lor long ages, the principal instruments 
 oi religion ; where disciples are made through their eyes, more 
 than through their understanding, and thought is not supposed 
 to be any proper instrument oi' piety ; let him there take the 
 gauge of character, see how the masses of the people are 
 rather enfeebled, than strengthened, by their religion, holding 
 it as superstition, not as a faith, incurious, dull, without ear- 
 nest purposes, or spirit equal to any high conflict in life ; whom 
 it would so often be absurd to address in the Christian exhor- 
 tation, " quit yourselves like men," since they have really quit 
 being men then let him turn again to New England, consider 
 the energy, the inquisitivness, the sharp understanding, the in- 
 domitable power, the iron principles, recollecting how these are 
 the fruits of a religion that works only through intelligence, an 
 over-preaching church, a bald, unliturgical worship doing 
 this, he must be singularly constituted not to feel some respect 
 for Christian preaching and possibly for Puritanism itself. 
 
 4. It is discoverable, I think, that in copying the type of reli- 
 gious exercise exhibited in the scenes of the Pentecost, we 
 have overlooked, to a lamentable degree, the office and power 
 of family nurture. I have spoken already, of the change of 
 view that must probably have been suffered by the first disci- 
 ples, in reference to this matter, when they returned to their 
 homes. Hitherto they had fully conceived, we may suppose, 
 of no effective instrument but preaching, no jnlet to the church, 
 but that of adult conversion. In the same way, it happened, 
 every where, in the first planting of Christianity, that the prin- 
 cipal effort was directed to the conversion of adults. It could 
 not be otherwise. And hence it is, I conceive, that family nur- 
 ture and infant baptism are not more frequently mentioned and 
 more prominently set forth. God does every thing in its time 
 and not before. There are however distinct evidences of infant 
 baptism in the scripture, evidences quite as distinct as could be 
 expected, and such, I think, as ought to convince .and will con-
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 233 
 
 vince any person, who sets himself to a fair and easy interpre- 
 tation of the scripture language. But, if it were otherwise, if 
 the evidence were still more doubtful than it is, the fact that 
 such a practice became prevalent in the Christian church at 
 an early period, connected with the fact that the gathering of 
 adult converts must have been, for a considerable time, the 
 main struggle and the engrossing care of the new faith, would 
 at least make room for the inquiry, whether the rite, when de- 
 veloped, was not still a proper devlopment of the interior prin- 
 ciples of the faith ? For when Christianity entered into human 
 society and became a regulative element in its constituted rela- 
 tions, then and not before could it fully unfold the real content 
 of its principles. And a suspicion of this kind might well ripen 
 into a settled conviction, when the analogies of the old system 
 are brought into view and the genius of Christianity, as a com- 
 prehensive blessing for the race, is considered. Then too an 
 important signification will be found, in the very peculiar ten- 
 derness of Jesus to infant children and the very singular lan- 
 guage he used concerning them. 
 
 I offer these suggestions, not as advocating here the doctrine 
 of infant baptism, for that is not my subject, but principally to 
 show, by the reasonings applicable here, how the whole Chris- 
 tian church, in passing to the condition of a fixed institution, 
 must have been drawn to attend, more and more to the condi- 
 tion of infancy and childhood. Till, finally, it became the great 
 question, not how to secure adult conversions, but how to form 
 the rising race to God ? As the gospel became prevalent in 
 any given neighborhood, or precinct, then also it was discov- 
 ered that the church was henceforth to be perpetuated, mainly 
 from the sons and daughters of the church. And now it was, 
 that every Christian child was taken as a candidate for Chris- 
 tian discipleship, in his early years, and enrolled, as a catechu- 
 men, to be prepared unto God. The prevalent idea was, as 
 
 history leaves us no room to doubt, that children may be 
 20*
 
 234 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 trained up in the family and the church, by a sure though im- 
 perceptible process, for the godly life. Thousands of martyrs 
 were thus trained and some who confronted the tenors of mar- 
 tyrdom, even in their childish years. 
 
 And yet we are seen, at this remote period, to be resting our 
 principal hopes for the gospel, on adult conversions. We seem 
 to fancy that we do not come to the real spirituality of the gos- 
 pel plan, unless we go back to the first scenes of the church and 
 draw our impressions thence. If preaching then was the in- 
 strument, adult conversion the hope, so it should be now. 
 Meantime it is well if we are not completing the analogy, by 
 not only training our children for adult conversion, but also to 
 be crucifiers of Jesus preparatory thereto. 
 
 How great a loss we are inflicting on our churches, under 
 these false impressions, it is scarcely possible to estimate. Our 
 children grow up in sin, artificially averse to religion. Our 
 families are irresponsible. Our piety itself is desiccated, as it is 
 undomesticated. And whatever progress we make is wrought, 
 by methods that are desultory and violent, and remote as pos- 
 sible from all the natural laws of character. In short, the mis- 
 chiefs we suffer are too evident to be suffered longer. The 
 day has come, when God calls us to undertake a remedy. We 
 must so far change our plan, as to set Christian nurture in its 
 true place. We must cease to regard adult conversions, as 
 the principal supply of the church, and see if we cannot train 
 up our children in the ways of God. We must insist on a do- 
 mestic piety. We must draw out the methods of treatment, 
 teaching and discipline most appropriate to engage the heart 
 of childhood. 
 
 And in order to the best effect, we need also to institute some 
 method of introducing baptized children to the church, that is 
 distinct and peculiar to them such a method as will place 
 them in the condition of candidates, and such as will carry an 
 expectation that they will come forward, at a suitable age, to
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 235 
 
 assume the covenant, into which they have been entered by 
 their parents. The first Puritans, it is well known, did not de- 
 mand of the Anglican church a discontinuance of confirmation, 
 they only required the removal of bishop's grace and other like 
 superstitions, from the rite. The Lutheran and German Re- 
 formed churches still retain a rite of confirmation. If instead 
 of the form of induction, called a, profession, we had a form of 
 acknowledgement, or assumption, in which the infant member 
 acknowledges the initial membership, his parents gave him, 
 and assumes the vows of dedication for himself, in which they 
 gave him to God, the effect would unquestionably be great. 
 Had our New England fathers instituted something of this 
 kind, answering to their doctrine that the child, when arriving 
 at a suitable age and giving proper evidences of Christian 
 character, is to be admitted to the Lord's Supper, they would 
 have given a practical form to their doctrine of infant mem- 
 bership and made the rite of infant baptism a significant and 
 powerful instrument of good. Had they done it, we should 
 never have fallen into the mischievous impressions, by which 
 we are now turned aside from our duty, and by force of which 
 the prosperity of our churches is now so deplorably hindered. 
 A simple change of this nature, requiring no change of opinion, 
 but required rather, by the opinion held by our fathers, and 
 theoretically assented to by us, (though practically lost out of 
 place in our religious economy,) this simple change, connected 
 with a change of view such as I have suggested in regard to 
 Christian worship, would place the Christian child in a new 
 world. The faith of an Abiding Spirit, too, dwelling in the 
 house and the church would raise an expectation of good for 
 him, in the breast of godly parents and ministers, and encour- 
 age him in all good purposes and struggles. Under such a 
 regimen, it would be wonderful, if he came to adult age as an 
 unbeliever, or an alien from the grace of the gospel.
 
 236 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 5. It is becoming more important continually, as regards the 
 prosperity of religion in our modern churches, that the type of 
 piety cultivated in them should be catholic and as little restric- 
 ted, or exclusive as possible. In their internal discipline and 
 also in their external relations to each other, the endeavor 
 should be to do full honor to the fact, that there is one only 
 body of Christ, one catholic church in the world, and this com- 
 posed of all who are spiritually united to the Head and evidence 
 that union by the fruits of godliness. This is THE CHURCH, and 
 what we call churches are only to be regarded as voluntary 
 fraternities, monitorial classes, so to speak, formed out of the 
 one Christian body, for mutual watch, edification and commun- 
 ion, and to maintain, with order, and effect, the appointed 
 means of grace. They may have different localities, names, 
 modes of polity and worship, still they are all within the great 
 fraternity of spiritual life, and therefore we have no duty more 
 sacred than to acknowledge, in all suitable ways, everychurch 
 and person, who bears the fruits of a believing and godly spirit. 
 
 And this, I say, is becoming more and more important to the 
 life of spiritual religion. The time was, when men could heart- 
 ily pray to God, that he would sanctify the fires of purgation, 
 in which they burned the bodies of the erring. That is possi- 
 ble no more. Bigotry is now a more wilful sin and the spirit- 
 ual curse it brings, as much more desolating and fatal to the 
 character. For now it must challenge the disrespect or even 
 the contempt of mankind, and, what is more, it must repel and 
 disallow all that God is doing in the world. We may even 
 say, therefore, that we have now come to a time, when the in- 
 ternal character of a church depends, to a very great degree, 
 on the right fulfilment of its external relations to other churches. 
 For these relations are now so opened, by the fluent state of 
 modern society, that not to feel them and rejoice in them is a 
 crime that chills the Christian spirit. Our hearts must open 
 as the world opens, and the disciples of every retired nook and
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 237 
 
 village, when they meet to pray, or to speak of the love of 
 Christ must find the whole kingdom of Jesus in their heart. 
 
 Nor let any one fancy that it is enough to have a spirit of 
 brotherly love in exercise, such as that which was displayed in 
 the scenes of the pentecost. To be with one accord in one 
 place is not all we need. We must be with one accord, if pos- 
 sible, in all places. Many persons will fly to the praising of 
 Christian love (meaning love to their own immediate circle') to 
 excuse themselves in their bigotry and stiffness against all who 
 are not in their creed, or number. There is a difference be- 
 tween love to brethren and catholicity. Long after the scene 
 of the pentecost, ^|ter himself had need of a special vision, 
 to show him that Christianity was to be a world-religion. In- 
 deed the full idea of catholicity could hardly be conceived, 
 until after the Christian intellect, going into a search after 
 truth, had developed variant shades of opinion, controversies, 
 sects and repugnant organizations. For, when catholicity is 
 developed, it is something more than love a higher will sub- 
 ordinating diversities of form and thought, and moderating 
 over terms of partial conflict, so as to bring them into a cordial 
 and fully acknowledged brotherhood. It is not the infancy of 
 unreflecting love. It is the manhood of love rather, its reflec- 
 tive age, when it has learned to moderate the eccentricities of 
 young opinion, to be less positive than it was, before it was 
 sobered by the wisdom of years, and as much more compre- 
 hensive, in its understanding, as it has learned to be less con- 
 tent with its own measure. Catholicity is partly a fruit of his- 
 tory. To become an earnest desire, a long and somewhat bit- 
 ter experience is needed, as a preparatory. To become a fact, 
 it requires a very advanced state of culture and mental enlarge- 
 ment, next a wide field of history and a world of repugnant at- 
 titudes before it, as the material of action, and then it proceeds 
 to its results, by generalizing, tracing agreements under forms 
 of disagreement, finding coadjutors in adversaries, till finally
 
 238 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 the conviction is matured that our differences come of only half- 
 seeing in us all, and that the seeing of us all together only con- 
 tains the whole truth of God and much lees even than that. 
 And this is catholicity. Now we are ready to acknowledge a 
 brother in an antagonist. Now we ask what have others, that 
 we need ourselves ? Opinions sink into their proper scale of es- 
 timation, and the godly life, shining in its Christian fruits, rises 
 proportionally higher. And, for this very reason, opinions be- 
 come clearer and closer to the truth, because they are formed 
 under a better practice and a more godly spirit. Nor will it 
 ever be found that a truly catholic spirit undervalues truth. It 
 only pays it higher homage, as being of a ^iture so vast that 
 no man, or sect can perfectly contain it. The same spirit too, 
 which makes us catholic, makes us modest, and modesty is 
 the first condition of successful study in the truth. Or, if we 
 speak of purity, what harm is like to follow, if a church, under the 
 moderating power of a catholic spirit, deems its purity violated 
 more, by an unspiritual or bad life, than by a false opinion ; for 
 what is surer to bring in false opinions, by system and without 
 limit, than to hold, at the root of all, an opinion so false as to 
 Bet the creed, or the form before the life thus to cast out every 
 shade of error and suffer patiently examples of practical mis- 
 conduct. And what will God, in his justice, more surely give 
 up to delusion, than the sanctimonious bigotry, which crucifies 
 an error and hugs a sin ? The worst of all heretics is the man 
 of a loose practice. And the same rule of purity holds, in refer- 
 ence to the acknowledgement of those, who belong to other 
 families and sects. The best defence of purity is never to 
 cast out of a church, never to withhold the acknowledgement 
 of brotherhood, for any kind of opinion which does not destroy 
 the confidence of character. By their fruits ye shall know 
 them. 
 
 These things I say. not as desiring that we hold our opinions 
 loosely, not as disrespecting the past, not as forgetting that
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 239 
 
 there are essential truths. All truths are essential, only some 
 are essential for some purposes and some for others. Some 
 truths are essential to character and salvation, others to the 
 full effect and perpetuity of Christianity as an institution for the 
 world. Holding the latter earnestly, as formula necessary to 
 the comfortable agreement and hearty co operation of our own 
 particular fraternity, we may yet accept fjeely, as members of 
 the great brotherhood of life in Christ Jesus, all who produce 
 the fruits of righteousness. And without this catholic temper- 
 ament consciously cherished, we cannot meet the true condi- 
 tions of Christian piety and progress, in this nineteenth century. 
 A new age has come, the last act opens. Thoughts and duties 
 never conceived, in the scenes of the pentecost, nor ever, till 
 this present hour, made necessary to the Christian life itself, 
 must come into power and be acknowledged. We must now 
 begin to measure ourselves, not by ourselves, but by the king- 
 dom of our Lord. As we spread our aims, we must enlarge 
 our hearts. Charity must encompass the whole brotherhood 
 of the just, and bigotry the curse of reason, as it is the blight of 
 goodness, the latest born of the fall, the ugliest and absurdest 
 shape that sin has gendered, must die. 
 
 I will pursue the subject no farther. My object has been, 
 you will perceive, not to fill out a complete picture of the meth- 
 ods and instruments, by which a modern Christian church is to 
 grow and extend its power. It has rather been to select some 
 points, where we seem to have drawn impressions from the 
 scene of the pentecost, with too little caution, or too little con- 
 sideration of the difference between that scene and the working 
 of Christian piety, in a modern congregation or parish. Hav- 
 ing done this, it remains for you to complete the picture, by 
 adding all our accepted methods of proceeding, which do not 
 require to be modified, by the views offered. 
 
 It will be seen, in general, that I have sketched a view or type 
 of Christian piety, which expects to be less desultory which
 
 240 THE SCENE OF THE PENTECOST, 
 
 rests the power of religion less on occasions and less on adult 
 conversions, more on godly living and a method of progress 
 that is constant, imperceptible and resembled to a process of 
 growth. 
 
 If it should be apprehended, by any, that such a type of piety, 
 received in our churches, will prepare a descent towards for- 
 malism, I think they may quiet their apprehensions without 
 difficulty, and even replace them by an assured confidence of 
 higher spirituality, and a more earnest devotion to the godly 
 life. It will be seen, at a glance, that the view presented con- 
 tains no one of the elements, that have heretofore entered into 
 the historic examples of formalism. You are to have no priest 
 standing between you and God, to transact your religion for 
 you. You will have no prerogative grace, to descend upon 
 you, or be dispensed to you, in sacraments. Baptism will not 
 be a rite of Christian magic. The Lord's Supper will not be a 
 substantiated Christ, offered to unbelief as the bread of life; but 
 it will be a spiritual Christ, to be spiritually discerned. To be 
 in the church is not to be a disciple, or to have a title, of any 
 kind, to salvation. No formula of absolution removes your 
 sins. To be buried as a saint will not be the comforting hope 
 and solace of an ungodly life. Not one of the elements, by 
 which the historic examples of formalism have been construct- 
 ed, is here present. If (in what I have offered simply as a 
 suggestion,) I have given some countenance to a rite, or form 
 partially resembled to confirmation, I have not proposed, for 
 subjects, those who can say the Lord's prayer and the ten com- 
 mandments, nor pledged to them, under the same, any grace 
 which may be substituted for the want of a gracious spirit. I 
 have only sought to fulfil the doctrine held by our fathers, to 
 raise a religious expectation fbr childhood and youth and call 
 them, as soon as they come to a suitable age and give evidence 
 of their love to God, to acknowledge that love and assume the 
 vows made by their parents. Meantime the parents them- 
 selves, not allowed to repose on a sacramental grace, or to
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH. 241 
 
 quiet themselves in any positive efforts, however urgent, to in- 
 doctrinate, or persuade their children to what is good, are re- 
 quired to believe that nothing can discharge their duty, but to 
 make religion a domestic spirit in the house. On this, all ra- 
 tional hope of success depends. There is no substitute for this. 
 And so they are held, by the most cogent of all motives, to a 
 life of prayer, a careful and godly watch of their own spirit, a 
 religious adjustment of their plans, and thus, to a perpetual 
 growth of spiritual character, by direct and daily communion 
 with God. 
 
 Still it is not to be denied that there is danger of formalism, 
 under this, as under every type of piety. Nor can we ever be 
 too fully awake to this danger. History has shown us that 
 even Quakerism may sink into a dead formality. And so must 
 every type of religion, when it loses the element of spiritual 
 life. The very evil that I am now seeking to remedy, is pre- 
 cisely this a want of the godly habit and of that deep spiritual 
 exercise, which only can suffice to carry on a work of thorough 
 sanctification, in the Christian body. We are, at this very 
 moment, as deep in the spirit of formalism, as we can be, with- 
 out receiving it theoretically, as a religion. Revivals them- 
 selves have sunk into a formality, and what is even more singu- 
 lar, conversions also. Precisely this is what every intelligent 
 minister feels, though he may not name what he deplores, in 
 this manner. What is it but another kind of formalism, to look 
 upon a revival of religion, as the only hopeful instrument of 
 good, the only supposable state of godly living ? Nor is it any 
 thing different, if conversions are accepted, as equivalent to 
 Christian character, and the technical evidences of conversion, 
 as the title deed of salvation. A very slight perusal of our 
 present type of religion will show how little efficacy it has, or 
 can have, to exercise a soul deeply in spiritual things, or to 
 produce a thorough sanctification of character. It will be seen 
 that our religion revolves, practically speaking, about two sin- 
 21
 
 242 THE SCENE OP THE PENTECOST, 
 
 gle points. First, every man is to be converted. Secondly, he 
 is to concern himself about the conversion of others. Or, if 
 this be not a literal and complete truth, you will see what I 
 mean by the statement. The Christian mind is thus with- 
 drawn, to a mournful extent, from all bosom struggles and a 
 careful chastening of the spirit, before God. We are not so 
 much responsible to be godly, as to be useful ! We do not ques- 
 tion so much how we may subdue sin within ourselves, as how 
 we may enlarge the roll of converts ! We seldom tremble be- 
 fore God, under the gloomy terrors that rise up in our faithless 
 hearts. When we pray, it is not so much that we may come 
 unto God, for His own sake, as that we may use a profitable 
 expedient! Prayer is a convenience to the execution of our de- 
 signs upon others. Then, if we decline from God and sink into 
 a worldly spirit, as we are like to do, when there is no public 
 harvest time of conversion to encourage us, or make our piety 
 a means to this end, it will be observed that all remonstrances 
 and reproofs are taken in a sense that robs them of their power. 
 The wrong is admitted and deplored, but deplored, you will dis- 
 cover, on account of the loss that is suffered by the unconvert- 
 ed ! And then, if new purposes of return to God are formed, 
 the Christian minister will be mortified and saddened by the 
 discovery, that the real motive for so doing is found, in what 
 may be the result to the public ! the conversions that may fol- 
 low, the scenes of public effect that will gladden the heart not 
 in what is due to God himself and the restoration of the un- 
 faithful soul to His love arid communion. 
 
 The shallowness of such a style of piety is too evident and 
 facts answer, with deplorable exactness, to what our analysis 
 of causes discovers. We make the faith of God of none effect. 
 At certain points we have aglimmer, il'I should not rather say 
 a blaze, of spirituality. But we have no spiritual habit. The 
 grace of the spirit is exhausted, by our religious occasions, and 
 between these, we sink into ourselves, to wait until the gale
 
 AND A CHRISTIAN PARISH, 243 
 
 returns. Now and then, we have a disciple who, against all 
 the power of social causes round him, adheres to God and 
 proves his faithfulness, as a soldier, fighting on by himself. But 
 apart from such examples, our piety consists in a series of re- 
 conversions, or salient starts out of lethargy and dreams. 
 There is no Christian continuity, no spiritual habit, no strong 
 warfare that shakes the soul in a conflict of years, and finally 
 crowns it as a spiritual victor and hero. 
 
 In proposing, therefore, a different type of piety, I do it in the 
 confidence that nothing else can reclaim us from the formalism, 
 which has so deplorably unspiritualized our churches. We can 
 never have any depth in our piety, it can never do more than to 
 ruffle, occasionally, the surface t of our experience, until we unite 
 other thoughts. I ask not for a discontinuance of revivals. I only 
 disallow the crude and undigested opinion of revivals, under 
 which they have sunk into a formality, and become discourage- 
 ments even to a life of godliness. I insist on the truth of an Abi- 
 ding Spirit, as being somewhat more than a theoretic entity 
 such a grace that the church may live and grow, in the divine 
 life, at all times. God knows how to dispense His gifts and He 
 will lead us on, through every scene, necessary to our growth. 
 And what He gives us it is ours to receive, not to prescribe. 
 
 Holding this fundamental truth, I then provide scope for it, in 
 the practical life. I call you hither, one and all, without excep- 
 tion, to worship. I lay it upon every one to become an earnest 
 disciple of the truth ; to receive it in the Spirit, and by the 
 Spirit apply it to his life. I enjoin it upon all, who will be 
 saved, to live godly in Christ Jesus, and seek for immortality by 
 patient continuance in well doing. They are to make their 
 whole life a refining process, under God, as the refining of sil- 
 ver, to purify themselves, even as Christ is pure. Every fam- 
 ily is to be a temple of the Spirit and Christian piety a domestic 
 element. Having great works on hand, for the evangelization 
 of the world, our children are to be brought up in the mission-
 
 244 THE SCENE OP THE PENTECOST. 
 
 ary spirit, which is the spirit of Christ himself, to have their 
 earliest love identified with the love of Christ and the blessing 
 of the world for his sake. Our piety we are to measure, not by 
 our occasional frames, or our accepted formulas, but by our 
 fruits. We are to deny ourselves. We are to live by faith. We 
 are to make our business a part of our religion, and the right 
 conduct of it a Christian attainment. No false conservatism, 
 bowing to ancient practice, is to sanctify a wrong, or excuse a 
 hurtful pleasure ; for we are to live, not by any human fashion 
 but following after Christ in whom we hope ; we are to be mer- 
 ciful as he was merciful, pure as he was pure, and have it for 
 our meat and drink to do the will of God. 
 
 Such is the practical aim, which the view I now offer you is 
 designed to realize. It lays a foundation for better Christian 
 attainments and a higher form of godliness. In this confidence, 
 I offer it to your consideration, being perfectly assured that, if 
 such a view were accepted, you would find every fruit of right- 
 eousness multiplied among you, and rejoice in the perpetual 
 evidence, that the smile of God is upon you, as a people. The 
 barren years and even barren conversions that we now deplore, 
 will afflict us no more. Religion, piety to God will sweeten all 
 the years and hours and scenes of life. Our children will be 
 found travelling with us heavenward by our side. We shall 
 grow in character. The church will multiply in numbers. 
 Cheerfulness will crown our worship, a sense of Christian pro- 
 gress will fortify our good purposes, and the fruits of love, scat- 
 tered along our path, will be acknowledged, as proofs that God 
 is ever with us.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Pages 89 and 120. 
 
 THB two paragraphs connected, by reference, with this note, I designed, in the 
 republication, to omit, for probably I had as little pleasure in them as the sub- 
 jects themselves, and in passing to a more permanent form, matter not strictly 
 belonging to the subject, seemed less appropriate. But the author of the ' Letter' 
 having seen fit to publish, in several religious newspapers, a communication 
 proposing to impugn the verity of what I have here said, I am not left to my 
 choice . The two paragraphs cannot be discontinued without subjecting myself 
 to a false implication. 
 
 I have a great reluctance to say any thing more in reference to a subject so 
 unpleasant, and in connection, especially, with a book that is occupied with 
 themes of a character so remote. But the very singular outrage I have suffered, 
 in connection with these discussions, is a part of the history of the question and 
 cannot be separated from it. 1 trust therefore, the public will consider what is 
 extraordinary in the case, and allow me, as the subject of this outrage, and since 
 it must be a matter of history, to add a brief statement that will make the history 
 intelligible. For, as yet, it is not understood by the public. They have seen 
 the Publishing Committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society submitting 
 to the very odious and extreme measure of suspending a book, contrary to their 
 own deliberate and unanimous judgment of its merits ; they have noticed the sin- 
 gular disproportion between a result so remarkable and the power of the ' Letter' 
 by which it was brought to pass, and they have not been able to understand the 
 marvellous facility of a numerous and respectable committee, in yielding, so 
 tamely, to causes of so slender a quality. Whereas this committee, as I perfectly 
 understand, had all the mischievous rumors and malicious misconstructions, 
 which had been at work at me, for ten years, rained upon them, in effect, in a 
 single shower, and it was a deluge they could not support. I made some hints 
 to this effect in my ' Argument,' as an act of justice to the Committee, but I learn 
 that some persons have blamed me, for the exercise of an undue severity, in what 
 I have said to direct the public feeling to its proper mark. If so, it is because I 
 was too lenient, or too fastidious to open the bundle of facts I had in possession. 
 Endeavoring to say as little as would answer the righteous purpose I had in 
 view, 1 said too little a defect which I am now constrained to supply. 
 
 I am charged, by the author of the ' Letter," in his late communication, with 
 having put forth as many as ten distinct and " gross misrepresentations," in what 
 
 21*
 
 246 NOTE. 
 
 I have said of his institution. Some of these relate to matters that lie in con- 
 struction, or in general repute, and these it will be more respectful to the public to 
 submit, without remark, to their judgment. Two or three relate to matters of 
 fact, but of so trivial a nature, as scarcely to justify serious attention. I will 
 barely notice them, in passing, that the public may see, whether I am likely to ad- 
 vance assertions without consideration, or not. 
 
 First he charges upon me the grievous error of saying that he and his fellow 
 Professors are " sworn every six months." I was so informed, but it now ap- 
 pears that I should have said ' once a year.' Meantime we are also informed 
 'hat all the " Trustees" are subject to the same conditions ; and I hope the pub- 
 lic will accept this additional number of persons, as a compensation for the lack 
 of swearing, that accrues, by an extension of the time. 
 
 He also affirms that the number of students in the seminary has always " ex- 
 ceeded the highest number specified" by me, viz. fifteen. I endeavored, for 
 three or four weeks, to ascertain the number correctly, but could get hold of noth- 
 ing more exact than a general rumor, which placed the number at twelve, and to 
 be on the safe side, I added, possibly three more. Now the Professor does not 
 venture to say himself, how many there are, and if there should happen to be one 
 more, viz. sixteen, it would hardly convict me of a very " gross misrepresenta- 
 tion." I only add that there are various ways, well understood, of swelling the 
 catalogue of such bodies, and that I was informed, the very day after my ' Argu- 
 ment' was published, that there were exactly eleven students then on the ground. 
 I said that " one or two ministers are called off from their charge, a consider- 
 able part of the time, to collect funds for the institution," this is another of my 
 " gross misrepresentations." The Professor recollects but " one," who has been 
 " engaged only sixteen, or eighteen months." I have some reason to recollect 
 another, inasmuch as my experience of the seminary dates from him. Coming 
 to Hartford, shortly after my settlement here, he took up an absurd story, in re 
 gard to one of my sermons, and was busily active for months, in retailing it 
 through the eastern part of the State holding me up to the churches, as an ex- 
 ample of the horrible effects of the New Haven heresies. I remember, also, an- 
 other who was devoted to the same work for a length of time, though I am not 
 quite positive whether it was before he relinquished his charge, or after. If each 
 of these also was engaged for eighteen months, we appear to have " one or two 
 ministers" engaged, in all, four years and a half out of thirteen, which is some- 
 thing like " a considerable part of the time." 
 
 We come to matters more serious. As regards " meddling" with the churches, 
 to deny it looks very much like a denial that the institution has fulfilled its objects. 
 Was it not designed, in part, to watch over them, to winnow out their heresies, 
 to condole with the afflicted people when sighing to be eased of their erring pas- 
 tors, and then, when they are gone, to push forward just the man who is wanted ? 
 And does any one who understands the working of men, expect that all this will 
 be done so delicately and with such perfect consideration, as not to involve the 
 certainty of a " meddling" transaction, whenever there is anything to be gained by 
 it 7 There are facts too, within my knowledge, which, if they were related, would
 
 NOTE. 247 
 
 deeply move the indignation of the public. But this would carry me too far. 
 Only let it be observed, how this machinery has been working, in my own case, 
 and take that as an example. 
 
 I said that this institution had acted the " part of a scavenger to a Baptist pa- 
 per, in an assault upon me," and that the "Letter" was the "third or fourth pub- 
 lic attack" I have suffered from the same quarter. The language is severe, but I 
 think I understood its meaning. As the author of the ' Letter' complains of it, and 
 also that I have fallen upon his institution and not upon himself, I will offer to the 
 public, now, a calm and dispassionate statement of facts, that will show, whether 
 I am to be justified or not. 
 
 How the institution began to meddle with me, as soon as it began to exist, nay 
 before a brick was laid, has just been stated. It will also be considered that a 
 young minister, who has yet no public character and but a slight hold of his peo- 
 ple, may often be dislodged from his place, by only a few such efforts of perversity 
 and mischief. 
 
 There is also a certain public man, so intimately associated with this insti- 
 tution as a founder, a patron, a partizan, and a Trustee, that his face suggests it 
 wherever he goes, an honest and good man, as I verily believe, but one whose 
 most extraordinary gifts are in his will, and who is so bedded, withal, in his tradi- 
 tions and formulas, that he cannot take the import of any other -one who has 
 had ample opportunity, as the public know, to be acquainted with my sentiments 
 and has long been forward, in season and out of season, to give his representa- 
 tions of my errors and heresies. He has done it in the east and the west, in stages 
 and steamboats, at public tables and anniversaries. Scarcely a month has passed, 
 for the last ten years, in which some representation of his has not come back to 
 me, and I am yet to hear the first that approaches a just representation of any 
 opinion, which I ever advanced. Meantime I have apologized for his apparent 
 obliquities and allowed myself to be on good terms with him, as I hope I may 
 be hereafter though 1 should like to have the public qualify his representations, 
 as if they knew we were enemies. Whether the Professor's seminary has been 
 accustomed to accept these extravaganzas of prejudice and become itself their 
 vehicle, may be judged, when we discover the Professor himself reporting the 
 opinion of " members of my own church" against me. 
 
 Four years since, I delivered an address before the Alumni of Yale College, which 
 was published. This was reviewed in a pamphlet by " Catholicus," convicting me 
 of Hobbesism and Humeism and Socinianism, and I have forgotten what beside. As 
 it had been hinted by the Religious Herald of this city, that I might reply, and having 
 it for a maxim never to meddle with an adversary who is unequal to the subject 
 in question, I published a brief note in the pappr above named, assentiiig to all the 
 main positions avowed by " Catholicus" himself, and hinting, rather mirthfully, 
 that he might be one of the church " owls" spoken of in the ' Address,' who had 
 now lighted upon me, I declined any further notice of his very absurd effusion. 
 Shortly after, a communication appeared in a certain religious paper in Boston, 
 condoling with "Catholicus," complaining, in querulous airs, of the slight I had 
 put upon him, and virtually reiterating his charges. Who might be the author
 
 248 NOTE. 
 
 of the communication I did not inquire ; for I felt the force of it too little, to 
 have my curiosity excited, I only recollect judging, at the time, that if the writer 
 was one of our own church, who had kept back his dissatisfaction with the 
 " Address" till now, when he might strengthen himself by an Episcopal sympa- 
 thy ; (for Catholicus had no object but to call away the attention of the public, 
 from what I was just then doing to vindicate our church from the insulting 
 "Charge" of the Bishop of Connecticut,) he was well enough estimated by his 
 perfidy. To do this, at such a time, even if I had erred in some respects, he 
 must yet be a man whose enmity, or whose ends were low enough to insti- 
 gate a treason. But one of my friends, mistrusting some ill effects from the com- 
 munication, advised me, a few weeks after, to answer it. This I declined. He 
 afterwards volunteered to do it himself, and read me his article. It was a calm, 
 philosophic exposition, worthy of his eminent abilities as one of the first writers 
 in the country. Nevertheless, it was sent back to him, by the paper, in which 
 the communication appeared, and he was informed that it could not be published, 
 because it was personal ! That is, the character of a real living person could 
 not be vindicated, by a calm argument, lest the cast iron personality of a press 
 and the anonymous personality of one of its contributors should suffer ! The 
 author of the " Letter" now avows himself, as the author of the communication 
 Let the public also know that the paper in question is under an implied, if not 
 express contract, of mutual aid with his institution subject thus to its dictation 
 and that, to such a degree that members in the concern, have more than once 
 been moved to escape, by withdrawing from it. 
 
 A few weeks later, the Baptist paper of this city drew itself unwittingly, as I 
 believe, into a dispute about the "Address," when becoming exasperated, it 
 made issue before the public, on the question of my reputation for orthodoxy- 
 And here it gathered up for its proofs, the pamphlet of " Catholicus," and the Pro- 
 fessor's " Conimmunication," together with a mass of rumors floating in distant 
 places, all traceable to the industrious causes above named. I was silent, of 
 course, but my friend of the Religious Herald was not, and among other things 
 he hinted, I believe, the suspicion of a conspiracy. And now the anonymous 
 writer of Boston, jealous for his anonymous character, and not regarding the fact 
 that the question agitated referred, not to the errors, but to the reputation of a 
 brother minister, reappears in Connecticut, addressing a reply to the Herald, and 
 disclosing, by his post mark and handwriting, who he might be. The Editor, for 
 reasons of his own, but probably regarding the manifest indecency of allowing 
 an anonymous writer to propagate his mischief, when nothing was in issue, but 
 the success of slander, published only a part of his communication. That was 
 a grievance too great to be borne, and he tells us now how he felt, as an injured 
 man, that " he had a right to be heard in his own defence" ! So he added a 
 preface to his article, just as long as the article itself, telling how he was 
 "grieved and mortified" on account of my treatment of "Catholicus" and 
 appealing to the judgment of my own people against me, flew to the aid of the 
 Baptist paper, as before he had done to the aid of my Episcopal adversaries, and 
 there completed what he now calls his " defence."
 
 NOTE. 249 
 
 I said that he had acted the part of a scavenger, and now I put it boldly to 
 the public whether the language is not justified? Consider, (1,) that the Baptist 
 paper was engaged in discussing, not my merits, but my reputation, a case, mani- 
 festly, where none but an enemy, certainly no fellow minister, should lend his aid 
 under whatever pretext. 2. Consider what kind of aid he contributed not en- 
 deavoring to expose the errors of my " Address," but retailing adverse impres- 
 sions concerning me and it and stating. In particular, ihatitwas disapproved "by 
 not a few distinguished clergymen and even by some among the members of my own 
 church." So that here we have a Christian minister, the Professor of a Theo- 
 logical seminary, not only assisting an adversary of another connection, by con_ 
 tributing opinions adverse to the reputation of a fellow minister, but even descend- 
 ing to the ignoble office of arraying his own church against him and strengthen- 
 ing, by a publication of their opinions, whatever apprehensions any among them 
 might feel ! Many a minister would be dislodged from his place, by an act of 
 interference not more indecent. And then, (3,) what is the pretext he now alleges 
 in self vindication 7 He was compelled to this, he says, to make out his " own 
 defence." He who now complains that I am over " sensitive," because, after 
 long years of silence, I have, at last, spoken somewhat severely, says the editor 
 of the Herald had " accused me," Sec., and takes it as a grievance that he could 
 not have every word printed ! In all of which he disguises, most disingenuously 
 as I think, the fact that he was unknown. I do not complain that he writes 
 anonymously, but it is asking rather too much, to require that he be allowed, at 
 the same time, the benefit of publicity ! Anonymous persons have no charac- 
 ter, lest of all any such character as may be saved at the expense of a real per- 
 son, a living Christian minister. Besides, it was not a work of defence, but the 
 busy enmity of a scavenger to contribute to an adversary, who had no purpose 
 on hand but to blacken my reputation, adverse rumors and opinions, and even to 
 exasperate, by a public approval, the dissatisfaction of my own people. If such 
 conduct as this can be justified, decency is at an end ! 
 
 On this footing we stood, at the commencement of the present discussion. It 
 is some proof of my good nature, I think, that I had never broken with the author 
 of the ' Letter' or his friends. During ten years of busy scandal, I had remained 
 silent, acting on the faith that integrity and truth will, at last, vindicate them- 
 selves, and making generous allowances for the fact that any man who dares to 
 think his own thoughts, is likely, at first, to be misunderstood and to create ap- 
 prehensions that time will finally quiet. At length the 'Letter' came. The 
 Professor's paper in Boston responded, of course, in a lit echo. Next I heard 
 that a very near friend of his, in Boston, as soon as the ' Letter' arrived, went be- 
 fore the Sabbath School Society, with which he is somehow connected, present- 
 ed a written protest against my ' Discourses' and made a peremptory demand that 
 it should be recorded ! 1 saw, at once, the family connection between the pro- 
 test and the letter, but while I was amusing myself with the very absurd figure 
 of both, I was surprised to hear that this and other violent demonstrations of tho.
 
 250 NOTE. 
 
 kind, working on the apprehensions of the public, had actually driven the com- 
 mittee to the suspension of my book !* 
 
 Nor let any one imagine that this singular result was produced by any intel- 
 lectual exposition of my errors, or by any cause more dignified than mischief. I 
 saw at once how it was brought to pass. It was possible only in virtue of that 
 absurd gossip and anonymous misconstruction, which had been at work for 
 ten years, to poison the confidence of the public in my character. I meditated, 
 for a week or two, on the question what should be done 7 It grew clear to me 
 that there is a limit even to righteous forbearance. I recollected that others, who 
 are younger than I and less firmly established, complain of similar annoyances, 
 and I felt that something was due to them. I believed that I had a call from God 
 to do an act of justice ! I have done it. 
 
 If I have not answered the Professor's ' Letter' it is because there was really 
 nothing in it to answer. When a man comes before the public to assail another, 
 without taking some degree of pains to be master of the subject and the meaning 
 of what he assails, he is not entitled to an answer. Besides, the gross outrage I 
 have suffered, and which, through me, has been felt by the churches, was due to 
 the ' Letter,' not as an instrument of reason, but of mischief rather ; for if any 
 one imagines that it has been circulated gratuitously, all over New England, out 
 of simple concern for the truth, violated in a book scarcely known, at the time, to 
 the public, he must have a copious charity. There had been a long preparation, 
 many persons and agencies had been at work, and a host of industrious causes, 
 
 * It may be due to the Committee, especially as an expression, in my Preface, 
 indicates that I am ignorant of any farther action, on their part, subsequent to 
 the suspension, to say that, since the Preface was printed and just as my book is 
 leaving the press, I have received notice from them of an unconditional surrender 
 of the copy right to me. I hope they will not think it unkind in me, if I decline 
 accepting it Having really no use for it, I prefer that the property should remain 
 in their hands, indulging the hope that I may sometime have the satisfaction of 
 seeing, in the issue of a new edition, that they have recovered their liberty. 
 Meanwhile I acquit them of all serious blame, in doing what they must, to pacify 
 the clamors of prejudice. I only hope they have not sanctioned a representation, 
 just now offered to the public, in which it is made to appear that my manuscript 
 was purged of important errors, and essentially modified under their direction. 
 This I should regret, both because it makes their case, in suspending the book, 
 worse than it was before, and because it is not true. Not one sentiment, in the 
 manuscript, was omitted, nor one new sentiment added, in the ' Discourses' as 
 published by the Committee. The only alterations made were these. Two par- 
 agraphs of ten or fifteen lines each, were added, one to develop more formally 
 the doctrine of a spiritual influence, the other to qualify more at large what was 
 said in respect to revivals. Besides these, having the manuscript in my posses- 
 sion, and without any specification from the Committee, I mitigated some few 
 expressions that might disturb the sensitive by their pungency, and interlined, 
 here and there, a qualifying phrase to quiet the captious. I required them also 
 to omit the common form of endorsement on their title page " Revised by the 
 Publishing Committee," in place of which, they very kindly substituted " Appro- 
 ved by the Publishing Committee," which they might very well do, since the 
 vote of approval, as I have been informed, was unanimous.
 
 NOTE. 251 
 
 an represented by the Professor's Seminary, and, in Borne sense, contained in it, 
 had brought the disgraceful result to pass. Let him not complain, therefore, that 
 I have turned my " wrath" upon his institution, instead of pouring it upon him- 
 I have laid the blow where the blow belonged, on that metropolis of rumor and 
 misconstruction, where men of a certain type have gathered to foment their un- 
 illuminated fears and quarrel with the pertinacious obscurity of their efforts to 
 prevent a future. Besides I will frankly confess to the public that I had a mo- 
 tive more politic than the " wrath" ascribed to me. I wished to create a self- 
 defensive attitude, one that would dispense hereafter with the mortifying neces- 
 sity of looking after my own character. Therefore, that the false rumors of 
 which 1 have been the silent victim heretofore, and expect to be the subject 
 hereafter, may be taken with due allowance, I determined to throw the whole 
 circle whence they emanate, into an attitude of comprehensive repugnance, be- 
 fore the public. I had tried the consequences of a supposed footing of good will 
 with this institution. I now deliberately calculate on the advantage to be deri- 
 ved from its enmity. Its constructive enmity, I mean, for I trust there is no 
 other certainly there is not in me. I am accustomed to make large allowances 
 for human infirmity, and I here declare that I do full honor to the Christian 
 character of my adversaries. I even compel myself to believe that there has 
 been no conscious determination to injure me, probably I have suffered no in- 
 jury, save what has resulted from human fallibility, weakened by a position that 
 holds a natural covenant with temptation, and is linked, as by a doom, to 
 mischief. 
 
 This explicit statement I have felt it my duty to make. I have done it by a 
 qualified compulsion and it is the last word I design ever to say, (as it is the 
 first,) for the vindication of my own person. If the statement now made is not 
 more satisfactory to my adversaries than what I had offered before, I hope they 
 will comfort themselves in the confidence that God is just, and that what they 
 suffer is the late, but necessary, penalty of what they have done.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 LD-OW- 
 
 DEC 6 
 
 REG'D LD-URL 
 
 JB FFB! ^'7! 
 FEB 41975 
 
 u LU-URI 
 
 QC 
 
 OCT 5 1981 
 
 FErtlW 
 
 MAY19198Z 
 
 REC'D LD-URt 
 
 < 
 
 ^978 MAY a ia82 
 
 
 - 
 
 Form L9-Series 444
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAG L |TY 
 
 III) III Illl IIHI Mill in 'I inn ' " " '' ' 
 
 A 000 975 808 7 I 
 
 3 1158 00196 8824