TRUTH'S CONFLICTS 
 
 TRUTH'S TRIUMPHS. 
 
 ESSAYS. 
 
TRUTH'S CONFLICTS 
 
 AND 
 
 TRUTH'S TRIUMPHS; 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE SEVEN-HEADED SERPENT SLAIN: 
 
 tf 0f 
 
 WITH AN ALLEGORICAL INTRODUCTION ON SOME CHIEF ERRORS OP THE DAT 
 
 BY STEPHEN JENNER, M.A. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 LONGMANS, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMAN, 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1854. 
 
LONDON ! 
 
 PRINTED BT FETTER AND GALPIN, PLAYHOUSE YARD, 
 ADJOINING THE "TIMES" OFFICE. 
 
TO ALL 
 
 WHO, IN AN AGE OF CONTENTION, 
 
 ARE SEEKING TO FIND 
 
 THE TRUTH, 
 
 arc 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN constructing an allegory as an introduction to 
 the following Essays, the author has had respect to the 
 common prejudice against whatever appears to be 
 personal. It was necessary for him to exhibit the 
 errors with which he had to conflict, and this he 
 thought would be the most inoffensive mode, and 
 also the safest, of bringing them before the reader, 
 upon the principle of the motto he has chosen, 
 
 Diligite homines : interfidte errores. 
 
 It has not been his desire to expose any in- 
 dividuals to shame, and therefore he has suppressed 
 the names of the writers out of whose works he 
 has gathered his examples of false doctrine and 
 pernicious sentiment. In this he has also been 
 actuated by a directly opposite consideration to that 
 which influenced Pascal, in his celebrated Provincial 
 Letters, exposing the dark and destructive subtleties 
 of the Jesuits. He gave the names of the authors 
 whom he quoted, and when questioned as to his reason 
 for it, he made answer" If I lived in a city where 
 there were a dozen fountains, and I certainly knew 
 there was one which was poisoned, I should be obliged 
 to advertise all the world to draw no water from that 
 fountain; and as they might think it was a pure 
 V 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 imagination on my part, I should be obliged to name 
 him who had poisoned it, rather than expose all the 
 city to the danger of being poisoned by it." Begging 
 the great philosopher's pardon, however good this 
 reason might be for him to act upon in his day, our 
 observation has led us to adopt the reverse ; for such 
 is the morbid curiosity of mankind in general to taste 
 forbidden fruit, that you have only to proclaim a book 
 to be a bad book, to set all men reading it. We 
 think it much wiser, therefore, not thus to advertise 
 other men's errors, but only to exhibit a glass in which 
 they may be seen. 
 
 It is the remark of an old writer, that " there is 
 not a better, more vehement, or mightier thing to 
 make a man understand withal, than an allegory." 
 (Tyndale.) The author trusts that this will prove to 
 be not theory but reality, in regard to the allegory 
 which he has constructed, every circumstance of 
 which is intended to have a hidden meaning. The 
 same writer says that "allegories make a man quick- 
 witted." It is to exercise the wit of the ingenious, 
 and at the same time to amuse the lovers of the 
 grotesque in fancy, such a creature as a seven- 
 headed serpent has been imagined, to symbolise the 
 spirit of error ; and it may perhaps afford no unprofit- 
 able employment to those who are fond of mystery, to 
 set themselves to trace out the relation of the seven 
 heads of this monstrum horrendum, to the seven 
 heads of discussion taken up in the seven subsequent 
 Essays. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 With regard to the imaginary Discourse, supposed 
 to have been heard in a dream, which the author has 
 introduced into this part of his work, he may state 
 that it is no dream; but though fictitious as to 
 its form, it is not fictitious in fact. Startling as some 
 of the sentiments propounded in it may appear, they 
 are all such as he has either read with his own eyes, 
 or heard with his own ears; and he could, he believes, 
 verify every one of them, if required, by a reference 
 to the books and pages where they are to be found, 
 for the most part in the very same words, in the 
 writings of men who either were at the time the 
 extracts were made, or still are (oh, tell it not 
 in Gath!) ministers in our own Israel. It is not, 
 however, the author begs to observe, that all these 
 false principles were ever advanced in any one Dis- 
 course by any one man (it would be unjust to allow 
 any person to suppose that) : they are brought 
 together here as parts of a system, the whole of which, 
 as a system, is being daily taught in our Reformed 
 Church. The many passages that stand in it word 
 for word as they are to be found in their original 
 authors, he has not marked with inverted commas, 
 because, as it was necessary in some instances slightly 
 to alter the wording (without, however, altering 
 the sense), to fit it in with the adjoining sentences, to 
 have so marked only the passages adopted literally, 
 would have given a very unfair representation of the 
 whole amount of error that required to be exposed. 
 Should any one, whose standing entitles him to do 
 
Xll PREFACE, 
 
 so, have the temerity to challenge the author to pro- 
 duce his literce scriptce proofs that such sentiments as 
 he has here woven into a sermon, have ever been 
 propounded by professed Protestant divines, he is pre- 
 pared to say, "This will I do, audmore also." He has 
 felt impelled to enter on a contest with these errors, 
 because he knows they are widely diffused, and often 
 most unsuspectingly received and entertained. 
 
 Both the imaginary Discourse in the introductory 
 Allegory, and the one in the Reveil, or waking dream, 
 at the close, are intended only as types of their kind 
 ordinary examples of the teaching, both as to doc- 
 trine and style of address, of the two Schools to which 
 their respective deliverers are supposed to belong. 
 To point these out by name is needless. 
 
 The Essays are, more properly speaking, to be 
 regarded as expressing the sentiments of the author. 
 And if, in these attempts to secure to Truth its right- 
 ful triumphs, he has advanced anything which appears 
 new or paradoxical, or which runs counter to received 
 opinions, let not the reader at once dismiss the dis- 
 cussion, but weigh well the principles enunciated, and 
 the arguments by which they are supported, lest per- 
 adventure he should reject eternal Truth for to-day's 
 passing opinion. It follows not that a principle is 
 not right because it happens not to be recognised. 
 Truth, let it be remembered, has seldom been recog- 
 nised at the time of its birth, but often has met with 
 no better resting place than a manger, though it is 
 ever entitled to the most honourable reception. 
 
PREFACE. Xiii 
 
 The author must confess to having taken the 
 " profane " liberty, as it is deemed by some men, of 
 thinking for himself upon the several subjects treated 
 of in these Essays ; and he now puts forth these 
 independent thoughts of his own in the hope that they 
 may supply some little glimmering of light to guide 
 others. For some of his ideas in the Essay on the 
 " Power of Faith," he feels bound to acknowledge 
 himself indebted to Archdeacon Hare's Sermons, en- 
 titled the " Victory of Faith " (he may state this, he 
 trusts, without being considered as committing him- 
 self to all his opinions) ; but for the most part, in the 
 rest of the Essays, he has had to trace his way through 
 untravelled regions, where no footprints of others 
 marked the path ; the principles, therefore, evolved 
 in these, may be regarded almost wholly as the fruit 
 of his own reflections. His chief aim has been to 
 meet what may be termed the mind of the age to 
 correct its erring tendencies by setting in antagonistic 
 attitude to them Heaven's divinely provided counter- 
 vailing truths. Whether he has succeeded in this is 
 a point which it rests not with him to determine. 
 But being convinced of the fact, he has endeavoured, 
 according to the power given to him, to make mani- 
 fest the truth of what Lord Bacon observes, that 
 " there is a wide difference between the idols of the 
 human mind and the ideas of the Divine mind." 
 
 To deprecate criticism either from his style, or 
 his mode of treating his subjects, would be as vain as 
 it would be unreasonable : if these are faulty, they 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 ought to receive correction : all that the author asks, 
 as being all that he has a right to expect, is that 
 judgment which is tempered by charity. If what he 
 has written be trash, he would be the first to say, 
 "Let it not be spared;" but if it be truth, he trusts 
 it will be respected. He has studied rather accura- 
 cies of sentiment than elegancies of expression. To 
 plant flowers around the edge of the well of truth 
 is at all times easy work; he has endeavoured 
 rather (and this is far more laborious), to draw up 
 the cool fresh spring water, by the drinking of which 
 others may be invigorated. 
 
 To the members of the Camden congregation, 
 among whom the author has had the honour to 
 minister for nearly six years, these Essays will, he 
 hopes, be a lasting memento of the principles which 
 he has, from time to time only less fully, and in a 
 somewhat different form propounded from the pulpit, 
 and serve to keep them abidingly in their remem- 
 brance, as guiding-posts by the road-side of their 
 earthly pilgrimage to (God grant that it may be) a 
 blissful eternity. To the public at large he submits 
 them, in the belief that they will be found to set forth 
 and defend those truths which lie at the basis, both of 
 individual happiness and of national stability. For any 
 good effect to attend them, he trusts wholly (to adopt 
 the words of his favourite poet) to Him 
 
 " Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, 
 Whose approbation prosper even mine." 
 
 CAMBERWEU,, 
 September 1, 1854. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 THE DREAM, AN ALLEGORY 1 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE Disco VEBY, OB THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR 23 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE ENCOUNTER, OR THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH 65 
 
 CHAPTER 111. 
 THE SUSPENSE, OR SACRAME^AL EFFICACY 88 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE RENEWED ONSET, OR SYMBOLISM TESTED 123 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE CONFLICT, OR THE TRUE CROSS 193 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE FIGHT, OR THE POWER OF FAITH 236 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE VICTORY, OR THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY 268 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 THE REVEIL, OH THE DREAM DISPERSED 300 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A ON HIEROGLYPHICS 331 
 
 Note B. ON ANALOGY 337 
 
 Note C. ON IDOLATRY 346 
 
CORRIGENDA. 
 
 At page 13, line 8. For " cancel " read Chancel." 
 
 52, 8. The words " breaks not " have got out of place : 
 
 they should follow immediately after the word 
 
 " Error" in line 7. 
 
 125, 1. Add "in common," after "be anything." 
 128, 21 For " consequences " read " consequence." 
 336 (note) For the word " Lexicon " read " Sermon." 
 
THE DREAM. AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 A SEEPENT, which had by some means crept into a 
 house, had coiled itself up under a couch where a 
 man lay down and slept, for a length of time, unaware 
 of his danger. In his slumbers (such was the effect 
 of the vital warmth of the serpent upon the brain of 
 the sleeper) he dreamed a strange, at first pleasant, 
 at length troubled dream, full of mystery. 
 
 It opened upon him in the form of a vision. 
 
 Ye who can discern the subtleties of error under 
 the drapery of fiction, and gather lessons of truth 
 from the picturings of fancy, read and understand. 
 
 Our dreamer saw, or seemed to see, a rich and 
 beautiful valley stretching out before him, shut in on 
 both sides by a range of lofty mountains. This valley 
 was so wide and extensive, that it looked at first 
 sight like a vast plain, within the compass of which 
 might lie several separate states. But the mountains 
 which bounded it, dimly seen in the distance, and which 
 were the battlements provided by nature to protect 
 it against the incursions of foreign foes, closed it in, 
 and constituted it a little kingdom by itself. Thickly- 
 peopled towns and villages lay everywhere couching 
 behind its woods and in its hollows, discernible only 
 
 B 
 tt 
 
2 THE DKEAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 by the thin light smoke which curled up in spiral 
 volumes from them to the skies. The whole scenery 
 was very fine and varied, the ground continually 
 undulating in gentle slopes, and every higher ridge 
 of it being tufted with trees : the soil bore the 
 marks of the best tillage, so that green corn fields 
 and meadows, and gardens blushing with every kind of 
 fruit that can regale the taste, or minister to the 
 Wants of man, enamelled the surface. Here and 
 there were seen peeping out neat looking houses, 
 from which were heard to issue the voices of happy 
 inhabitants. Signs of industry ^cleanliness, order, and 
 prosperity, indeed, appeared to pervade every depart- 
 ment of this favoured region. Cattle of all kinds, 
 and of the finest quality, from the solemn ox that chews 
 the cud, to the frisking goat that bounded from hill 
 to hill, with flocks of fleecy white sheep, reposed under 
 its trees, or dotted its pastures. Rivers and streams 
 of water glided and glistened in meandering cur- 
 rents, like threads of silver on a ground-work of green, 
 through the vales and meadows, fertilising and refresh- 
 ing every part through which they passed. The sun 
 was just setting over this happy valley from a clear, 
 bright, blue sky at the time of the vision, and this gave 
 a softened loveliness to the whole scene. As the 
 monarch of the skies slowly descended in the west, 
 paling more and more his fiery lustre, and the light 
 fell on every object in the mild beauty of departing 
 day, it looked the very picture of paradise restored : 
 but while our dreamer was rapt in admiration at the 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 3 
 
 sight, a mist gathered over the valley, and in the mist 
 
 " A fabric huge 
 Hose, like an exhalation, " 
 
 realising, in effect, the Poet's idea, when he wrote, 
 
 " Giant error, darkly grand, 
 Overshadowed all the land." 
 
 This fabric was a magnificent temple. For some 
 time he could not distinctly catch the character of 
 this huge building. Solid and vasty only appeared 
 the structure, as it lay half hid in its own deep 
 long cast shadows. But as the light of the moon, 
 which was now ascending from the east in full orbed 
 splendour, broke in its brightness over the stupendous 
 pile, its imposing grandeur and artful finishing stood 
 out in bold relief. With towers tapering up to the 
 skies, and pinnacles wrought about on all sides with 
 the most exquisite touches of architectural skill, it 
 looked the work of angelic hands. Our dreamer, in 
 the visions of his fancy, drew near to gaze more 
 closely upon it, and to ascertain its use. From its 
 outward features he could not determine whether it 
 was built for a Christian, or a Pagan, a Popish, or 
 a Protestant purpose, But, as he came nigh, he heard 
 the sweetest sounds of choral music issuing from its 
 portals* Perceiving the great west door to be open, 
 he enters. A long stretching central aisle lies before 
 him, through the distant east window of which the 
 beams of the moon, passing through deep-stained 
 glass, shed " a dim religious lustre" over the whole 
 building. Every part of it, and every prominent feature, 
 
4 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 where the view was not obstructed by pillars, thus 
 became softly visible, sleeping, as it were, in its own 
 beauty. So overpowering was the impression made by 
 its vastness and grandeur, that a soul-subduing feel- 
 ing of awe came over him, and he involuntarily bowed 
 himself down in adoration though he knew not of 
 what. When he has in some degree recovered from 
 his awe-stricken bewilderment, with soft and silent 
 footstep he treads the long drawn aisle towards the 
 end where the worship is proceeding. At every 
 step fresh objects of surprise open upon his view ; 
 piers, arch behind arch ; windows, light behind light ; 
 arcades, shaft behind shaft : deep transepts cross his 
 course and attract his sidelong glance: over his 
 head strides the vaulted roof, from the corbels and 
 cornices of which angel-faces gaze down upon him 
 with fixed and passionless eye. On every hand, 
 from niches and canopies, images and figures of 
 saints, shrined in their own shadows, look out like 
 spirits from the unseen world and startle him, as if 
 he were walking in the catacombs of the dead, just 
 erecting themselves out of their stiff, cold resting- 
 places into lithe life. With wistful wonder he pursues 
 his way, eager to reach the part where the sacred 
 solemnities are being celebrated, and from which the 
 strains that he had heard from without were still 
 pouring in floods of liquid melody, now rising in full- 
 toned chorus, now dying down in softest cadence, 
 sending a thrill of seemingly- devotional rapture 
 through his whole frame, making him ever and anon 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 5 
 
 pause and listen, like one spell-bound. At length he 
 reaches the part where the worshippers are gathered. 
 It is a sort of interior chapel, closed in by a richly 
 carved screen. Through this he passes, gazing. On 
 the altar at the east end, he sees a number of illu- 
 minated books resting recumbent on their little hidden 
 lecturns; two large wax candles are also burning there ; 
 and between them at the back stands a large gilded 
 cross. It was the hour of vespers, or " even-song." 
 When the singing had ceased, there was a solemn 
 pause, and all bowed down. From a natural curi- 
 osity he cast his eyes around to watch the scene. 
 He observed, projecting from the wall at the side, a 
 solid stone pulpit, to which there was a spiral stair- 
 case winding sinuously, the middle part of which only 
 bulged into sight, while both the beginning and the 
 end of it was invisible. The shadow of some form 
 fell, and flitted in a moment again from sight, over 
 the part which jutted into view ; and in an instant 
 after, a saintly-looking man, tall, pale, and thin, 
 appeared above, robed in white, who, after repeating 
 a certain form of words (it hardly seemed a prayer), 
 gave out a passage from the Bible it was his text. 
 The words which he had chosen to discourse upon 
 were these : " That ihou niayest know how thou 
 oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is 
 the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of 
 the truth." (I Timothy iii. 15.) 
 
 The preacher at once proceeded to expound this 
 portion of Holy Writ, And thero \vas such a 
 
6 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 quiet earnestness in his manner ; his tone of voice 
 was so winningiy gentle and musical; his be- 
 haviour was so reverent ; he carried in his look such 
 an air of deadness to the world, and every now and 
 then crossed his arms upon his breast, and lifted up 
 his eyes with such devoutness to heaven, that our 
 dreamer's attention was quickly riveted. So much 
 did his vision seem like a reality, that he distinctly 
 remembered, as if he actually heard the preacher 
 address the congregation as follows : 
 
 " Beloved Brethren, We are taught by this passage 
 of Holy Scripture truths of the deepest importance-- 
 truths which he at the very foundation of all Christian 
 religion. We are here instructed by the Holy Apostle 
 how to regard our Holy Mother the Church. She is 
 here declared, you will observe, to be ' the pillar and 
 ground of the truth/ She is ' the pillar and ground 
 of the truth,' because from her, and from her alone, 
 we derive any sure knowledge of what is the truth. 
 She is God's appointed witness to the truth, testifying 
 by her own (ail-but) infallible interpretations of the 
 Scripture what is to be believed. Christ promised to 
 be always with his Church. This is her security. 
 This ensures to you that whatever she teaches shall 
 be the truth. Those who take the Bible alone as 
 their rule of faith, and presume to interpret it by their 
 own private judgment, run into all sorts of heresies 
 and errors, which proves that the Scripture, apart from 
 the interpretation of the Church, is an unsafe guide. 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 7 
 
 It is a common mistake of these modern days to think 
 that the Bible can interpret itself ; it is a book full of 
 (Jeep mysteries, the key to which God has given to 
 none but his Church. It is, therefore, calculated of 
 itself only to lead into error. God's Holy Church is 
 the mystical oracle, so to speak, by which His will is 
 clearly made known to men, and the faithful ever 
 receive the law at her mouth. From her they learn 
 to believe all the articles of the Apostles' creed ; in 
 God the Father who made heaven and earth; in 
 God the Son, that he was bom of the Blessed Virgin 
 Mary; in God the Holy Ghost, by whom we are 
 regenerated in the holy waters of Baptism; in the 
 Holy Catholic Church, and the like. This creed has 
 been taught by the Church for 1,800 years, as that 
 which the Apostles taught and believed. The 
 Church has received many things from the Apostles, 
 which we can learn only from her. St. Paul- says in 
 one place, * Continue tlwu in the things which thou hast 
 learned) and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou 
 hast learned them.' We know that we have learned 
 these things from the Church, and that they were 
 taught to the Apostles by Christ himself; therefore 
 we ought to continue in our faith, and never to doubt 
 that it is the true faith. For the true faith has 
 always been kept by the Church, as being ' the pillar 
 and ground of the truth.' Indeed, truth has nothing 
 to rest upon without the Church she is its sole sup- 
 port. Her authority, therefore, is a sufficient ground, 
 and the only proper ground, for belief. Whatever she 
 
8 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 teaches is to be received as truth. Whatever she 
 condemns is to be renounced as damnable error. 
 Without her decision we could have no certainty as 
 to what doctrines were to be found in the Scriptures, 
 and believed. The sacred doctrine of the Trinity 
 for example, original sin, the mystery of the Incarna- 
 tion, the saving efficacy of the Sacraments, and the 
 like, no man could ever have ascertained from read- 
 ing the Bible by himself. It is the Church that has 
 developed these out of the sacred obscurity in which 
 they lie hidden in the written Scriptures, and has 
 handed them down by Tradition. It is thus that we 
 are * assured of them, knowing of whom we have 
 learned them.' We could not have been certain even 
 that the written Scriptures are the Word of God, had 
 not the Church determined it ; and if we receive the 
 Scriptures themselves upon her authority, much more 
 ought we to receive her interpretation of them. Seeing, 
 then, brethren, that you have such a sure foundation for 
 your faith, you will learn to rely upon the Church's 
 teaching, in all things, with an unquestioning assurance. 
 " But the expression in our text, ' That tlwu mayst 
 know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the Souse 
 of God' shows that we shall be following the 
 example of apostolic teaching, as we ought, having 
 apostolic authority, if we instruct you how to regard 
 the Church and all that appertains to it its ministers, 
 its ordinances, its holy round of appointed services, and 
 the like. Let me, then, teach you in what estimation 
 these are all to be held; how viewed, and how used. 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 9 
 
 " You have heard already how our Holy Mother is 
 to be regarded as respects the security of our faith. 
 Now that endearing term, Mother, so aptly applied to 
 her, reminds us that there are many kind offices 
 which she performs towards her children. First, it is 
 through her we are born unto Christ. She gives us 
 spiritual life in Holy Baptism, and she nourishes that 
 life in us by the Holy Eucharist, wherein she feeds us 
 with the blessed body and blood of our Redeemer 
 the bread and wine being made to be this to us 
 through consecration by her duly- appointed priests. 
 Of Holy Baptism, so great is the efficacy, that it im- 
 prints an indelible character on the soul ; it conveys 
 also to the body the principle of immortality, and is 
 the cause efficient of man's resurrection. In Baptism 
 man is formed anew by the miraculous water, which 
 is impregnated with the Holy Spirit, and operates to 
 cleanse from the guilt and stain of sin, to make 
 pure, to make holy, in a word, it imparts an 
 ' angelic nature' to the recipient, and of a child of 
 Adam, makes him really and truly the child of God. 
 This life, imparted in Baptism, is sustained and 
 strengthened, and extended by the Holy Eucharist, till 
 it becomes transfused through the whole man, body 
 as well as soul ; and the whole being, thus spiritual- 
 ised, is at length swallowed up in immortality. 
 
 " Such being the transcendental and mysterious 
 virtue (as we are taught by the Holy Fathers, those 
 true interpreters of Scripture) of the Sacraments of 
 the Church, you will learn to regard them as, so to 
 
10 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 speak, the present, though invisible Deity, as the 
 sheckinah of the divine glory, as, in some sense, ' God 
 manifest in the flesh :' and like as the cherubim over 
 the ark of the mercy seat are represented as veiling 
 their faces with their wings ; so, whenever you 
 approach the holy font, and especially the holy altar, 
 around which angels continually hover, you will 
 ' behave* yourself with the deepest and most awful 
 reverence. Next to her holy Sacraments, you will 
 reverence her ministers, whose divine function it is to 
 consecrate the water in Baptism, and to make the 
 bread and wine to become the body and blood of 
 Christ for the nourishment of your souls. For besides 
 this, their office it is to offer up the solemn sacrifice 
 of your prayers and praises to the Most Holy to 
 intercede for you to remit your sins, when penitent, 
 by absolution, and to grant you at last a safe passage 
 into the kingdom of heaven, and the like. All your 
 prayers, all your faith, all your oblations would be 
 vain, except as presented through Her ; for she is the 
 appointed medium through which the graces of 
 redemption come to man. Her ministers have 
 committed to them the 4 ministry of reconciliation 
 that is, the office of reconciling God to sinners. They 
 are mediators with God ; for though the Scripture 
 says, ' there is but one mediator between God and man, 
 the man Christ Jesus,' the meaning of that is, that 
 there is but one mediator of redemption, not that there 
 are not many mediators of intercession. Those who 
 believe in the Holy Catholic Church have the benefit 
 
THE DEEAM AN ALLEGORY. 11 
 
 of the prayers of all the saints yea, and also of the 
 services of the holy angels ; for, says the apostle, ' are 
 they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to 
 them who shall be heirs of salvation.' But here we are 
 called upon to believe, rather than presumptuously to 
 inquire. There is a great mystery about the office 
 of the Church, as St. Paul says ; and, when speaking 
 of her, the holy Apostle breaks off with a sort of sacred 
 reserve, which we shall do well to imitate. It suffices 
 for us to know, respecting her, that she is the Lamb's 
 bride, and as his bride is our mother; and that, like a 
 true mother, she feels towards her children the most 
 tender sympathy, watches over their whole course on 
 earth with maternal solicitude, and nurses them up 
 to the full stature of her own internal life. 
 
 " Since, then, you have such a mother, who has so 
 provided for your spiritual welfare ; and since she is 
 declared by the Apostle, to be *the Church of t]ie 
 living God} so that, in some mysterious way, God is 
 present in her, you will view her with ' all but adoring 
 love/ and will reverence in her the body of the 
 Redeemer himself, and his mystic bride, 
 
 " As closely connected with the devout veneration 
 that is due to her, you will reverence this temple, 
 which is her material emblem, and evince your piety 
 by the solemn awe with which you will tread her 
 courts. Those cannot be said to know how to ' be- 
 have ' themselves in the house of God, who pay not, 
 in some sort, the same reverence to the house, which 
 they would pay to him who dwells in it. To the truly 
 
12 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 devout mind, every object in this holy place possesses 
 a sort of ' religiosity/ as embodying and typing forth 
 some sacred truth of our holy faith. The very walls 
 of the Church, covered as they are with Catholic 
 symbols, are pregnant with divine instruction. When- 
 ever in particular you look upon that * holy efficacious 
 sign,' (and you will look upon it often, said the 
 preacher, pointing to the Cross, which stood at the 
 back of the altar,) you will feel the deepest, purest, 
 most spiritual emotions of piety excited in your bosoms. 
 By the silent contemplation of that, and not by talking 
 with a profane familiarity about the death of Christ, 
 you will realise what it is to ' know Jesus Christ, and 
 him crucified' It is thus you will see ' Jesus Christ 
 evidently set forth crucified among you? and will become 
 crucified with him by dwelling in devout silence upon 
 his sufferings ; by exercising self-mortification in 
 fasting, humiliation, and the like. There is a sort of 
 sacramental virtue in such emblems (for so the 
 Catholic Church has ever believed) ; and when viewed 
 with pious reverence they doubtless exercise a sub- 
 limating and elevating spiritual influence on the soul. 
 This, and other like things, sanctioned by the Church, 
 are full of spiritual significancy, and in mystical 
 silence they each tell us of some Catholic truth ; they 
 sacramentalise, so to speak, all the sacred verities of 
 our faith. The great west-door, for example, as you 
 enter, reminds you of our one Lord Jesus Christ ; its 
 two folds, signify his two natures the human and the 
 divine ; the triple division of the windows, and the like, 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 13 
 
 teach us the doctrine of the Trinity; the octagon 
 form of the font denotes regeneration; the transepts 
 tell us of the atonement; the nave, in which you 
 kneel and pray, represents the Church militant ; the 
 screen, which separates this from the choir, is the 
 barrier of death, through which every one of the faithful 
 has to pass before he can join the Church triumphant. 
 Then again, within the cancel (for the Church would 
 keep these great truths ever before you), the three 
 steps, by which you ascend to the Holy Altar, speak of 
 the sacred Trinity; the two candles on it denote the two 
 lights of the law and the gospel ; or, as some think, 
 the two natures of Christ ; and that most sacred 
 of all emblems, the Cross, full of sacramental sig- 
 nificancy, embodies in one view the whole mystery of 
 our redemption. It is thus that Churches may 
 be regarded as ' depositories of divine grace ; ' for 
 through these signs He who * worketh all, and in all,' 
 can doubtless impart grace to his people. 
 
 "Practical duties, too, as well as mystical privi- 
 leges, may be learned from Catholic constructed 
 churches: the unity of many members, and, conse- 
 quently, the duty of preserving that unity, is shadowed 
 forth in the multiplex arcade; the obligation to let our 
 light shine before men by the pierced and flowered 
 parapet; while from the upward curl of the sculptured 
 foliage, the upward spring of the flying buttress, the 
 sharp rise of the window arch, the^high thrown pitch 
 of the roof, we learn that, vanquishing earthly desires, 
 we should ascend in heart and mind towards heaven. 
 
14 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 ' Lessons of holy wisdom/ indeed, may be gathered 
 from every figure with which we are here surrounded ; 
 from the monogram carved on boss and corbel ; from the 
 agnus Dei ; from the mystic fish ; from the trifolium ; 
 from the emblematic triangle, and the like, all of 
 which are oracular of divinity. 
 
 " The profane, and men not of holy humble minds, 
 whose hearts have not been purged from all that is carnal 
 and earthly, may see nothing symbolic or sacramental 
 in these sacred emblems ; but it is by such instru- 
 mentalities as these that God's holy Church (doubtless 
 under the guidance of his Spirit), has sought to train 1 
 the minds of her worshippers to rise from the seen to 
 the unseen ; from the earthly to the heavenly. 
 
 "The great defect in the Christianity of the present 
 day is, a want of faith. Men will no longer believe when 
 they cannot understand. Those who profess evangelical 
 religion talk, indeed, much of faith, and of preaching 
 the Cross ; but it is not the faith of the Church which 
 they preach, nor the true doctrine of the Cross which 
 they inculcate. By faith they mean certain feelings, 
 operating in the mind itself, without reference to any 
 visible objects, and resting only in what they term 'expe- 
 riences.' Such faith is a mere human quality. The 
 doctrine of the Cross denotes no more in their creed 
 then putting their trust wholly in Christ's sufferings 
 on the Cross for salvation not the being crucified 
 with him by fasting, penance, and holy self-denial, and 
 the like. 
 
 " On the mysterious doctrine of the sufferings of 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 16 
 
 Christ it has ever been the practice of the Catholic 
 Church to maintain a sacred reserve : these are to be 
 contemplated in silent devoutness, and what we feel 
 respecting them expressed only in sighs and tears, 
 not blazoned forth in the unreverent strains of human 
 eloquence. This is one part of that behaving ourselves 
 as we ought in the house of God, upon which the 
 Apostle insists in the text. 
 
 " There is one point more on which it is my duty to 
 instruct you as members of Christ's holy Catholic 
 Church. Avoid controversy. Religion is too sacred a 
 thing for controversy. Its essential doctrines are made 
 so certain by the Church that, as the holy Apostle 
 states in the verse following the text, It is ' without ' 
 that is, it ought to be 'without controversy' 
 ' Great is the mystery of godliness.' It is a mystery, 
 and, as such, is to be viewed with awful reverence, and 
 silent adoring wonder not curiously inquired into 
 and discussed. We hear sometimes vi religious contro- 
 versy; but it might more properly be termed irreligious, 
 for it arises entirely from irreverence of the mind. 
 
 "But besides being an indication of a want of 
 piety and of true humility, and, therefore, wrong in 
 spirit, controversy never tends to any good result. As 
 respects the Church, it destroys unity that most 
 essential bond of Claris tians. As respects yourselves, 
 it only unsettles the mind, and involves it in doubt 
 and uncertainty ; as we see in the case of those who 
 disputed about Christ's claims, as related in the 7th 
 chapter of St. John, where it is most significantly 
 
16 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 recorded at the end "And every man went to his 
 own home." They came to no common agreement, 
 because they made Christ's doctrine a matter of dis- 
 pute, and not a matter of obedience. It is not the 
 appointment of our Lord and Master that the people 
 should ever listen to the voice of controversy, or set 
 up themselves as judges of what is truth. If doubts 
 arise in their own minds, they should bring them unto the 
 Priest, that he may resolve them, and they should receive 
 the law at his mouth in unquestioning submission. 
 It is only by so acting that the unity of the Church, 
 which is as essential as its verity, can be preserved. 
 
 " Finally, then, I exhort and command you to keep 
 close to your holy, faithful, tender-hearted mother, 
 the Church. What child, indeed, would not put im- 
 plicit faith in its own mother ? She teaches you how, 
 in all respects, to behave yourselves as members of 
 Christ's body. Be content to tread the holy round 
 of fast and festival, of duty and service, which she 
 prescribes for you, and you shall know peace. All 
 without her holy circle is dissension and distraction, 
 doubt and perplexity; all within is certainty and 
 order, harmony, and love. Her bosom is the abode of 
 all kind affections the soft resting-place for all the 
 weary and heavy-laden the source of all spiritual 
 composure and satisfaction. Say, then, with the holy 
 Psalmist ' This shall be my rest for ever ; here will 
 I dwell, for I have a delight therein.' ' 
 
 The preacher ended, but not our dreamer's dream. 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 17 
 
 There was such calm confidence in his statements, 
 and his last words fell so soothingly upon the ear of 
 the hearer, that he sunk into a still deeper slumber 
 than before, and the whole remainder of the night 
 was passed in a state of unconscious forgetfulness, 
 except that a strange sense of oppression came over 
 him, and he every now and then started, and struggled, 
 like a person labouring under the nightmare, as if he 
 felt held down by some invisible power, from which 
 he in vain endeavoured to get free. When the 
 imaginary effort was over, he would again fall into a 
 deep, undisturbed repose for a while. Next, an airy 
 ghost -like shape would haunt him, and seem to tread 
 close upon his heels ; but when he turned (as in fancy 
 he often turned) to strike it, it yielded impassive to 
 his blows, and was still there. Anon, he would make 
 a grasp at a large bright sword which lay before him, 
 but of which he could get no hold. Thus troubled, 
 though deep, were his slumbers, while the long, long 
 night went on. 
 
 In the meantime, dark clouds had gathered round 
 the distant horizon, and hung louring over the here- 
 tofore bright sunshiny valley. The lurid lightnings 
 fl arec l the sky opening and shutting rapidly in rifted 
 ghastliness, revealing denser and denser clouds of 
 angry hue behind, as if the wrath of Heaven were 
 indeed shrouded under their wings. By some unseen 
 influence the country, which, before he had entered 
 the mystic temple looked so rich and beautiful, 
 changed into blackness and barrenness. A withering 
 
 c 
 
18 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 blight has suddenly passed over every object. 
 The trees have dropped their yet unripe fruit ; the 
 herbs and the grass droop in visible faintness ; the 
 rivers and streams, so lately of silvery brightness, 
 look like so much liquid pitch; the animals moan 
 and cast their eyes upwards as if labouring under 
 some sensible distress; the birds cease their song; 
 the inhabitants, who but yesterday looked the very 
 pictures of cheerful contentment and of hope erect, 
 have assumed a haggard, sad, downcast aspect their 
 dwellings even, squalid and neglected now, seem to 
 partake by sympathy in their own moral wretchedness, 
 poverty, in fact, has here succeeded to plenty, mis- 
 trust to confidence, treachery and violence to truth- 
 fulness and love. Never had so great a change, in 
 so short a time, and by such unaccountable means, 
 been effected. 
 
 But all unconscious was our dreamer of the 
 withering process that was passing over the scene of 
 loveliness, of plenty, and of peace, upon which his 
 eyes had just before rested. He is held in the chains 
 of insensibility by the power of the serpent, which 
 lies coiled up under his pillow. The soporific influ- 
 ence of this creature was so potent upon the organs 
 of sense (though nature struggled from time to time 
 to recover herself to waking consciousness), that no 
 human energy could break its force, arouse the 
 sleeper to active intelligence, or make him sensible of 
 the presence of the fatal enemy with which, when he 
 awakes, he will have to contend. 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 19 
 
 ! The serpent which produced these stupefying 
 effects was of no ordinary kind. Besides the peculiar 
 narcotic power which it possessed, and through which 
 it caused all who came within its influence to fall into 
 deep sleep, it had also fearful organs of destructive- 
 ness when once provoked ; for, strange to tell, this 
 wonderful creature had seven heads, each grooved 
 into a grisly jointed neck of several inches in length, 
 and each head contained a sting of fatal virulence. 
 Its stings were not so many fangs lying, lancet-like 
 (as the ordinary adder's sting), in the side of the 
 mouth, but the point of each tongue sent out a sting 
 of an arrow-headed shape, full of deadly poison. 
 
 Another peculiarity of this monster was, that its 
 seven heads were made capable of closing down into 
 one, and, when closed down into one, the whole virus 
 of its seven forked tongues was transferred, and be- 
 came concentrated in one single sting in the tail, of 
 tremendous power ; while its face assumed the appear- 
 ance of a female's of the most fascinating beauty. 
 Its eyes, which were before of a dull dusky green, 
 turned to the brightest sky-blue, and beamed with a 
 mild intelligence and a witching softness which it 
 was next to impossible to withstand. So much, in- 
 deed, in this new shape, did this dreadful serpent 
 look like a lovely woman, that all power of resistance 
 to it (unless, perchance, you carried about you a certain 
 antidote against such charms) became for the time 
 suspended, as if the beholder was under the spell of 
 some mighty enchantress. 
 
20 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 It was under the influence of this creature our 
 dreamer continued to sleep, still being, as he imagined, 
 in the church where his attention had been so much 
 riveted, gazing fixedly on the face of an image; and on 
 he would have slept, had not a heaven-sent messenger 
 touched him on his side, and said, " Awake, arise, 
 behold the light of day ! " and, leading him to the 
 window, shewn him (still in vision) the change which 
 had come over " the spirit of his dream," in regard to 
 the happy valley. At the sight, a shudder of horror- 
 stricken surprise shook his whole frame, and the 
 thunder of heaven breaking at the moment in an 
 awful clap over his head, caused him to start from his 
 couch into the open room with such a jerk of the 
 right arm upon the pillow, that it aroused the dor- 
 mant serpent. In an instant, uncoiling itself at full 
 length, and uttering a most horrible hiss, it darts 
 after him upon the floor. It erects itself upon its tail ; 
 it swells itself out to a prodigious size ; its eyes 
 kindle into a fiery glare, and with all its seven 
 heads extended, it stands ready to strike. Our 
 now-awakened dreamer, seeing the fearful enemy 
 which he has to encounter, summons up all the 
 energy of nature, and seizes a double-edged sword which 
 happens to lie on the table ; the serpent perceives his 
 intention, makes a spring at him, but is baffled by the 
 swift brandish of the sword, which he flashes before him 
 with all his might. His attempt, however, to strike 
 the huge reptile is utterly ineffective. The wily 
 creature evades his blow by a surprisingly quick twist 
 
THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 21 
 
 of its pliant folds, and sends out such dazzling colours 
 of beauty upon its skin, as attract and fix his admiring 
 gaze. He pauses in thought whether to strike again. 
 The subtle animal observes his suspense, and instantly 
 assumes its most prepossessing aspect the face of a 
 fascinating female. He is now well nigh spell bound, 
 and incapable of further battling. But from certain 
 observed motions at the point where the seven heads 
 unite in one, he is convinced that the slightest change 
 in his resolve will be followed by its resuming its old 
 form and making another deadly spring. Feeling that 
 there can be no safety to his life while such a creature 
 is suffered to remain in existence, that to attempt to 
 fly would be only to fall, he raises his heart to God in 
 prayer, and nerved now with more than mortal 
 strength, he wields the sword to and fro with such 
 infinite quickness against this deceitful charmer, that 
 its eyes are dazzled, and it is driven to slink back. 
 In a moment, coiling down into its original form, it 
 erects itself, fold upon fold, with heads projected in 
 attitude to dart at him. He rushes upon it, sword in 
 hand. Blow after blow he deals out to it ; gash after 
 gash is made upon its body ; the dreadful monster 
 writhes, and hisses, and raises itself again and again 
 upon its tail, to make a spring at its foe ; but one 
 tremendous cut from the double-edged sword gave it 
 a mortal wound, and took away its power of all fur- 
 ther attack. It required, however, seven desperately 
 heavy blows before its seven heads could be severed 
 entirely from its body, and all its ability to hurt 
 
22 THE DREAM AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 destroyed. But at length this fearful reptile, which 
 had so long held him bound in a death-like slumber, 
 lies dead at his feet. Behold, the great seven-headed 
 serpent is slain ! 
 
 When our Christian Conqueror (for so we may now 
 call him) had sufficiently recovered from his exhaust- 
 ing exertions, he carefully examined the curious con- 
 struction of this novel creature, and finding that its 
 skin is most beautifully bedight with spots of purple 
 and of scarlet, upon scales of deep bright green, and 
 that its seven heads could be again joined by their 
 grisly ligaments, so as to appear united at one point, 
 just as when alive, he has it suspended, in this its 
 natural form, over his mantelpiece, beneath the tried 
 and trusty sword with which the creature had been 
 slain, and under it he placed this simple but significant 
 inscription, 
 
 " The Trophies of Truth's Triumphs." 
 
 DEO GLORIA. 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 23 
 
 THE SUBTLETY OF EKROR. 
 
 " THE many-headed Hydra of Error, " is an expres- 
 sion common in the mouths of men. Their frequent 
 use of this expression evidences that error, to their 
 imaginations at least, is a fearful, hideous monster, 
 that needs only to be seen in order to be shunned; 
 but then they are wont to forget that, in any developed 
 and definitely outlined shape, it seldom is to be seen in 
 its many-headed form, never. And as where the 
 terrors of the imagination take the place of the calm 
 collected conclusions of the reason, or of deliberate 
 observation, men are hurried out of their propriety, it 
 too often happens that they rush in their haste into 
 the very jaws of the danger from which they think 
 to fly. 
 
 It is a circumstance by no means to be overlooked, 
 that error usually makes its way by subtlety, and not 
 by force. The Scriptures speak of the " deceivableness " 
 of error. It is its deceivableness chiefly which consti- 
 tutes its dangerousness. That it is regarded with 
 great dread is salutary is well ; but wherein lies its 
 peculiar power to deceive, and thereby to hurt and 
 destroy, is little considered, and seldom distinctly de- 
 tected. It is, indeed, a sad and undeniable fact, that 
 
24 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 men may be the unconscious victims of its fascinations 
 even while denouncing its deadly delusiveness. 
 
 Man is a creature who is governed in a great degree 
 by invisible influences influences acting directly, but 
 unseen upon the mind. This none will deny. But 
 while all will be found ready to admit that human kind 
 are, from this circumstance, liable to be wrought upon 
 so as to be insensibly deceived, each of us is apt to 
 persuade himself that he is proof against all the power 
 of delusion. The varied forms which, it is known, 
 error can assume, and the multiplied instances in 
 which it succeeds in deceiving the most acute and 
 intelligent, might teach us at once a lesson of less 
 confidence and of more caution. 
 
 We propose, in this first essay, to investigate the 
 various conditions under which error is enabled to 
 advance its impositions upon mankind; and in so 
 doing, we shall endeavour to trace out the more occult 
 and insidious causes of its deceptive influence, without 
 dwelling at any length upon those which are open and 
 patent to all. There are some so obvious, that the 
 wonde^ is they do not strike every one's notice ; but 
 even these often pass unobserved from sheer inattention. 
 By bringing these, as >yell as its more latent and subtle 
 operations into view, we hope to furnish the reader with 
 some useful tests and criterions, whereby he may dis- 
 criminate between the safe and the unsafe in religious 
 tendency, and discover whether he is on the path that 
 leads to truth, or in that deceptions one which ends 
 in error. 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 25 
 
 The following may be laid down as axioms in 
 this too much neglected science of spiritual philo- 
 sophy : 
 
 I. All error takes truth as its starting point. This 
 is a fact by no means to be overlooked. Error is not, 
 as is commonly supposed, the direct opposite to truth, 
 but a departure from the truth ; and the two not only 
 start from the same point, but, for a considerable dis- 
 tance, they usually run nearly coincident, or parallel ; so 
 that the deviation of the one from the other, and whether 
 that deviation be increasing or diminishing, can be 
 ascertained only by taking the angle, so to speak, here 
 and there, and onwards, most accurately with the com- 
 passes of the Divine word and testimony. The com- 
 mon characteristic of error, indeed, is its sinuosity, by 
 which it is made to touch, and cut, and cross con- 
 tinually the narrow silvery line of truth, which, like 
 the sun's path in the heavens, is fixed, though untrace- 
 able, except by the virtues which are its. signs. Even 
 where it goes off at a tangent, never to touch the 
 right line again, the deflection, in most cases, is so 
 slight at first, that it is not perceived (how slight, for 
 instance, it was at the outset with the Galatian 
 Christians in regard to the doctrine of justification) ; 
 and it is only by looking in the opposite direction, 
 after a large intervening space from the starting 
 point, that its wide and ever widening departure from 
 the truth can be detected ; in other words, it is only 
 by having respect to the issues and consequents of 
 a doctrine or principle, when fully followed out, we 
 
26 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 can discover whether it will place a mail finally on 
 the wrong side of that great gulf which none can 
 cross. , 
 
 It is, then, this two -fold characteristic of error, 
 its slight deviation at first from truth, and its fre- 
 quent touching and crossing of the line of truth, which 
 causes it so often to deceive, in some cases, fatally to 
 mislead men. Either they do not mark the deviation, 
 and then they go wide unwittingly ; or it appears to 
 them too slight to be of any consequence, and so they 
 err thoughtlessly ; or, on the other hand, perceiving- 
 it to be coincident with truth at various points, while 
 it seems to cross it at others, they get bewildered, 
 like a person wandering in a dimly-lighted labyrinth, 
 and, finding their eyes to be of no use to them, they 
 close them and walk on feeling their way hopefully, 
 trusting, though they know not whither they are going, 
 that they shall at last issue out into the open light of 
 heaven, while, in too many cases, the result is they 
 wander endlessly on, and are eternally lost. 
 
 II. The next thing to be noted is, that error is at 
 all times the shadow of truth. It bears its image, and 
 has all its features and outlines, being distinguishable 
 from it only by its greater dimness, or, what is even 
 more deceiving, a greater degree of brightness. Every 
 truth has, in fact, its counterfeit its fictitious, flit 
 ting, and unsubstantial resemblance. This resem- 
 blance men sometimes take for the reality, or more 
 frequently substitute for, till it comes to supersede, the 
 reality. Images or emblems, bearing a certain rela- 
 
THE SUBTLETY OP ERROR. 27 
 
 tion of likeness to them, must be used to picture to the 
 mental eye spiritual verities which are but imperfectly 
 revealed, or of which the mind can of itself form no 
 definite conception. The whole of the Mosaic economy 
 was grounded upon the principle of shadowing forth 
 great truths by inferior signs ; but this, though in- 
 tended for a help to the apprehension of typified truth, 
 became incidentally a cause of error, in that the car- 
 nally-minded among the Jews took those signs for 
 substances, instead of as shadows only of good things to 
 come. It was not that those signs themselves were 
 errors, considered simply as signs (for they truly bodied 
 forth, as far as any signs could, the things which they 
 signified) ; but the error lay in regarding them as ulti- 
 mate objects, instead of looking through them to those 
 great spiritual realities which, not being yet above 
 our human horizon, could become visible only by their 
 being made to " cast their shadows before." The dan- 
 ger of error to Christians lies in the opposite direction. 
 Their temptation is to turn the realities themselves into 
 shadows, that they may have, what the gross unre- 
 newed mind in its limping feebleness always looks 
 after, some visible objects to rest in. * The professed 
 design, indeed, of material symbols, where they are 
 resorted to, is to aid in the conception of the spiritual 
 verities of which they are assumed to stand as appro- 
 priate signs ; but, under the Gospel dispensation, it is 
 manifestly false to assume that they are aids at all to 
 
 * See chapter <m Symbolism, 
 
28 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 this end. For truth, when shining clear in mid- 
 heaven, cannot be made brighter, but rather must be 
 darkened, by being looked at through the dim opaque 
 of an earthly emblem. It is one of the subtle devices 
 of the spirit of error, therefore, to substitute the 
 shadowy resemblance, the symbolic representation of 
 divine things, in the way of appeal to the senses, in 
 the place of the spiritual verities, as addressing them- 
 selves directly to the mind, the ultimate consequence 
 of which is, that the verities themselves are rendered 
 utterly powerless. 
 
 The history of the corruptions of Christianity is a 
 standing witness of the inevitable tendency of the 
 material to debase, and finally to dislodge, the spi- 
 ritual. In the earliest, which were the brightest, ages 
 of the Christian Church, no pictures or emblems of 
 any kind were permitted within its sacred precincts. 
 And it was not till after the 1 3th century, confessedly 
 the golden era of art, when the practice prevailed of 
 filling our churches with what was thought to be 
 an instructive symbolism, (and for quaint device and 
 artistic skill these works certainly were admirable,) 
 that the dark ages commenced ; and there can be no 
 doubt in the mind of any unprejudiced person, who 
 looks without a bias at this fact, that this paved the 
 way for the incoming of that troop of shadowy forms 
 and superstitious ceremonies, in which, at length, the 
 truth, as a distinctly defined thing, was wholly 
 obscured. Could the state of deep, devout feeling, out 
 of which this sprang, have been sustained generally, 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 29 
 
 there might have been no great evil in this application 
 of art ; but as when nations reach their highest pitch of 
 civilised refinement they are on the point of decline, 
 so, it would seem, that when religious art reaches its 
 perfection, the Church is just at that crisis where piety 
 loses its living spirit in cold petrifaction, and men, 
 having begun to turn their faith into a toy, end in 
 bowing down to it in the form of a soulless image. 
 Nothing, in truth, is more difficult than to keep the 
 senses and the imagination, when indulged in religion, 
 from assuming an all-subduing control. Only let 
 ceremonies and symbols be multiplied, perpetually 
 insisted upon, made unduly prominent, and pro- 
 truded, as it were, continually upon the observation, 
 and spiritual truth will become enveloped in a mist, 
 in which her radiant form will be finally merged, lost 
 sight of, and forgotten. The devotional tendencies of 
 men's minds will be dissipated in a sort of dreamy 
 reverence of they know not what, instead of being 
 gathered in and concentrated on a known and definite 
 object. He, therefore, who would guard against being 
 misled into practical error and a delusion, must be 
 careful of substituting symbols, which are but shadows, 
 in the place of truthful realities, lest he should be 
 found to be occupied in adoring an image, when he 
 ought to be worshipping GOD. 
 
 III. Error can assume many forms. It is pro- 
 verbially a Protean thing. But, in the pursuit of 
 truth, this is often forgotten; and men, in their 
 anxiety to escape from error under one of its hideous 
 
30 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 aspects, rush into its embrace under another that 
 looks more inviting. It is necessary, therefore, to 
 bear in mind this principle, that the direct opposite to 
 error is not necessarily the truth, it is usually, indeed, 
 only error under a reverse aspect. 
 
 The various disguises the specious and apparently 
 truthful, because opposite forms, which error can assume, 
 as one of its most successful methods of entrapping the 
 unwary. Satan, we read, can transform himself into an 
 angel of light. It is as an angel of light that he most 
 frequently misleads, by dazzling men, into darkness. 
 Taking advantage of the natural inclination of man- 
 kind to run into extremes,- and to be imposed upon by 
 false forms and specious appearances, he feigns a 
 concern for the truth which is intended only to sup- 
 plant the truth. Thus, we see him in the first age of 
 flie church, when the zeal for the doctrine of Christ's 
 true and proper divinity was strong, leading some 
 thereby to the denial altogether of his humanity : at 
 a subsequent period, when, at the overthrow of the 
 Pagan worship, the rage ran high against Polytheism, 
 he foisted in the Arian heresy : when this had been 
 effectually withstood, and the current turned again in 
 favour of recognising all the affecting truths arising 
 out of the doctrine of Christ's humanity, then every- 
 thing of a material nature relating to him, or in any 
 way connected with him, had ascribed to it a peculiar 
 sanctity, and was to be venerated ; by which means 
 the arch -deceiver managed to lead men off into 
 image-worship, and relic worship, and saint- worship, 
 
THE SUBTLETY OP ERROR. 31 
 
 till, at length, in came Popery proper, with its monster 
 doctrine of transubstantiation, and the adoration of 
 the Virgin and its affectation of superhuman purity 
 in the prohibition of marriage, the institution of 
 monasteries and nunneries, and all the other illusory 
 forms of a factitious pietism, whereby it so successfully 
 cheats weakness into fancied goodness. 
 
 In a similar manner, in the present day, among 
 Protestants, through their losing sight of the self- 
 preserving principle that the opposite to error is not 
 necessarily the truth, we see men drawn away from 
 the simplicity of the faith, and perverted, some to a 
 close affinity with Romanism as opposed to a lax Pro- 
 testantism ; some to so called Rationalism ; some to 
 Pantheism; soni to Mormonism ; some to the 
 false liberality, or indifferentism, which regards all 
 religions alike. 
 
 It is a source of serious perplexity to many minds 
 (and at this we cannot wonder) that there is such a 
 variety of doctrines and of religious opinions among 
 men all seeming different, yet all claiming to be 
 considered right; and this it is which has induced 
 some, to save all trouble of research or inquiry for 
 themselves, to throw themselves with shut eyes at the 
 feet of a self-assumed infallible authority, others to 
 yield to the semi-infidel notion that all religions are 
 only so many different forms or aspects of truth. 
 Diversities of opinion do, indeed, argue the diversity of 
 error, but they are no proof of the undiscoverableness, 
 and still less of the uncertainty of truth. Let the 
 
32 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 reader bear in mind that truth is distinguished by 
 unity, and that variety is so essential a property, that 
 it becomes a standing, ineffaceable feature of false- 
 hood. Truth, like its Great Author, of whom the sun 
 may be regarded as the emblem, is ever the same. 
 It is the variations of Rome that condemn her as a 
 deceiver. It is the unvarying character of the true 
 Holy Catholic Church which evinces that with her is 
 the depositum of the truth. All faithful Christians 
 throughout the world, by whatever name known, and 
 however they may seem to differ, are found to hold 
 essentially one and the same doctrine, and to be 
 animated by one and the same spirit ; but errors and 
 heresies are of as many forms, and features, and shapes, 
 and hues, as the shadows of earthly objects, which 
 dance across the path of him who walks through 
 woody scenes by moonlight. A good angel will always 
 appear as a good angel, and in no other character ; but 
 Satan being the Evil One, because evil, can affect to 
 be good, and appear all things as he has occasion 
 now the priest ; now the prophet ; now the casuist ; 
 now the reconciler ; now the ascetic monk ; now the 
 angel of mercy ; in a word, everything but himself. 
 The difficulty of detecting the deceptive illusions 
 of this subtle Enemy lies, it will be observed, in the 
 spirituality of the form in which he can assail us. 
 He comes as a roaring lion only when he would 
 destroy and devour by persecution ; but, when he 
 would smooth the way for the reception of any deadly 
 error into the mind, he presents himself before us as a 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 33 
 
 supple serpent, radiant with beauty and gifted wij;h 
 extraordinary knowledge; we enter into converse with 
 him, and thus he is enabled to assail us in the shape- 
 less, intangible form of some plausible argument; 
 some lauded liberality of sentiment ; some appeal to 
 our trusted reason, or pride, or amiable weaknesses ; 
 some fascination of manner, or witching loveliness of 
 temper ; giving birth in our hearts to an influence 
 which we feel that we cannot resist without doing 
 violence to ourselves ; so that, in fact, we are taken 
 unconsciously captive by him at his will. It must 
 needs be difficult to discover him who can make that 
 which discovers all things else, light, his disguise. 
 
 It is not then, it will be perceived, so much by error 
 in its abstract deformity we are in danger of being 
 deceived, as by error disguised under some specious 
 garb of truth ; and the more of truth's attractiveness 
 there is about it, the more liable we are to be uncon- 
 sciously misled. Hence we may lay it down as a 
 rule, that error is dangerous just in proportion to the 
 quantity of truth that is mixed with it. 
 
 Another thing to be remembered is, that error may 
 be expected almost invariably to present itself before 
 us under what may be termed "a taking" aspect. To 
 this fact we have the testimony of a learned living 
 writer.* " Heresy," he says, "commonly appears in the 
 character of goodness and piety. We know from 
 ecclesiastical history that the founders of almost all 
 heresies, as Anus, Pelagius, Nestorius, &c., have 
 * Palmer/ 
 
34 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 been famed for external piety and sanctity ; and when 
 such men earnestly assert their doctrines to be true 
 and orthodox, then even the faithful may be in danger 
 of forsaking their steadfastness." It is against the 
 influence of their spirit, then, or character, we must 
 guard, quite as much as against their actions, if we 
 would not be led away under the spell of delusion. 
 
 IV. There is a mighty potency exercised by error 
 over the mind. It is a common source of self-confi- 
 dence, and consequently of danger in regard to error, 
 to suppose that it possesses no active power. But it 
 is not that cold, bare, abstract thing which men are 
 apt to think it which they can receive or reject at 
 will, like a naked proposition in mathematics, ac- 
 cording or not as it is " proven." There is a spirit in 
 it ; it is warm with life, and instinct with energy ; 
 not indeed by any inherent power of its own, but as 
 breathed into it by its author, or imagined to be in it 
 by its beholder (in which case that spirit is in the 
 person himself), so that to venture within the magic 
 circle of its influence is the sure way to be overcome. 
 Error charms first in order to deceive, and deceives by 
 charming. 
 
 It is just here that the fatal energy of the Evil 
 One comes in and gives force to that which would 
 otherwise be powerless. To overlook the part taken 
 by Satan in the work of deception, would be as un- 
 philosophical as it would be unscriptural. It is a 
 thing capable of the strictest demonstration that there 
 must be such an active evil influence in the world. 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 35 
 
 As every effect must have some cause, a cause cor- 
 respondent too in nature with the effect, the spirit of 
 error which is found in man must be traced to that 
 old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which de- 
 ceiveth the whole world. How entirely the heathen 
 nations before the coming of Christ were under his 
 influence, we see in the fact that their whole system 
 of religion consisted in worshipping the devil. They 
 consulted him in their oracles ; they adored him at 
 their shrines ; they offered sacrifices to him at their 
 altars ; they sought and listened to his inspirations in 
 their sibyls and their dark sorceries. And this demon, 
 which was then for a time cast out, has, by his 
 artful devices in adapting Christianity to a more 
 specious form of idolatry, contrived to re-enter. Sub- 
 tlety is the great characteristic of Satan. " I fear 
 lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve 
 through his subtlety, so your minds should be cor- 
 rupted from the simplicity that is in Christ," says 
 St. Paul, when speaking of this enemy to human 
 kind. " He was a murderer from the beginning, and 
 abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in 
 him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his 
 own ; for he is a liar and the father of it," is the 
 declaration of St. John. Error being, so to speak, 
 congenerous with his own nature, Satan infuses into it 
 the energy of his own being ; or, which is the same 
 thing in effect, he infuses a predisposedness into him 
 in whom there dwells not the spirit of truth, to give 
 reception to the noxious influence of error. By the 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 recognition of this fact we are able to solve a great 
 number of otherwise perplexing phenomena in 
 the world of mind ; and to account for what would 
 otherwise be wholly unaccountable the different 
 effects which the same statements or tones of senti- 
 ment are seen to produce on different individuals. 
 One man will be found to receive with affection, as a 
 bright and lovely truth, what to another is repugnant, 
 as being a manifest and odious falsehood. Now why 
 is this, when it is the same object that is presented to 
 the view of both \ Evidently it arises from the 
 different condition of the faculty of perception in 
 the two, since it is not in the thing perceived; in 
 other words, it is the predisposed state of the mind, 
 through the influence which has been brought to act 
 upon it, which causes any one to give an affectionate 
 welcome to error. 
 
 It is a matter of philosophic certainty that 
 external objects operate not efficiently, or by any 
 inherent power of their own upon the faculties ; 
 for if they did, since by the supposition the object 
 is the same to all, it could not produce diverse 
 effects. Objects are altogether passive, and exercise 
 no direct control over the judgment. They are jusfc 
 what they are, and nothing more. Hence truth is 
 truth, and error is error, whether men apprehend them 
 as such or not; and both of them have that dis- 
 tinctiveness of character that the fault lies not in 
 them if their real nature be not perceived. The fault 
 must lie in the state of the perceptive faculty in the 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 37 
 
 receiver its disposedness to be wrought upon by a 
 certain influence, as he who catches a fever catches it 
 from a susceptibility in his animal system to receive 
 the poison which floats in the atmosphere. 
 
 V. Error is propagated by infection not by con- 
 tagion. It is an influence rather than a tangible 
 substance. It is not by direct contact with our 
 reason or with our affections that error gains a hold 
 upon us ; we must first become infected with the 
 spirit of it before we shall be disposed to give it any 
 reception. This is a fact in the philosophy of religion 
 to which sufficient attention has not been paid ; 
 indeed, it seems hardly to have been noted. Men 
 have been in the habit of confining their guarded 
 caution and their care altogether against formal error, 
 as dogmatically propounded in false propositions, and 
 have felt little jealousy, and exercised little guardedness, 
 where truth wasnot directly, or in express terms, denied. 
 It is the statements rather than the spirit of writers 
 and teachers they have feared. Hence it has be- 
 come common to hear them say, with regard to 
 certain authors, or to certain kinds of books, "Where 
 is the harm in them ? Point out where the error or 
 danger lies." As justly might they ask to be shown 
 the infection that floats in impure air. Error, as it 
 at first operates upon the mind, is an atmosphere 
 (Satan himself is described as the " spirit of the 
 power of the air") an invisible influence and it is 
 not usually tilt this influence has wrought its insidious 
 effect upon the moral system, that false doctrine gains 
 
38 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 power or assumes the form of a positive existence. 
 Error being, as we have before observed, a thing of life, 
 is a thing that breathes, though, as being invisible, it 
 is a thing that cannot be touched. It is propagated 
 subjectively rather than objectively. Errors of state- 
 ment, in distinctly enunciated dogmas, are indeed 
 objective, but sentiment is subjective, and it is as 
 sentiment that error in its virus is diffused. Let but 
 some false sentiment, as a matter of feeling and 
 affection, get possession of the mind (and it may get 
 possession by the mere reading of the book in which 
 it breathes), and at once every doctrine, every 
 spiritual principle, every system of religious life, 
 comes to be viewed in the light, the discoloured hue 
 rather, of this false sentiment, as either right because 
 it looks lovely, or odious because it is true. Thus 
 the mind is brought by the soft under-tone the 
 latent animus of a pernicious work, into a certain 
 predisposedness to admit error ; and the error adopted, 
 and at last professed, is but the outward manifestation 
 of the matured disease rthe noxious influence de- 
 veloping itself in living shape and activity the plague 
 spot broken out upon the forehead. 
 
 It is not sufficient then, it will be perceived, to 
 reject a book as dangerous, and to prohibit the read- 
 ing of it in the family, simply on the ground that it 
 contains statements of doctrine which are clearly and 
 palpably false ; or to admit it as safe merely because 
 no one can lay his finger upon specific passages in 
 which false doctrines are in so many words pro- 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 pounded. There may be danger indeed in a 
 containing known false doctrines, if those doctrines be 
 very attractively portrayed, or if there be something 
 highly fascinating in the style of the writer. But, as 
 a general rule, the palpability of the error will suffice 
 to be a safeguard against its reception, while the 
 plausibility of it would win it easy admittance. By 
 shocking it would excite to resist ; by fascinating it 
 might steal affection. What we should study then 
 to ascertain, if we would be preserved from being 
 wrongly affected, is the spirit, the latent tendency, the 
 determining influence of the work ; what it savours of ; 
 what sort of sentiment it breathes ; whether that which 
 has most properly, though unwittingly, been termed 
 religiosity ; or whether it be really that of religion ; 
 which it will most predispose the mind to, luscious 
 error, or pure, passionless truth. " Dry light," phi- 
 losophers have told us, " is best." 
 
 If the principle which we have here asserted be 
 correct (and we see not how it can be controverted) 
 that error is propagated by infection rather than by 
 contagion, it at once explains the mysterious influence 
 which architecture, and painting, and all the varied 
 forms of a material symbolism, exercise over the minds 
 of those who are disposed to take delight in them, and 
 to use them for the purpose of inflaming devotion. 
 It is riot (as we have elsewhere shown) that these 
 things act efficiently on the hearts of any to give birth 
 to religious feelings, but they are loved arid doated 
 on as being the outward expressions, the embodi- 
 
40 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 merits of their morbidly-disposed inward affections. 
 Being sensible objects, they just meet all the sensuous 
 appetencies of the unspiritual mind. They must ob- 
 viously have existed in the mind as imaginations before 
 they could take shape in material form. The evil senti- 
 ment is, in this case, in the individual, and not in the 
 object dwelt adoringly upon : the object only draws 
 it out. Viewed simply as works of art, statues and 
 pictures are perfectly harmless ; but when allowed as 
 aids to devotion, they become infected, through the 
 mind's own morbid action, with the false sentiment by 
 which it is possessed ; just as the walls and wood -work 
 of a house, by a natural process, imbibe the noxious 
 property of an infectious disease from a human patient. 
 We are wont to speak of the most perfect pieces of 
 sculpture as " breathing ; " of the figures traced by a 
 master hand upon the canvass, as " living ;" of material 
 symbols as "teaching;" and indeed they do breathe, 
 and live, and teach ; but they breathe, when looked to 
 for a religious influence, only to blight ; and they live 
 only to kill; and they teach only to deceive. They 
 may inflame passion they never can give birth to 
 pure spiritual devotion. 
 
 This leads us to observe what is another of the 
 subtle and insidious methods by which false senti- 
 ments get dominion over human agents. 
 
 VI. Error steals possession of the heart as a passion. 
 The proof of this point it will be no very difficult 
 matter to establish. It is the necessary, and con- 
 stantly experienced effect, of allowing any one idea or 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 41 
 
 principle to have exclusive possession of the mind, 
 to occupy its thoughts incessantly, and to be dwelt 
 upon with prurient delight, that at length we come to 
 regard it with passionate fondness. But passion, it 
 is admitted on all hands, invariably blinds. Drawing 
 all the feelings and affections towards one object, 
 centralising the views wholly upon that, every thing 
 else is made to appear in its colours. Where this 
 result has been wrought, it is vain to reason with the 
 individual. Who ever knew a lover reasoned out of 
 his love for another, where that love had taken 
 the form of a passion ? However odious, and dis- 
 agreeable, and full of defects the person might be in 
 your sight, she is altogether lovely in his : not a defect, 
 not a blemish is seen. Just so it is with the indi- 
 vidual who has given himself up to some dominant 
 religious error (and it is to be remembered that an 
 exclusive regard to some one truth of the Christian 
 system is virtually an error) : his eye is not single or 
 pure, and he can see nothing clearly. Or to express it 
 in plainer terms, his passion for one truth so bedims 
 and darkens all others, that practically they are made 
 not to exist: the balance of opposite and counter- 
 vailing principles is destroyed. 
 
 It follows then from this, that it is not necessary 
 we should disbelieve or directly deny any one of the 
 grand verities of the Christian faith to err in regard to 
 that faith. We may admit them all as doctrines of the 
 creed, while yet, by assigning the chief seat in our 
 system of theology to some one favourite notion, we 
 
42 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 may dethrone the majesty of truth as a central authority, 
 destroy the unity of her empire, and introduce con- 
 fusion into her kingdom. In this way, a man who 
 professes allegiance by the lip, may be a traitor to 
 truth in his heart ; or, to say the least, by yielding 
 his mind up to this one -sided influence, he may be 
 fatally misled. 
 
 In all cases it is dangerous to grant too exclusive 
 a dominancy to any one idea ; it takes away from truth 
 its entirety, upon which its wholesome operation 
 depends, and is sure almost invariably to issue in 
 some practical error. Even where the idea is in 
 itself dogmatically correct, it will, if too much dwelt 
 upon by the mind, lead aside from the right path ; 
 but where the idea itself is essentially false, as is often 
 the case, it must land him who follows it far away 
 from the terra firma of truth, on a quick-sand, which 
 will ultimately sink under him and swallow him 
 up. If, for example, a person by any means 
 becomes persuaded of the absolute necessity of 
 a visible unity in the Church, or of some final 
 human authority to determine the sense of Scripture, 
 or of certain orders and modes of administration 
 being essential to the efficacy of the Sacraments; 
 or, on the other hand, to be impartial, and to give 
 both sides of the case: if he lets the paramount 
 importance of a belief in the doctrine of personal 
 election, or of final perseverance, or of the personal 
 reign of Christ on earth enter his mind, and occupy 
 till it get full possession of it, he is sold into a tyran- 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 43 
 
 nising mental captivity, and in all likelihood will live 
 and die the bond slave of a ridiculous weakness, 
 or of some imperious absurdity. This exclusive in- 
 fluence, yielded to one favourite dogma; this theologic 
 monomania, as it may be termed, when stripped of 
 its disguise of zeal for the truth, will be found 
 to be nothing less than a subtle form of idolatry. 
 For idolatry may be defined to be the religion of 
 passion, as distinguished from the religion of pure- 
 principle or love. It was the confession of one of 
 the late apostates from our reformed Church, when 
 seeking to excuse the ardent devotions which they 
 pay to them, and which seem to us to be a palpable 
 idolising of the creatures ; " the fact is, they," (the 
 Roman Catholics) " feel passionately towards the 
 virgin and the saints." If our definition of idolatry 
 be correct, he could not have pronounced upon 
 their whole system a more thoroughly damnatory 
 encomium. 
 
 It is a fact worthy of special notice in the phi- 
 losophy of religion, that a false faith is invariably 
 attended with a want of truthfulness in the words and 
 actions of the life. Those who believe a lie are 
 never found to be slow to tell a lie. Hence lying has 
 become the common characteristic, in all countries, of 
 the professors of the idolatrous Romish system of 
 doctrine. This is a moral phenomenon which it may 
 puzzle the unobservant to accqunt for ; and yet it may 
 be accounted for, we think, upon the very principle 
 which we have noticed, that the Romish religion is 
 
44 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 the religion of passion* For, to take a parallel in- 
 stance : persons under the wild, resistless control of 
 the " tender passion," commonly called love, are hardly 
 ever found to hesitate to avail themselves of falsehood 
 when needed for the attainment of their object ; so 
 blinded, indeed, are they usually by their inflamed 
 feelings, that they seem to have, for the time, no 
 consciousness of the guilt of this sin, but resort to all 
 kinds of feints, and artifices, and " thy-servant-went- 
 no-whither " speeches, without the slightest com- 
 punction, fear, or self-reproach. So universally is this 
 the produced effect of this state of the affections, that 
 we might, perhaps, with perfect truth assert, that the 
 most frequent form of the lover's leap is a lie. 
 
 The heart has, in all cases, far more to do with 
 the production of a false belief and its consequents, 
 than the head. And, just because it springs from the 
 heart, it is seldom that those who are the subjects of 
 it are sensible, or can be made sensible, of its existence. 
 That subtle form of error, however, which we have 
 designated as the religion of passion, whatever be the 
 direction it takes, is of comparatively easy detection 
 by others. Its own temper will betray it. Its mode 
 of acting will develope its true character. The 
 abstract will here be best exhibited in the concrete. 
 
 * To the same source is probably to be traced the spirit of perse- 
 cution ; for as the lover, whose love partakes of the nature of passion, 
 will ruthlessly let forth feeling's of bitter and vindictive cruelty 
 against any one who touches the object of his or her jealousy, so it is 
 with the worshipper of idol:*, whether that idol be the image adored 
 of some saint, or the shibboleth opinion of the sect. 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 45 
 
 The victims, who commonly become the most active 
 propagators of error, are of two very opposite tempers, 
 according to the extremes they adopt, and will be dis- 
 tinguishable, generally speaking, either as being very 
 self-opiniated and positive, or wonderfully gentle and 
 unresisting : or, to use a figure, they are remarkable, 
 either for rugged obstinacy, or soft obstinacy the hard- 
 ness of the jutting craggy rock, or, what is equally 
 incapable of receiving any abiding impression, the 
 smoothness of the yielding downy pillow. 
 
 To describe them by their individual charac- 
 teristics : in the first of these, there will usually 
 be found much perverseness and love of paradox, 
 a disposedness ever to differ and dispute. Their 
 minds are of that order which are fertile in supply- 
 ing objections. Truths which shall be as plain and as 
 evident to others as the sun in the firmament ; which 
 have received the assent of the wise and good of all ages; 
 which have become enshrined as indubitable veri- 
 ties in our creeds, will be questioned or denied by them 
 with the most dogmatic positiveness; while opinions 
 which are at the most but probable, perhaps even 
 obscure and doubtful, will be sturdily contended for as 
 absolutely essential to the faith, and enforced upon all 
 with the thunders of a noisy declamation, and the light- 
 nings of fierce invective, as if to doubt them was to 
 peril damnation. The mental vision of these men being 
 warped by constant gazing on one side, they have lost 
 the power of perceiving the coincidence of all divine 
 truths, and can see only their apparent divergence. 
 
46 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 Hence, they are always at issue with, truth, and truth 
 with them. And their charity is as much at default 
 as their creed : for religion with them, as it has been 
 well said,* "is never seen as a sphere, but as a 
 line, and it is the identical line in which they are 
 moving." Content with nothing that is received by 
 others, just because they fancy themselves more en- 
 lightened than others, they will have a peculiar opinion 
 of their own upon every subject, and their self-confi- 
 dence in asserting it will usually be exceeded only by its 
 absurdity. To admit a doubt, indeed, of the correct- 
 ness of their own views, would be to acknowledge the 
 possibility that their penetration was no greater than 
 that of other men, and to forfeit their whole claim to 
 dogmatise. Whenever a question is raised, or any 
 inquiry made upon any abstruse point of theology, 
 their answer is always ready, " It is thus I think. 
 This is the very truth of God. You must receive this 
 doctrine just in the way I state it, without the slightest 
 doubt or modification, or you will infallibly be damned." 
 Thus, they thrust every dogma of their own down your 
 throat without giving you time to taste it, and then 
 instantly place a padlock upon your lips. Blinded 
 in judgment by their own conceit, and unre- 
 strained by reason, they are easily angered if their 
 favourite notion be ever so gently assailed, and will 
 spend the main part of their clumsy zeal in the fury 
 of unholy passion against the assailant, who may, 
 after all, be rather imaginary than real. "Touch 
 
 * John Foster. 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF EEROR. 47 
 
 my pet doctrine, though it be but with your little 
 finger, and you shall be repaid by a heavy blow.'* 
 
 The other class of heresiarchs are distinguished, 
 as we have said, by just the reverse of this spirit, at 
 least in appearance. With downcast look and timid 
 utterance, they seem only to falter out any opinion of 
 their own, or to hesitate disagreement with that of 
 another. Whatever has always been received they 
 gently urge ought never to be questioned. When 
 they would press any principle, which to you may be 
 new, they press it with so unpresuming a modesty of 
 tone that you can hardly resist them; and if they 
 differ from you on any point, they will assure you, 
 with a bland smile of the most winning attractiveness, 
 that they do it with extreme pain and regret 
 " nevertheless the truth must be asserted." Supple 
 and smooth in speech, they softly insinuate their 
 objections to weaken your confidence in your own 
 received notions, while, by their plausibility and 
 apparent depth of piety, they win the attention of the 
 weak, weave the spider's web of some sophistical 
 subtlety in the way of argument, and having thus 
 first entangled, they then entrap. If confronted by 
 honest frankness, and charged with attempting to 
 mislead, they meet you with a yielding resistance of 
 affected meekness, only to vary their point of attack. 
 Untiring in their zeal, they watch every opportunity 
 of assailing the faith of all who take not exactly the 
 same views as themselves ; and, like the Pharisees of 
 old, will compass sea and land to make one proselyte. 
 
48 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 Controversy they professedly eschew, relying rather 
 upon pensive poetic sentiment, an affected austerity 
 and deadness to the world, an air of high-wrought 
 mental devotion, and an insinuating gentleness of 
 manner, to win their dominion over men's minds. 
 But gentle as they appear, and averse to contention, 
 they will never hesitate to crush where they dare not 
 encounter. Their method is not to withstand an 
 enemy openly, but to destroy him by a sly thrust. In 
 a word, as the former class are distinguished by 
 a temper of a keen, rough edge, so are these by an 
 oiled razor- like smoothness. 
 
 The spirit of truth, which is ever the guardian 
 angel and attendant upon the truth, is the reverse 
 of both these tempers. It is a calm, humble, 
 inquiring spirit, never hastily and blindly yielding 
 itself up to any new notion, nor giving exclusive 
 dominancy to any one idea, but it patiently looks at 
 the whole case, and weighs evidence with all the cool- 
 ness of a judge, while it pleads for what it believes to 
 be right with all the earnestness of an advocate. 
 Men of this spirit are ever open to conviction. 
 Frank, and free from all disguise in avowing the 
 doctrines they hold, they will listen with calmness and 
 candour to whatever may be advanced in support of 
 an opposite system. Should they have the best of the 
 argument they will indulge in no unseemly triumph, 
 nor, if worsted through their own want of knowledge, 
 or of skilfulness, will they grow angry. Cool in their 
 iudgments, they will exhibit nothing like passion in 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 4j) 
 
 regard to their principles. Nor, on the other 
 hand, will they practice anything that bears the 
 character of a dishonest reserve. Having no sin- 
 ister objects to accomplish, they will be straight- 
 forward, without being overbearing, in urging 
 their tenets upon others. Their earnestness to 
 discover what is the right and the true, and to 
 propagate what is right and true, will be manifested, 
 not by yielding themselves up to some one dominant 
 idea, and making that lord paramount, but by set- 
 ting, on all occasions, one thing over against another, 
 and striking the balance ; or, as a divine writer has 
 expressed it, measuring out every truth " according 
 to the proportion of faith." 
 
 Men of this habit of mind will take the word of 
 God, and not their own fancies and prepossessions, as 
 their guide, their sole and decisive authority, inter- 
 preted according to its plain common-sense meaning, 
 and not squared to adapt it to any human theory. 
 Humbly conscious of their own ignorance and liability 
 to err, if they lean to their own understandings, and 
 knowing that all human beings must be equally falli- 
 ble, they will look up prayerfully and patiently to the 
 Most High for the teaching of his Spirit, waiting- 
 till he makes things plain and consistently clear, 
 before they yield to any conclusion, but in all matters 
 of duty prompt, the instant the hand of the Master 
 moves, to obey. 
 
 It may be a good test, then, for a person to try 
 himself by, who would avoid the danger of error, to 
 inquire how he stands affected towards the Bible. 
 Js he disposed to receive it, not as the word of men, 
 but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectu- 
 
 E 
 
50 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 ally worketh in them that believe? Can he sit and 
 listen to its instructions with all simplicity, though 
 with none of the simpleness, of a little child without 
 disputing what is plain, without questioning what is 
 incomprehensible, without contradicting what is com- 
 manded, and, above all, without mystifying what is 
 simple? If, like the Socinian, he would explain it 
 away ; or, like the Rationalist, refine upon it ; or, 
 like the Papist, pervert it ; or, like the Mormonite, 
 and other such sects, would take some parts of it and 
 set all the rest aside, then is he on the high road 
 to doubt, to self-losing, and to death. 
 
 The effect of simply following the light is growing 
 light ; but he whose eye is not single will invariably 
 advance deeper and deeper into darkness. For, 
 
 VII. An imperceptibly increasing dimness is ano- 
 ther attribute of error. Truth, in itself, is perfect 
 celestial brightness. Unlike the virtues which 
 derive from it their being, it admits not of degrees. 
 But, to our perceptions, truth undoubtedly has its 
 twilight as well as error. It is, however, with this 
 difference the one is the twilight of the morning, 
 which waxes brighter and brighter unto the perfect 
 day; the other is the evening twilight, which thickens 
 more and more into darkness, till all things are lost 
 sight of in the broad obscure. Yet error, like the 
 evening twilight, possesses a peculiar witchery: 
 its soft, flickering, dreamy light, so much like the 
 day, but with none of its dry brightness, is wonder- 
 fully soothing to sentimental minds, and beguiles 
 them as by enchantment (this is just the character of 
 some fascinating so-called religious books and ser- 
 mons of our time) : but truth, like the morning light, 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. .">! 
 
 is so pure and waveless, that it exercises none of that 
 witching influence which draws us on only to deceive, 
 and leaves us, at last, way-lost. 
 
 The reason why the books and sermons to which 
 we have alluded prove so attractive to many minds 
 is, that there is nothing definite in them ; their state- 
 ments are all vague ; they beat " about and about it," 
 but they never bring clearly arid distinctly out before 
 you any one point of soul -striking truth. Truth in 
 them, indeed, is only broken up into bits, and turned 
 and shuffled into a variety of beautiful and continually 
 changing forms, like the pieces of stained glass in a 
 kaleidoscope ; and thus it is that it cheats the eye of 
 the reader into the belief that he has been con- 
 versing with divine verities, just because he has 
 viewed things upon which there has been cast the 
 hue of a celestial colouring. This style of writing 
 pleases especially persons of an imaginative disposi- 
 tion, or of a superficial piety, inasmuch as it places 
 them in the regions of a highly rarefied atmosphere, 
 bordering on vacuity, and their transit through it be- 
 comes like a flight through the air in a dream, in 
 which they see strange supernatural sights, and hear 
 strange supernatural sounds. Moreover, the senti- 
 ment that breathes through these works is mystical 
 rather than real, and the current of thought looks 
 deep only because, being turbid, it is obscure. There 
 is a pensive solemnity in their tone that is not easily 
 distinguishable from real piety, and, enchanted by 
 this into a sort of dreamy forgetfulness of all realities, 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 the reader is unconsciously led on into the shades of 
 a darkness that is fast closing him in on all sides ; 
 nor will he discover that the light is waning from 
 before his eyes, unless he lifts them heavenward, and 
 observes that all things above and around him look 
 undefined in their outlines, confused and dim. In a 
 word : Error, like the light of the risen sun on the wak- 
 ing eye, breaks not, at once full upon you, but creeps, 
 like the twilight of the closing day, slowly over you. 
 
 It is, therefore, one test for determining whether 
 we are verging towards the dim obscure of error, in 
 any case, to observe whether there be a growing in- 
 distinctness in our views of doctrine ; whether sha- 
 dowy doubts and flitting forms of unreal shapes seem 
 to be gathering around us ; whether we begin to feel 
 uncertain whether what we have hitherto regarded as 
 undoubted truth be, after all, truth; and whether 
 certain principles which we have been wont to view 
 as false be, after all, false ; and thus, getting bewil- 
 dered in a maze of mental intricacies, we are tempted 
 to give ourselves blindly up to the guidance of some 
 assumed infallible authority, or to plunge reckless into 
 the dark void of infidelity. 
 
 The Church of Rome glories in (and this her 
 ambiguous modern friends regard as a commendable 
 feature in her system) her solemn mystery, and im- 
 posing ceremonial, and multiplied objects of devout 
 interest, as serving to keep up a ceaseless round of what 
 is imagined to be holy service. We grant her all of 
 this kind that she claims. It is when the sun is with- 
 
THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 53 
 
 drawn that the planets and all the minor constellations 
 appear : it is the distinctive feature of the day that 
 then the sun alone is seen to shine. The Romish 
 Church may present to the eye the enchanting scenery 
 of a firmament lighted up with the soft lustre of the 
 moon, and studded with many stars, in her enthroned 
 Virgin, and confessors, and milky-way of multiplied 
 minute saints ; but these are so visible only because 
 Christ, the Sun of righteousness, has been placed, by 
 that Church's own turning away from Him, under 
 the horizon. Truly may we say of the Church of 
 Rome that her light (for we deny not that she has 
 some light) resembles that of the stars, in that she 
 " rules by night." 
 
 It has been the favourite resource of some who 
 have involved themselves in the mystery and the mazes 
 of tbeologic perplexities to go, for a time, into what is 
 termed a state of " retreat." This we believe to be 
 the most dangerous course which individuals, in this 
 condition, could possibly adopt. Retirement occasion- 
 ally for a time, to give ourselves with the less dis- 
 traction to meditation and prayer, especially when 
 we are about to enter upon any arduous acts of duty, 
 may be advisable ; but it is not the best method for 
 clearing our perceptions of the relations of religious 
 truths. To flee from the world, also, in order to 
 battle successfully with temptation, is undoubtedly 
 the safest course ; but in all cases of speculative 
 mental difficulties our counsel would be, "Go into 
 the world ; mix with men ; listen to persons of unper- 
 
54 THE SUBTLETY OF ERROR. 
 
 verted common sense; occupy yourself in active 
 duties." There is nothing like the stern realities 
 of life for curing the morbidnesses of the mind. If 
 at any time you are placed in doubt whether a book 
 you have read, or a sermon you have heard, breathes 
 the spirit of true evangelic piety, read immediately after 
 it one of the epistles of St. Paul : mark the healthy 
 robustness and the manly simplicity of his sentiments. 
 If unavoidably you should get involved in the intri- 
 cacies of bewildered thought upon any theologic 
 question, be not hasty to form a conclusion, lest 
 you tempt God, but wait patiently for his Spirit to 
 give you light, and you shall never be greatly misled. 
 Truth, rest assured, carries with it a growing distinct- 
 ness ; and though for a time, like the blind man whose 
 eyes Christ opened, men may appear to you but as 
 trees walking, yet if you keep your gaze intently on 
 it, and suffer not yourself to be diverted by earth-born 
 shadows, all things will at length stand out distinct 
 and clearly defined ; and you shall be in no danger 
 any longer of mistaking the ideal for the real. 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 55 
 
 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 OF all the vague, mystical, indeterminate ideas 
 enveloped in any one term of theology, there is none 
 more so to most minds than that attempted to be em- 
 bodied in the term, the Church. As this term is used by 
 a large class of writers, it is impossible to attach to 
 the thing denoted by it any form, outline, or substan- 
 tive existence, so as have any definite conception of 
 what the thing is, and where it is to be found. Even 
 " imagination," which the poet says, " bodies forth the 
 form of things unknown, and gives to airy nothing a 
 local habitation and a name," is here baffled ; for local 
 habitation, or a place among the recognisable realities 
 of the actual world, the Church, according to their 
 description of it, has none. 
 
 As a proof of what we have asserted, let us take 
 the following account of the nature and office of the 
 Church. After stating that the Church has a 
 " real individual nature," the writer whom we quote 
 proceeds : " We mean by a Being, that which has a 
 separate nature and peculiar identity, a life, con- 
 sciousness, and energy of its own; something which is 
 not merely the creation of our imagination formed by 
 abstraction out of various elements, as ready to 
 
56 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 resolve themselves into any other shape, but which 
 exists irrespective of our conceptions, and by its works 
 and doings asserts its place in the actual world. Since 
 the Church, therefore, is declared in Scripture to 
 have an individual being, and personal existence, to 
 be Christ's body, his mystic bride ; since it is de- 
 clared to be created for the setting forth of God's 
 glory so that its very life must be in prayer and praise, 
 therefore those who compose it are not a mere con- 
 geries of unconnected essences, brought by accidental 
 juxtaposition within a common precinct, but by a 
 divine order and mystical harmony, are in truth built 
 up into a living body, and connatural whole." 
 
 Now to those who take obscurity for deptli,and the 
 unknowable for the magnificent, this may look like 
 very fine writing ; for, without question, this passage 
 possesses all that misty vagueness of grandeur which 
 is said to be a characteristic of the sublime ; but some- 
 how, spite of ourselves, it forces upon our minds the re- 
 collection that the sublime borders close upon the ridi- 
 culous. That this is not the language of mere sarcasm 
 on our part, but in very deed the sober severity of 
 truth, will be manifest if we only analyse this conglo- 
 merate of absurdities, and weigh the import of the 
 several grandiloquent expressions which are here used 
 to describe the Church. But, to complete the pic- 
 ture, and to give all the parts in their several harmo- 
 nious relations to each other with all fairness, we must 
 bring into view those other statements of the writer 
 which stand in immediate juxtaposition with this 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 57 
 
 transparent, egregious attempt to imitate, or rather to 
 transcend the depth and the majestic dignity, of old 
 Hooker. 
 
 "As the public voice of this collective being," 
 the author continues, " does the minister by God's 
 ordinance stand forth, and presents the commingling 
 adoration of many hearts blended together into the 
 awful solemnity of one Christian sacrifice." And, 
 immediately preceding the before- quoted passage, we 
 find this statement: "The conduct appropriate to 
 public worship must be regulated by its nature. Its 
 principle is that each member of the Church should 
 have somewhat to offer, yet that the collective prayers 
 of all should be presented as one single tribute 
 by the minister of God. For this is what preserves 
 to the Church the real attribute of an individual 
 nature, while it maintains the sacred doctrine of the 
 inward life of each man's spirit." 
 
 Now it will be observed that, in the first of the 
 three passages we have here quoted, the Church is 
 spoken of iu its collective or catholic capacity ; and 
 yet in the second, which follows in immediate con- 
 nection with it, the presenting of the " collective 
 prayers" of this " collective being" is represented as 
 the act of one single " minister of God." This is the 
 first inconsistency. The second is this : the writer 
 states that " this is what preserves to the Church the 
 real attribute of an individual nature" (he does not 
 make, let it be noticed, the " one Spirit," which per- 
 vades all the members of the body, to be, as the 
 
58 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Scripture represents it, that which gives it its cor- 
 porate oneness); while this attribute is scattered to the 
 winds by the fact that the prayers of this " collective 
 being" are offered by many ministers, in many forms, 
 and not by any single one unless, indeed, by the 
 " public voice of this collective being" our author 
 means a certain central authority of the West, ac- 
 cording to the theory of Romanists, by which it is 
 held that the people confess to the priests, the priests 
 to the bishops, and the bishops to the Pope, and the 
 Pope for the whole to God ; and that thus it is that 
 "the real attribute of an individual nature" is preserved 
 to the Church. 
 
 But again : while, in the first of the foregoing- 
 quotations, the Church is far enough, in terms at 
 least, from being made an abstraction, yet an ab- 
 straction it is, of the most impalpable kind; for 
 where, in the whole universe, is any such actual 
 " Being' as that there described, to be found in 
 realised existence ? existing, that is, as a red per- 
 son? The Scriptures, indeed, by a figu^ of speech, 
 speak sometimes of the Church as a person ; but it 
 is evidently not as in a figure, but as in truth a per- 
 son, this author invites us to contemplate the Church ; 
 for, according to him, it possesses a real " individual 
 nature :" it is emphatically a " Being" that which 
 has a " separate nature and peculiar identity" and 
 not a body " formed out of various elements," capable 
 of " resolving themselves into any other shape." In 
 other words, it is not a mere congregation or society of 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 59 
 
 veritable men and women, united by one common pur- 
 pose, and one common spirit, and so forming one body 
 to " our intellectual conceit," as Hooker expresses 
 it ; for it has " a life, consciousness, and energy of 
 its own," distinct, as is expressly stated, from the in- 
 ward life of each individual Christian, or of the indi- 
 vidual members which make up the whole. And yet, 
 while it is of such a thoroughly mystical and trans- 
 cendental nature, that it exists " irrespective of our 
 conceptions," " by its works and doings/' we are told, 
 " it asserts its place in the actual world." Here we 
 are more bewildered than ever. Where, in the name 
 of common sense, we ask, does this wonderful Being 
 dwell which has a "personal existence," and yet 
 " exists irrespective of our conceptions; " which has " a 
 peculiar identity and life of its own," and " by its 
 works and doing sasserts its place in the actual world ; " 
 which is, in a word, not a society or body politic, but a 
 " Being" When we read this description, we seem 
 to see rising up before us a huge form of substantive 
 existence, a new and unknown living creature of vast 
 dimensions, endued with extraordinary powers and 
 properties; but, lo, when we put out our hand, 
 and attempt to touch it, it turns out to be a huge 
 impalpability. "Works and doings," we thought, 
 were visible things ; and by means of these at least 
 we hoped to realise it to our apprehensions; but it is 
 made to flit through our fingers like thin air, by our 
 being informed that it has a " separate nature" from 
 anything that we see, feel, know, or can take cog- 
 nisance of, even in our mental conceptions. 
 
60 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Had it been the "mystical body of Christ" of 
 which the writer was here intelligently speaking, we 
 could have realised this to our minds, by its being, 
 what our Church describes it, intelligibly enough, 
 " the blessed company of all faithful people." But it 
 is evidently not anything so gross in the conception as 
 a company of faithful people our author had in his 
 fancy, but a something quite transcendental, existing 
 independently of human elements, by the possession of 
 a life in itself, a sort of second deity. It is true, he 
 begins by speaking of the visible Church (if indeed he 
 knew what he was speaking about at all) ; for he 
 speaks of it by its outward and visible acts of worship ; 
 but he ends by making this visible body altogether 
 invisible, and the invisible to have a totally distinct 
 life and nature from that which palpitates in the heart 
 of the visible. Now did ever reader see " confusion 
 worse confounded ?" Had it been of the visible Church 
 alone, or had it been of the invisible alone, he had spoken 
 consistently throughout, we might have understood 
 him ; but they are so jumbled together in the descrip- 
 tion, and such a misty vagueness is thrown over the 
 whole, that we can catch no definite idea of either, but 
 stand bemazed before some vast shadowy new kind of 
 being, different from both. Even while he allows it to 
 glimmer out here and there, through the thick medium, 
 that this Church is composed of men, real human beings 
 of a certain character, yet when he comes to speak of 
 them collectively, as forming one body, they are no 
 longer so many persons brought together with one 
 accord, within a common precinct, for one common pur- 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 61 
 
 pose; but, by some strange new mode of transubstantia- 
 tion, they are transformed " in truth" (noi in figure, be it 
 observed) into a "living body and connatural whole." 
 Scripture is referred to as furnishing this ideal of 
 of the Church, because such terms are applied to it 
 as " the body" of Christ and his "bride ;" but com- 
 mon sense would tell any man, that these terms are 
 used there figuratively, and in the way of analogy, not 
 literally, or to describe any actual transcendental 
 reality. Yet because various figures derived from 
 persons and their relations, are adopted in Scripture 
 to image forth the collective Church as a whole, this 
 learned divine at once draws the notable conclusion, 
 that the Church has a real " individual nature and 
 personal existence"* There is obviously the same 
 error in interpretation latent here, in regard to the 
 body of the Church, as that out of which has arisen 
 the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, an ab- 
 surd doctrine evolved out of a figure. With as much 
 sense might we argue, that the Church is " in truth " 
 a " temple" composed of real stones, because it is in 
 some places spoken of collectively as a "temple" 
 (though that it should be at once a " temple," and yet 
 a " body," with a "personal existence " and " life of its 
 
 * This falls only one step short of the absurdity of the Sweden- 
 borgians, who hold (grounding their opinion on the description in 
 the Apocalypse of the " bride, the Lamb's wife," coming down out 
 of heaven to be publicly betrothed) that there is to be a female Mes- 
 siah, who is hereafter to be actually married to Christ; arguing 
 analogically, that as Adam was not perfect without Eve, so Christ or 
 the Church will not be perfect till this is accomplished. 
 
62 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 own," would be rather hard to reconcile) ; or that it is 
 " in truth" and literally, a ivoman, because it is de- 
 clared to be the Lamb's wife ! If the Church be 
 indeed a " Being" it is certainly not such a Being, 
 taking our author's description of it, as " our minds by 
 intellectual conceit are able to apprehend" (HOOKER) ; 
 for who can apprehend it as a Being having a 
 "separate individual nature," and a "life, conscious- 
 ness, and energy of its own," distinct from that which 
 pervades the individual members of which it is com- 
 posed, and which it derives from its Divine Head ? 
 
 The simple truth, however, perhaps is, that nothing 
 more was intended by all this amphibologous phraseo- 
 logy, and high-sounding grandiloquence, than to de- 
 scribe the collective universal Church as spiritually form- 
 ing one corporate body ; but even supposing this, surely 
 the gentlest thing that can be said of such a style of 
 writing is, that it " darkeneth counsel by words without 
 knowledge." At all events, it sets aside the rule which 
 Hooker lays down, that " when we read of any duty " 
 (and " prayer and praise " are duties) " which the 
 Church of God is bound unto, the Church whom this 
 doth concern is a sensible known company" Whether 
 we would have definite ideas of the visible Church, or 
 of the mystical body of Christ, how much more simple 
 and intelligible are the definitions given in our own au- 
 thorised formularies ; to wit, that the first, the "visible 
 Church," " is a congregation of faithful men, in which 
 the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments 
 be duly administered according to Christ's ordinance 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 63 
 
 in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the 
 same : " and of the second, or mystical body of Christ, 
 that it is " the blessed company of all faithful people." 
 
 However we may excuse the use, we cannot deny 
 the practical mischief, of such descriptions of the 
 Church as those we have been considering; for in 
 perfect accordance with the absurd jargon which 
 speaks of the Church as an actual living being, having 
 a " personal existence" a " life, consciousness, and 
 energy of its own," our inner sense is continually in- 
 sulted by other writers of the same school with such 
 sickly sentimentalities as " the tender sympathies of 
 the Church," the "motherly solicitudes of the Church," 
 " the gentle smiles of the Church," and " the life- 
 giving influences of the Church ; " by means of which 
 expressions men are led to look to the Church rather 
 than to Christ to be their Saviour. What less 
 than dethroning Christ from his office , or than blas- 
 phemous presumption is it, to speak of any individual 
 human minister as " the public voice of this collective 
 being ;" or as " presenting the commingling adoration 
 of many hearts blended together into the awful solem- 
 nity of one Christian sacrifice ? " 
 
 This mode of speaking may exalt the clergy, as 
 indeed it does exalt them, far above the platform of 
 the New Testament : it obviously constitutes them a 
 priesthood, in the proper sense of the word ; and by 
 ascribing to them the office which belongs to Christ 
 alone, robs him of his peculiar dignity ; for he alone 
 can offer, or officiate as Priest, for the universal 
 
64 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Church. Its tendency, then, is essentially anti-Chris- 
 tian. As it has been too truly remarked by our pre- 
 sent primate, this system " makes the Church first an 
 abstraction, then a person, and lastly a Saviour." 
 
 Such is the inevitable result of all such exagge- 
 rated and distorted notions of the Church of its 
 real individuality its inherent life its self-possessed 
 grace its mediatory office Its separate nature and 
 powers, distinct from those to be found generally in its 
 associated members spoken of in Scripture as a body 
 corporate, because analogous to an earthly kingdom, 
 under one Head, and governed by one common prin- 
 ciple or law differing from it only in that where the 
 one carries on its executive by physical means, the 
 other uses only such means as are spiritual or moral. 
 While thus analagous to an earthly kingdom, there is, 
 however, this important difference between that and 
 the Church, namely that its Head is divine, and has im- 
 mediate access to the hearts of His subjects, and that 
 He can directly influence them in their inner nature. 
 Hence the metaphorical language of Scripture in re- 
 gard to the Church, though figurative, is not a mere 
 figure, but represents a thing that really exists, though 
 not the real mode of its existence. 
 
 If we examine more fully into that ideal of the 
 Church which possesses many minds, we shall find it 
 described as invested with such powers as the follow- 
 ing : that the authority imparted to the apostles 
 by Christ, for the founding of the Church, has been 
 transmitted full and entire, for its continuance, to their 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 65 
 
 successors, who are assumed to be the bishops and 
 priests ordained by them of the present day that 
 they are " the ministers and distributors of His grace, 
 of His Spirit, and of His sacrifice at the font and at 
 the altar, binding and loosing, opening and shutting 
 with the keys of the kingdom of heaven " that " the 
 traditions of grace and the traditions of truth are both 
 perpetual in this Church by virtue of Christ's pre- 
 sence" that " infallibility is secured to the Church by 
 spiritual illumination in the subject which perceives 
 the truth, that is, the Church itself" that the Church 
 is to be implicitly submitted to in its commands, as 
 being the living voice of God that faith in the Church 
 is essential to salvation that "to its ministers is 
 entrusted the power of communicating to man the 
 Divine nature itself, of bringing down the Deity from 
 heaven, and infusing His spirit into the souls of mise- 
 rable mortals" that the possession of this it is that 
 constitutes the Church a "real living body," having life 
 in itself that thus the " sacraments are the means of 
 binding us to the mystical body of Christ," and that it 
 is " their real life which separates them from all other 
 means of grace ;" " for the Church being really Christ's 
 body, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all, its spi- 
 ritual or invisible action is inseparable from the right 
 use of its visible ordinances " that "its ministers are 
 real priests, in the Levitical sense of the term," " as 
 truly Priests as those of the first temple," in that 
 they offer up " a true and real sacrifice in the Holy 
 Eucharist" that to them confession of sins is to be 
 
 F 
 
66 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 made, because " they have the same full and divine 
 power " of forgiving sins as Christ himself exercised 
 that " the Church is the instrument by which the 
 pardon of God is conveyed to the world ; " and that 
 " Christ has appointed the Church as the only way to 
 eternal life." 
 
 Such is a general enumeration of the principles 
 which enter as essential elements into what some desig- 
 nate, emphatically, the Church. 
 
 Now if there be (and if this can be ascertained 
 beyond reasonable doubt) on the earth any body 
 divinely invested with such awful powers as these, for 
 God's sake, we say, let it be submitted to without all 
 question. If there be but that is the very question. 
 And this is a question which we must not, and dare 
 not decide but upon very strong and decisive evidence 
 a question involving such tremendous consequences 
 that it should not be set aside without the most serious 
 inquiry, nor settled without the most jealous care ; 
 for, as it has been justly admitted, " if these powers 
 are not conferred by God, they are blasphemously 
 assumed by man." Into this question, then, let us 
 endeavour, with all seriousness, to enter. 
 
 Now it is to the Holy Scriptures we must of 
 course resort, in the first instance, for proof that these 
 assumptions on the part of any body or set of men, 
 calling themselves, by virtue of these powers, the 
 Church, are well grounded. Even they themselves 
 will admit that Tradition, except as it " can be proved 
 from Scripture by direct statements," or finds support 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 67 
 
 there for so complete a system in, at least, unambigu- 
 ous hints, traced outlines, and manifest allusions, is not 
 sufficient to settle so broad a question. If, therefore, 
 the evidence from Scripture wholly fails, much more 
 if it looks the other way, it will be unnecessary to 
 enter into the inquiry " What is the testimony of 
 Tradition? " And further, since, by their own assertions, 
 belief in the Church is essential to salvation, because 
 in the Church is lodged the keeping and dispensing of 
 the elements of life, we are bound to see to it as indi- 
 viduals that this saving and life-giving power of the 
 Church is very plainly revealed in the divine word : 
 we are not indeed to expect it to be so plainly re- 
 vealed as to force consent (for that is not God's 
 common method of dealing with moral intelligences), 
 but yet so plainly that no honest mind can possibly 
 fail to discover it, if it is to be found there. 
 
 Our investigations, then, are to be directed to 
 this point, to ascertain what are the Scripture re- 
 vealments as regards the nature, authority, office, 
 and powers of the Church. 
 
 But first we must determine what is the Scripture 
 meaning of the word Church ; for if we proceed to 
 argue without first determining this, we shall be setting 
 sail from the midst of the ocean, without knowing 
 either the latitude or the longitude, instead of from 
 some fixed point of reckoning. Now the word 
 Church, as adopted by Christ and his Apostles, occurs 
 one hundred and twelve times in the New Testa- 
 ment, and invariably is it used by them in one and 
 
68 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the same sense, namely, to denote a congregation 
 or society of real or professed believers in Christ. 
 Generally it is used to signify the entire multitude 
 of professed believers living on the earth at one par- 
 ticular time more often, those living in a certain 
 region, city, or house occasionally it denotes the 
 great multitude of the saved, including the faithful 
 in all countries and in all ages, from the beginning to 
 the end of time. Never once is it applied exclusively or 
 distinctively to the clergy. Here, then, one main prop 
 of what is termed "the Church system" is gone at 
 once. 
 
 The only two instances in which the sense in 
 which the word is used is at all doubtful, are those 
 which occur in Matt. xvi. 18, andxviii. 17. But even 
 here the direction, "Tell it to the Church" means 
 obviously enough, tell it to the particular congregation 
 of which the person is a member ; and the statement, 
 " upon this rock I will build my Church," must 
 mean, upon this rock, so far as the term "my Church" 
 is concerned, I will build the faith of my true people, 
 the great multitude who shall be led to acknowledge, 
 as thou hast, that " I am the Christ, the Son of the 
 living God." The Greek word K\jj<na, which is the 
 original for what is translated " Church," was, we may 
 remark en passant, in common use in the apostles' 
 times to denote an assembly. Hence the term 
 the "Church" came to be used collectively to distin- 
 guish Christians, or those who profess Christian 
 principles, from all who are not Christians by pro- 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 69 
 
 fession; just as the abstract term "the democracy" is 
 used generally to denote all who profess democratical 
 principles, as distinguished from those who approve of 
 monarchy or an oligarchy. The only other places in 
 the New Testament, besides those mentioned, which 
 would seem to be exceptions to this application of the 
 word, are Acts xi. 26, and 1 Cor. xi. 18, 22, where 
 it has been thought that it is applied, in its modern 
 sense, to the place of assembly, the building or mate- 
 rial fabric in which Christians worshipped. But here 
 also it may very naturally, and with equal propriety, 
 be understood in the former sense ; just as when we 
 familiarly apply the term " the House," or the expres- 
 sion, " I* will bring the matter before the House," 
 not to the building in which they meet (for they may 
 have met elsewhere), but to the collective assembly 
 of the people's representatives in Parliament. But to 
 assign to it a different meaning here from what it bears 
 in all other places of Scripture, would be, as it has 
 been well said, not only an arbitrary assumption, but 
 a " philological solecism." 
 
 Let it be clearly understood, then, that the word 
 " Church " stands for a single congregation, or for an 
 aggregate assemblage of congregations of Christians. 
 
 But even taking the word in this general sense, it 
 may be thought by some that the before enumerated ex- 
 traordinary powers appertain to the Church as a whole, 
 and to its ministers in particular as its executive officers. 
 When, however, we look into the New Testament for 
 evidence of any special authority or powers committed 
 
70 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 permanently to the Church after it had been once 
 founded by the apostles, beyond those which necessa- 
 rily appertain to it as a society, we are met by a perfect 
 blank. "We read indeed of a " ministry of the word," 
 and we find distinctions of offices among the ministers 
 of Christ, but not a syllable of sanction to any priestly 
 power, or lofty pretensions of the clergy above the 
 godly laity. 
 
 It is a most remarkable fact, worthy of special 
 notice, that the Apostles (the acknowledged founders 
 of the Christian Church) never once, from the begin- 
 ning of the New Testament to the end, apply the 
 term priests, in its Jewish sense, to the ministers of 
 the Gospel, except in common with all beliefs ; nor 
 are they wont to describe their work by terms taken 
 from the Jewish ritual. A most significant omission 
 this surely ! It is true that in one instance, and only 
 one, the Apostle of the Gentiles adopts the verb 
 itpovpyav, and applies it to describe tne work to which 
 he was appointed ; and this has been seized upon by 
 the author whom we first quoted, to prove that the 
 ministers of the gospel are " as truly priests as those 
 of the first temple" who offered animal sacrifices, 
 and " their offering as truly a sacrifice" as those who 
 served the altar under the law (his translation of 
 Romans xv. 1 6, runs thus : " That I should be the 
 liturgist of Jesus Christ towards the Gentiles, exer- 
 cising a priest's office in the Gospel of God"). But 
 even if we admit this translation to be literal, it is 
 very evident that the apostle did not intend any 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 71 
 
 priestly act, strictly speaking, for he immediately 
 explains what that act was, namely, the preaching of 
 the Gospel to the conversion of the Gentiles by the 
 power of the Spirit of God; so that under his ministry 
 there was "the offering up of the Gentiles as an 
 acceptable sacrifice, being sanctified by the Holy 
 Ghosl;." He is obviously only running a parallel 
 here between his work and that of the Jewish priest, 
 to vindicate the dignity of his office. The Jewish priest 
 had a sacrifice to offer : and " so I," the apostle seems 
 to say, " have somewhat to offer ; I have the living 
 sacrifice of converted and sanctified men," in allu- 
 sion probably to the prophecy in Isaiah Ixvi. 20 : 
 " They, shall bring all your brethren for an offering to 
 the Lord out of all nations" It is the converts 
 themselves, and not their prayers (as this writer would 
 make it) that the apostle says it was his office to 
 offer ; and his priest's work was preaching the Gospel, 
 for that is the only thing he mentions, not mediation 
 for the people.* Mediation, as carried on by men 
 ceased with the dispensation of Moses. Now Christ has 
 come and entered upon his office, the order of things is 
 reversed. The human minister no longer goes before 
 God on the behalf of man, but he comes now to man 
 on the behalf of God. Hence the title given in the 
 New Testament to ministers is " ambassadors :" never 
 once are they designated as " priests." And since the 
 ministers of the Gospel are never once designated as 
 priests, and have no specifically priestly acts ascribed 
 
 * lepoupywv might be more literally rendered "doing the sacred 
 work " of the Gospel. 
 
72 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 to them, it cannot be pretended that they offer up 
 a true and proper sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 All pretences, then, to the functions of priesthood, 
 as being sanctioned by the New Testament, and as 
 appertaining officially to a distinct order of men in the 
 Christian Church, are swept away. There is no official 
 priest recognised under this dispensation bu# the 
 Apostle and High- Priest of our profession, Christ 
 Jesus : all the functions of priesthood were gathered 
 into, and for ever centred in Him, from the moment 
 when he offered Himself up a sacrifice upon the cross : 
 arid all his believing people are priests in common 
 only as they plead his one sacrifice for sin, and offer 
 themselves to his service. 
 
 If the ordinary ministers of Christ were to be 
 priests, then should we expect to find them so desig- 
 nated (the Apostles in that case being "Chief priests") ; 
 and not only so, but the deacons also termed " Le- 
 vites;" but, for the very same reason that the deacons 
 did not have given to them the name of Levites, the 
 elder ministers are never designated as Priests. 
 With a change in the dispensation, came a change in 
 the nature of the whole service, and with it a change 
 in the names whereby the necessary offices in the 
 Church are distinguished. Indeed, it is worthy of 
 particular notice, that from and after the time that 
 Cornelius was admitted into the Church, when by a 
 special revelation Jewish distinctions were shewn to 
 be done away, we hear not a word of any services 
 specifically Jewish: not a single Levitical term is 
 retained in the Apostolic vocabulary (except that here 
 
THE IDEAL OF ^HE CHURCH. 
 
 and there we find these terms applied figuratively, 
 or by way of accommodation) ; but in the place of 
 the Jewish there springs up a Gentile Church, having 
 nor priest, nor altar, nor sacrifice, nor temple, except 
 Christ and the collected congregation of worshippers 
 themselves. How can it be accounted for that all 
 mention of these should have been omitted if they 
 were to continue ? Or, if there are no substitutes for 
 them in the Christian system, how is it that they have 
 silently lapsed ? Who sees not from the utter absence 
 of these things in the Gospel Church, as founded by 
 the Apostles, that they are, wherever they exist in a 
 Christian communion, an unwarranted appendage ? 
 
 Let us just suppose that throughout the whole of 
 the Jewish scriptures there had been no mention of 
 any hierarchy as ever established by divine authority 
 among them: no altars, no priests, no sacrifices 
 nothing, in fact, but the simple ordinances of the syna- 
 gogue; and yet that we found existing among the 
 Jews in a later age the whole Levitical system of a 
 sacrificing priesthood, with all its adjuncts; should we 
 not at once say, " This is an innovation of man's, this is 
 a corrupt kuman addition ? " 
 
 Our position is still stronger, when we view the 
 actual facts, in regard to the Christian economy ; for in 
 the epistle to the Hebrews we have a laboured argu- 
 ment to prove that all these things have for ever ceased, 
 and the reasons assigned why they have ceased. 
 
 But it may be asked, did not Christ authoritatively 
 found a kingdom, called his " Church," with power 
 
74 THE IDEAL OP THE CHURCH. 
 
 given to his ministers to perform certain acts, such as 
 to declare truth, to grant absolution, to dispense the 
 sacraments, and the like? We deny not that he 
 founded a kingdom, and that in this, as in earthly 
 kingdoms, there must be certain officers to administer 
 and carry into effect his laws ; but the permanency of 
 this kingdom rests upon certain unchangeable prin- 
 ciples embodied in the written word, and not upon a 
 mere succession of persons : the agent for ensuring 
 that they shall be carried into effect is the Almighty 
 Spirit of God ; and the one only source and centre of 
 authority in it is its own undying Sovereign. The 
 Church is " built upon the foundation of the apostles 
 and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
 corner stone ;" and as it obviously cannot have two 
 foundations, so there are to be no more apostles and 
 prophets; no more persons, that is, invested with 
 plenary authority. The apostles had the power to 
 loose and to bind in the full sense of the expressions, 
 because they were authorised, being inspired, to 
 enact the conditions on which men should be 
 released from their sins, and admitted as members 
 of Christ's kingdom. But no one can *how from 
 Scripture that this power was transmitted, or ever 
 intended to be transmitted to any successors. No 
 instance is to be found on record of its ever being 
 exercised except by the Twelve. Nor is it needed : 
 for the terms of salvation being once fully and au- 
 thoritatively enunciated, nothing more is required but 
 submission to these, in order for men to be saved. 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 75 
 
 , 
 
 Those who argue that because certain high and pe- 
 culiar spiritual powers were delegated to the Apostles 
 for the founding of the Christian Church, therefore the 
 same powers must still be in exercise among their suc- 
 cessors for its continuance, are bound to prove that they 
 possess more than these ; even the miraculous gifts of 
 casting out devils, of speaking with new tongues, of 
 taking up serpents, of drinking deadly things without 
 any hurt, and of restoring the sick ;* for these pro- 
 mises were fulfilled literally in the apostolic times, 
 and if the one power is to extend beyond the apostolic 
 age so ought the other. St. Paul, in proof of his 
 apostleship, could appeal to the fact, that " the signs 
 of an apostle " were wrought by him : let those then 
 who claim the like apostolic authority exhibit the 
 same miraculous gifts. 
 
 We shall here be reminded, perhaps, that Christ 
 promised to be with the Twelve always, even unto the 
 end of the world, and that this must include their 
 successors, since they themselves could not continue 
 by reason of death. But it is to be observed, that 
 this promise relates to the ordinary acts of teaching 
 and baptising, and that Christ's presence with them 
 to the end of time was conditional upon, as it was* 
 linked with, their " teaching men to observe all things, 
 whatsoever he had commanded them." (Matt, xxviii. 
 20.) 
 
 No infallibity, then, was hereby ensured to the 
 Church, either in whole or in part ; but it is rather 
 
 * Mark xvi. 17-18. 
 
76 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 . 
 
 implied that it might neglect to teach the truth, and 
 then it would forfeit the blessing of his presence. 
 
 There is one function, however, ascribed to the 
 Church in Scripture, which may seem to contravene 
 what we have here advanced. It is declared to be, we 
 shall be told, " the pillar and ground of the truth," 1 
 Tim. iii. 1 5. We grant that it is the pillar and ground 
 (rather stay] of the truth, inasmuch as it is the ap- 
 pointed instrument for proclaiming it, and for upholding 
 it in the knowledge and regards of men. And so far as 
 the Church does publicly hold it forth, whether in her 
 creeds, or by preaching " the truth as it is in Jesus," 
 and steadfastly abide by it, as it is stereotyped in the 
 written word, she undoubtedly may be described as the 
 " pillar and ground of the truth." But it surely will 
 not be argued from this, that the truth depends in 
 any degree upon the Church, when the Church itself 
 can have no foundation to rest upon but the eternal 
 truth of GOD ; otherwise, we shall have the error in 
 the philosophy of the Indians introduced into divinity, 
 of the earth resting upon the back of an elephant. 
 Nor can it be maintained, that the Church imparts 
 certainty to the sense of Scripture, for Scripture must 
 obviously have its one true sense, independently of 
 the Church. The truth would not be the less certain 
 if it were not witnessed to at all by men ; or if it 
 never received the authoritative sanction of the 
 Church sitting in council. All that the Church can 
 do is, to help to ascertain the true interpretation of 
 Scripture ; but she can give to it no authority which 
 it does not possess itself. . And if the true sense is 
 

 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 77 
 
 not to be found in the record, either implied or 
 expressed, most assuredly all the authorities in the 
 world cannot put it there. Moreover, it is self evident, 
 that if it is the interpretation which any body of men, 
 assuming to call itself the Church, may please to put 
 upon Scripture, that I am bound implicitly to believe, 
 then it is that Church in which I place my faith, and 
 not in the word of God. But while I am required to 
 profess, to believe " the Holy Catholic Church," that 
 is, the fact of the existence of such a thing, I am not '] 
 called upon to believe in^ the Holy Catholic Church, as 
 if that were the object of my trust, for the Church is 
 only a witness to the truth. 
 
 The only conclusion, then, which we can come to 
 from examining this point is, that the Church is the 
 "pillar," in that it is the standing public witness to the 
 truth in the world; and its "stay," or support, in that 
 it is instituted to uphold it by the ordinance of preach- 
 ing. Hence the lofty title which the Apostle here 
 bestows upon the Church has reference, not to the 
 Church itself, so much as to "the ministry of the word," 
 of which the Church may be considered collectively as 
 at all times the acting minister. A pillar with its 
 base is obviously a thing that must have something 
 else to rest upon ; therefore, the Church itself is clearly 
 not the foundation for men's faith. The foundation 
 consists of those great incontrovertible doctrinal facts fLji 
 
 ""- dn^l- 
 
 which the Apostle immediately proceeds to enumerate, 
 
 " God was made manifest in the flesh, justified in *L.dA.' 
 
 the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, 
 
78 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 believed on in the world, received up into glory.'* 
 These simple and sublime truths, the germinating 
 facts, so to call them, of Christianity, out of which all 
 Christian duties spring, the Church is to expose 
 publicly as on a pillar, not to put under the bushel of 
 reserve ; these she is to uphold as the essentials, and 
 the only essentials, to true godliness ; and if she fails 
 to do this, she becomes a temple without a Deity ; 
 a temple on which might fittingly be placed the in- 
 scription, " To the UNKNOWN GOD;" while, if she adds 
 to them such dark inventions and unnatural restric- 
 tions as those denounced in the following verses, she 
 becomes herself a pernicious imposture, which every 
 man who loves his kind is bound to labour with all 
 his efforts to overthrow.* 
 
 * Though the interpretation here given of the expression, " the 
 pillar and ground of the truth," may seem perfectly consistent, and be 
 satisfactory to a candid mind, yet we are strongly convinced ourselves 
 that this has nothing whatever to do with the Church, in which Timothy 
 was to be instructed how to behave himself. That subject was done 
 with before these words were written. The Apostle is here entering 
 upon a new one, and there ought to be a full stop at the word " God." 
 Then what follows would connect well with the first six verses of the 
 next chapter, and ought, indeed, to be its commencement. Then, 
 literally translated, this passage would run thus, "The pillar and 
 ground of the truth, and confessedly great is the mystery of godliness. 
 God was manifest in the flesh," &c. This makes the sense clear, 
 consistent, and free from all difficulty. This accounts for the copu- 
 lative "And" with which the 16th verse is made to begin, and assigns to 
 it a fitting place ; which it obviously has not in our present version, 
 where it is made to introduce a wholly different subject. If authority 
 were demanded for this reading, we might give that of Irenaeus, Theo- 
 doret, and others of the Fathers. But it commends itself. For if we look 
 narrowly into the passage- we shall perceive that there is a discordancy 
 in the expressions as they are now placed ; for how, with any propriety 
 can that which was just called a house, be spoken of immediately as a 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 79 
 
 We hear much, from certain parties in the present 
 day, of " the Catholic Church" its exclusive right 
 to decree doctrines, to exercise spiritual power, to en- 
 force subjection, &c., and the decisions of this Church 
 are appealed to as determining all controversies. Now 
 those who appeal to the alleged decisions of a certain 
 body are clearly bound, in the first place, to enable 
 us to ascertain which is that body, and then to show 
 us where its decrees are to be found recorded. Unfor- 
 tunately for their theory, no one society is recognised 
 in Scripture as being the Catholic or Universal 
 Church. So far as we can gather from the evan- 
 gelical history, each particular or national Church 
 had the power left it of settling for itself all matters 
 of order, guided by the general rules given in Scrip- 
 ture- no one having authority to decree doctrines, 
 these being supposed to be already determined by 
 the Divine Word. 
 
 When driven, however, from the figment of some 
 one visible Church as " the pillar and ground of the 
 truth," these parties commonly resort to the historic 
 fiction of an apostolic succession of men in the min- 
 istry, as the ordained means for the preservation of 
 the truth, pure and uncorrupted. It might be well 
 if those who insist so much upon the necessity of a 
 visible successional body of duly ordained individuals 
 
 pillar f The Church could not well be at once a house and a pillar. 
 As it stands in our version, the words " pillar and ground of the truth'* 
 are placed in apposition to, and therefore ought to be in accordance 
 with the expression, " the house of the living God ; " but a pillar is 
 only a part of a house, and not the same thing as a house. 
 
80 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 for this end, would observe that it is against this visible 
 traditionary body of the professing Church the pro- 
 phetic warnings of possible departure from the faith 
 are addressed. Individual believers in Christ, who are 
 of an humble spirit, are assured that they shall be kept 
 from falling away; and so long as there are only two or 
 three such on the earth, Christ will have a Church, 
 which will preserve and hand down his truth; but no 
 such assurance is given to any particular body, or 
 successional order of men. 
 
 A succession of believing adherents Christ 
 doubtless always will have, out of whom will arise a 
 succession of faithful preachers of his word, because 
 this is ensured by the constant presence and opera- 
 tion of his Spirit among men. The Gospel is em- 
 phatically " the dispensation of the Spirit,'' because 
 everything in it is kept up and made effectual by the 
 direct influence of that Divine Agent, who " worketh 
 all in all," making men willing, and bestowing upon 
 them the qualifications requisite for their work.* 
 
 * Ministry is a thing which belongs to all the saints ; but there 
 are differences of ministries (1 Cor. xii.) ; some having more 
 important places and functions than others, but not an authority apart 
 from the whole. The Holy Ghost dwells in the members, as 
 meiribers, and not as separate persons, for he is " one Spirit/* and so 
 can occupy but " one body." But He who dwells in the whole neces- 
 sarily dweHs in each ; and, therefore, He is sometimes spoken of as 
 dwelling hi the individual Christian, as if each individual Christian by 
 himself constituted a temple. 
 
 The word dopea is always used (see Acts ii. 38; viii. 20; 
 x. 45 ; xi. 1) to denote the gift of the Holy Ghost to the whole 
 Church ; x a P l<T /* ara > tne gi^ 8 distributed to the members for the 
 discharge of their several functions. (1 Cor. xii.; Eom. xii.; 
 1 Peter iv.) 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 81 
 
 (See 1 Cor. xii.) There is no need, then, as there 
 was under the law, for the office of the priesthood 
 to be vested in a particular family or succession to 
 secure its being perpetuated. That, as an external 
 Institute, could be kept up by external means : this, 
 as a spiritual, can be kept as a living body only by 
 spiritual that is, by the ever-acting elastic energy 
 of the Divine Spirit. As it has been well said, 
 " Judaism was a form developing a principle : Chris- 
 tianity is a principle (itself the rule of administration) 
 organising a form." We must not look, then, to find 
 in it the same specific provisions as in the Jewish 
 economy, but only for some well-defined principle, 
 sufficient to guide us in all circumstances. A body 
 that has life in it can always shape its own actions. 
 Given the members and a general rule, and it will 
 organise itself. It is the indwelling of the Spirit 
 vitalising it, and pervading every member, that con- 
 stitutes the Church, under Christ as its Head, one 
 body. It is this also that alone qualifies each mem- 
 ber for the discharge of his function. Our own 
 Church clearly recognises the necessity of this as the 
 grand requisite to constitute a man a true minister 
 of the Gospel, by directing to be put to him, at the 
 time of his ordination, the question, " Dost thou trust 
 that thou art inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to 
 take upon thee this office and ministration?" The 
 
 In Ephesians iv., SopaTa is the word used, but this is applied 
 to the persons endowed, and not to the endowments themselves ; the 
 one being- the direct gifts of Christ, the other the distributions of the 
 one all-dividing- Spirit. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 very being of the Church, in fact, depends now upon 
 the presence and ceaseless operations of the Spirit. 
 If it were not the Spirit that called and qualified, but 
 if it sufficed that a man was episcopally ordained for 
 him to be in the Apostolic succession, (for an 
 Apostolic succession of a certain kind we admit there 
 is,) such a question as this here directed to be put 
 would be wholly irrelevant, not to say needless. 
 
 Confirmatory of this view of the question, 
 we may remark that authority to teach and 
 preach was never made, in the Apostolic times, to 
 depend upon an official commission merely, but 
 upon ascertained personal qualification. In proof of 
 this it will be remembered that, when a man like 
 Apollos was found " teaching the way of the Lord/' 
 no question was ever raised as to whether he had 
 received, or whence, any special authority. It was by 
 the truth or the falsehood of his doctrine that he was 
 tested. (Mission, or the right to officiate in a par- 
 ticular Church, is altogether a different question, and 
 rests with that particular Church to determine.) 
 Timothy was to charge some at Ephesus that " they 
 teach no other doctrine" not to inquire whether they 
 had got the Apostolic license duly signed and sealed 
 in their pocket. Was he to withdraw from some ? 
 It was because they taught not the doctrine which 
 was " according to godliness." There were some at 
 Crete whose mouths needed to be stopped, not as 
 being uncommissioned, but as "teaching things 
 which they ought not, for filthy lucre sake;" and they 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 83 
 
 were to be stopped, not, it appears, by authority, but 
 by conviction. (Titus i. 9.) Are any condemned as 
 false teachers ? It is " because they bring in damnable 
 heresies." (2 Peter ii. 1.) Do we inquire on what 
 grounds we are to receive, or to reject one who comes 
 to us as a teacher ? The rule St. John gives us to 
 judge by is, whether or not he *' bring the doctrine of 
 Christ" (2 John) : not a word about any Apostolic 
 commission. External authority by commission some 
 might have, but even that was no guarantee, we find, 
 for the truth of their doctrine (Acts xx. 28, 30). 
 It is from within the Church, indeed, that all error 
 touching Christian truth is to be expected to arise. 
 It is by the doctrine they teach, then, we must neces- 
 sarily test men, and not merely by the commission they 
 have received. Even the Apostle Paul, though he 
 could claim to hold his office by direct divine ap- 
 pointment, appeals to his works rather than to his 
 commission, when his Apostolic authority is called in 
 question. He never, indeed, asserts any special au- 
 thority as the ground on which he is to be listened 
 to, independently of the truth which he taught. If, 
 then, St. Paul claimed no absolute authority over 
 the Church, who shall dare to rest his claims as a 
 teacher solely on the ground of authority ? 
 
 But there is one thing which is yet even more 
 remarkable. When a sort of general council was 
 held at Jerusalem, under the presidentship of the 
 Apostles, to consider the question whether the Gen- 
 tile converts should be compelled to submit to cir- 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 cumcision, which certain men who had gone out from 
 among them had taught was necessary, not a word 
 was breathed about the authority of these teachers, 
 but the whole issue was made to turn upon certain 
 arguments used by the speakers, and more particu- 
 larly upon the fact that God had already bestowed upon 
 these converts the gift of the Holy Ghost, indepen- 
 dently of the administration of any outward ordinance. 
 Now from all this we gather that men are to be 
 recognised as Christ's ministers only if they set forth 
 his truth, and that their authority to teach is derived 
 direct from him : hence we always find them desig- 
 nated in Scripture as " the ministers of Christ" not 
 as ministers of the Church. Their office is to minis- 
 ter to the Church, not to act with some undefined 
 authority of the Church. They are to be Heaven's 
 messengers of peace to the people (2 Cor. v. 20.) : 
 not plenipotentiaries, to grant pardon. Their au- 
 thority to teach is given them by Christ himself in 
 the qualification ; their power of office only is derived 
 from the Church. But this, when duly bestowed, is 
 to be regarded as bearing the stamp of his authority, 
 because Christ, in giving his general sanction to the 
 formation of Christian communities, must be con- 
 sidered as having given his implied sanction to the 
 appointment of all its necessary officers. The minis- 
 try is not, then, the less to be esteemed as a divine ordi- 
 nance for the absence of any specified invariable 
 Orders. He who ordained the Church, and gave to 
 his Apostles plenary power to found it, must necessarily, 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 85 
 
 in so ordaining, have given his divine sanction to all 
 such orders of ministers as they might appoint. 
 
 The next question, then, which comes before us for 
 consideration is, what orders of ministers did the 
 Apostles appoint? in other words, what is the 
 Divine Ideal of the Church in regard to its ministry, 
 as we may discover it developed actually in its 
 recorded ranks of officers ? If we refer to Ephesians 
 iv. 4, we read: "And he gave some, apostles; and some, 
 prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors 
 and teachers.'* Elsewhere (1 Cor. xii.) we find other 
 ministries, but not other officers, mentioned. Now, since 
 two of the orders, as we have already shown (p. 74), 
 those of apostles and prophets, have ceased, there 
 remain only three others as permanent orders. If 
 we examine the normal Church Epistles of Paul to 
 Timothy and Titus, we find that besides themselves, 
 who were invested with the sort of office which we 
 now assign to bishops, two others only are specified 
 those of priests or presbyters, and deacons. Thus, 
 the three orders recognised by the English Church 
 are the very three, the types of which we can discover 
 beyond all doubt, in the Scripture. There is nothing 
 to prohibit the Church from using other ministries 
 but there is nothing to warrant her appointing other 
 orders of permanent officers. 
 
 It m*ay be worth while to observe here how very 
 modestly the English Church speaks upon the subject 
 of her ministry. " It is evident, unto all men 
 diligently reading the Holy Scripture and ancient 
 
86 THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 authors, that from the Apostles' time there have 
 been these Orders of ministers in Christ's Church ; 
 bishops, priests, and deacons." She grounds her con- 
 tinuance of these on the fact that " from the Apos- 
 tles' time there have been these orders of ministers." 
 She lays down no exclusive rule, she vaunts of no 
 special authority ; nor, we may add, does she give to 
 her ministers any extraordinary commission, any power, 
 in short, beyond that necessary power of teaching by 
 doctrine, and ruling by discipline, which we find were 
 to be the functions of those whom Timothy and Titus 
 were to ordain. Even where she seems to impart to 
 her priests the power of forgiving sins, she limits it, 
 by immediate implication, to " the faithful dispensing of 
 the word of God, and of his holy Sacraments."* 
 
 There are some who are very fond of using such 
 language as " the mighty powers of grace stored up 
 in the Church" the " inherent life of the Church" 
 and " the life-imparting power of the Church." Now 
 we might very naturally ask, Where do these mighty 
 stores of grace where does this life, reside ? Is it in 
 the bishops, or in the clergy, or in the sacraments, or 
 in the collective body of the faithful ? and if in any 
 of these, how is it transmitted from them to others ? 
 
 It is very obvious that it is not through the Church, 
 as having life in itself, that Christ imparts life to the 
 souls of men for, after all, the Church is only the 
 body of Christ ; and if the Church were the store- 
 house and direct source of spiritual influence, then, as 
 
 * See Service for Ordering 1 of Priests. 
 
THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH. 87 
 
 the Church is made up of men, it would be the Church 
 giving life to itself, which is absurd. 
 
 The most common notion, we believe, is that 
 spiritual life is imparted by the Sacraments, when 
 administered by duly ordained persons, and that 
 these, by their own self-possessed virtue, carry with 
 them an unfailing efficacy ; but as this is a distinct 
 question, it will be best discussed in the next chapter. 
 
88 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 WE are now to enter upon a subject which is at 
 once the most singularly simple, and the most singu- 
 larly mystified and perplexed singularly simple, as 
 all that relates to it stands recorded in the word of 
 God ; singularly mystified and perplexed, as we find 
 it wrought up into a system in the writings of men. 
 That subject is the nature of the two Christian Sacra- 
 ments ; the mode in which they become efficacious of 
 spiritual benefit to the receivers ; and the place which 
 they occupy in the evangelic economy. 
 
 Now, in treating of this question, it behoves us 
 to speak warily and with caution, lest we should at- 
 tribute either too little or too much to these mystical 
 rites. For, as it is a sin to take away from the word 
 of God, so it is equally a sin to add to it. Some there 
 may be who hold these positive institutes in too light 
 estimation. Others there have been and are, who, while 
 they scruple, rightly enough, in any degree, to attri- 
 bute less to the Sacraments than the express words of 
 Scripture warrant, make no scruple in attributing 
 much more to the utter overlaying and disfigurement 
 of the original appointments. Thus it has come to pass 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 89 
 
 that, by having ascribed to them effects which they 
 cannot, and were never intended to work, the Christian 
 Sacraments have been converted into charms, viewed 
 as possessing some inherent virtue, and that which was 
 appointed only to be a sensible aid to faith, has been 
 trusted in as little less than a life-giving God. 
 
 To take an illustration from a parallel act of re- 
 quired obedience simply to an outward form, as the 
 condition of a benefit to be received, in which there 
 was no self-manifesting natural connection between 
 that act and the effect to attend it it has been as if 
 the command to Naaman, to go and wash seven times 
 in the Jordan, had been a command to go and take 
 clay from the bed of the river, and to fown it into 
 seven images, each more hideous than the other, and 
 then to ascribe to these images certain wonderful 
 powers, by which they should, through their mere 
 touch, have the credit ascribed to them of having 
 wrought the cure of the leprosy. The plastic piety of the 
 half-Pagan converts of the early age, in its unsubdued 
 sensuous imagining, soon wrought, it would seem, 
 upon the simple ordinances of Christianity, and, 
 like a few turns of the wheel of the potter, threw off 
 those (to mere imaginative minds) beautiful forms of 
 spiritual porcelain, which have ever since been the 
 means of charming and deceiving vast multitudes of 
 ardent devotees. The " Fathers," as they are termed, 
 placed themselves between the pure light of the truth 
 and their fellow -men not as clear crystal, to transmit 
 that light pure as it had been received, but as a dark 
 
90 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 intercepting obstacle ; and by their gross interpreta- 
 tions of Scripture, they caused a shadow to be cast 
 upon the ground, in the mystic dimness of which, 
 those who wished to be numbered among the learned, 
 have chosen ever since to walk. 
 
 But we are assuming. Let us drop figure, and 
 look at the plain facts of the case. Let us divest 
 ourselves, as far as we can, of all prepossessions and 
 traditional notions regarding the two sacramental 
 rites of the Christian institute, and view them, first, 
 precisely as they stand pourtrayed in the terms of their 
 original institution by their Divine author. (See 
 Matt, xxviii. 19, 20, Mark xvi. 15, 16, for Bap- 
 tism. Jokn iii. and other references to this ordinance 
 we shall consider in the sequel; and Matt. xxvi. 
 2628, Mark xiv. 22, Luke xxii. 19, 20, for the 
 Lord's Supper.) 
 
 Now, the first thing that strikes us here is, the 
 unencumbered simplicity, not only of form, but of 
 principle, in which these two holy rites of our religion 
 are presented to us. They are made to rest for their 
 observance solely upon the authority of Him who 
 enjoined them. No promise of grace is attached to 
 either of them, nor are they directly asserted to be 
 attended with any spiritual benefit. Certain results 
 only are connected with, or rather made to be conse- 
 quent upon, a due submission to these appointments ; 
 so that their great " moral perfection," as Hooker 
 says, " consisteth in men's devout obedience to the law 
 of God : " their mystical virtue, since there is no 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 91 
 
 evidence that it is in the rites themselves, must be de- 
 pendent upon his sovereign will. As was the case with 
 Naaman, to which we have already referred, so here, 
 we are required to act with an implicit faith in the 
 word of Him to whom we have been taught to look for 
 aid under our disease, and to submit ourselves, with- 
 out any of the questioning of unbelief, to an appoint- 
 ment in which there is no natural or traceable con- 
 nection between the thing prescribed to be done, and 
 the effect expected to be wrought. 
 
 It would seem, then, from this (and such, we think, 
 would be the inference in any unprepossessed mind), 
 that the efficacy of the Sacraments, whatever it be, 
 rests primarily upon the fiat of Him who instituted 
 them ; and that the benefit of them to us, whatever 
 that be, is conveyed to us through the medium of our 
 own believing obedience. But though there is not, 
 as we have observed, any express promise of grace to 
 commend to us the Sacraments, in the institutionary 
 form of words used by their Divine Author, yet there 
 is, we must not fail to remark, an implied promise, 
 both in the known character of Him who enjoined 
 them, and in the elemental significance of the Sacra- 
 ments themselves. It may be taken, indeed, as a 
 sure axiom in theology, that whatever God enjoins to 
 be done, involves a blessing in the doing of it. It does 
 so morally, by its immediate beneficial effect upon the 
 agent ; for it is not only good in itself, but it is also 
 good for us to obey. It does so positively, because 
 the very nature of God, the relation in which he 
 
92 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 stands to his creatures, his character as revealed 
 in his word, pledges him to bless the obedient. 
 Moreover, from the selection made to constitute the 
 visible signs in the Sacraments, we may also infer 
 that there must be a certain benefit, or spiritual 
 effect, attendant upon the due reception of them ; 
 for, as Hooker observes : " The matter whereof they 
 consist is such as signifieth, figureth, and representeth 
 their end." No one can fail to perceive that there 
 is in water, when used as a consecrated emblem, an 
 evident relation to the washing away of sins ; and in 
 bread and wine, when so used, a relation to the 
 nourishment of the soul. In general terms, we may 
 assert then, that to be signs of grace communicated, or 
 spiritual efficacy, is one end for which the Christian 
 Sacraments were instituted. 
 
 If we look further into the New Testament state- 
 ments in relation to these ordinances, we find them 
 strongly insisted on indeed as duties, but nothing 
 ascribed to them which would imply that their 
 efficacy is resident in the Sacraments themselves.* 
 They are clearly, in some sense, means and instru- 
 ments unto salvation, or they would not have been 
 
 * Even St. Bonaventura denies that grace is contained in the 
 Sacraments. His words are : " Non est aliquo modo dicendum, quod 
 gratia contineatur in ipsis sacramentis essentialiter, tanquam aqua in 
 vase vel medecina inpyxide ; imohoc intelligere est erroneum. Sed 
 dicuntur continere gratiam, quia ipsam significant, et quia, nisi ibi 
 sit defectus ex parte suscipientis, in ipsis gratia semper confertur, ita 
 intelligendo quod gratia sit in animo, non in signis visibilibus." Sen- 
 tent., lib. iv., dist. 1, qusest. 3. Opp. torn. v., p. 7. 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 93 
 
 ordained ; while yet they are never spoken of in 
 Scripture as possessing any saving virtue. Take the 
 strongest expressions in regard to them on record 
 such as, " Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy 
 sins, calling on the name of the Lord" (Actsxxii. 16). 
 " The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now 
 save us" (1 Peter iii. 21). " The cup of blessing which 
 we Hess, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? 
 The bread which we break, is it not the communion of 
 the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. x. 16.) There is 
 nothing in these passages which is not so qualified 
 by other expressions in the context, as to guard us 
 wholly against the idea that the consequences here 
 spoken of are the effects of the Sacraments themselves. 
 In the first case, " calling upon the Lord " is connected 
 with, implying the necessity for, the coexistent action 
 of believing prayer ; in the next, Baptism, it is true, 
 is expressly said to " save us ;' but then how ? Not 
 absolutely, or by any inherent power of its own (the 
 Apostle interjects a parenthesis to restrict the appli- 
 cation of his own expression) it is not " the putting 
 away the filth of the flesh" in other words, it is not 
 the mere outward washing that " saves us" but " the 
 answer of a good conscience towards God, by the resur- 
 rection of Jesus Christ from the dead" as the real 
 efficient cause. Baptism, which is the antitype to the 
 ark of Noah, is the outward sign and mode of salvation ; 
 but this answer of a good conscience towards God by 
 sincere repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, is the 
 thing signified, which is actually saving. 
 
94 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 Upon the efficacy of the Lord's Supper, considered 
 simply as a Sacrament, we will not dwell, since there is 
 even less ascribed to it in Scripture than to Baptism ; 
 and whatever can be proved to be absolutely or neces- 
 sarily true of the one, will involve all that appertains 
 to the other. 
 
 In the passages to which we have already 
 referred, we have shown that there is nothing predi- 
 cated of Baptism which can, by any just and fair 
 interpretation, be construed to warrant the conclusion 
 that this Sacrament possesses in itself, or invariably 
 carries with it, any saving power. Nor, if we take 
 in those other Scripture statements (John iii., Titus 
 iii. 5) which are generally supposed to have reference 
 to Baptism, have we gained any more solid ground 
 for building up a theory of inherent sacramental 
 efficacy. For in John iii. the pure absolute thing 
 insisted on is, the necessity of being " lorn again"* 
 (v. 3) ; and water is not mentioned till a fuller ex- 
 planation of what was the modus of this new birth 
 was demanded. Then there is the statement made, 
 " except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Thus it 
 appears that these two things together, not one of 
 them alone, is equivalent to the thing denoted by the 
 expression, "being born again" or from above. The 
 being " born of water" then, evidently stands only in 
 a subordinate, external, or significative relation to the 
 
 * The heading- of the chapter is, " Christ teacheth Nicodemus the 
 necessity of regeneration," not of baptism. 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 95 
 
 being " born of the Spirit" Nicodemus, as a Jew, 
 knew what it was to be " born of water" but what he 
 could not understand, was the being " lorn again" 
 or from above. Our Lord, therefore, solemnly assures 
 him that a man must be born, not only of water, or 
 of John's Baptism, with which he was acquainted 
 (for if Nicodemus had not known what it was to be 
 born of water, how could that have helped him to 
 understand what our Lord was aiming by this phrase 
 to explain ?) ; but also of the Spirit, of which the 
 water used in Baptism was the divinely ordained 
 significant. That something beyond the new birth 
 by^water, or Baptism, was intended to be taught as 
 necessary in order for a man to enter into the king- 
 dom of God, is plain, from the reason immediately 
 assigned " that which is born of the flesh" or in the 
 natural way, " is flesh, and that (only) which is born of 
 the Spirit is spirit." On the ground of this un- 
 deniable law of being, Christ begs Nicodemus not 
 to wonder at his first statement, "ye must be bom 
 again" or from above (v. 7). 
 
 To illustrate the mystery of this new birth still 
 further, he refers to the " wind" which, he observes, 
 "bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither 
 it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit." This 
 very illustration entirely overthrows the idea that a 
 uniform, unfailing effect attends the outward adminis- 
 tration of Baptism by water, or the doctrine that the 
 birth of water and the birth of the Spirit are linked 
 
96 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 together by an inseparable tie, so that wherever the 
 material element is duly applied, the inward spiritual 
 effect is wrought. For, if every person who is thus born 
 of water, be invariably, at the same time, born of the 
 Spirit, where is the fitness of the figure ? Upon this 
 supposition there would be neither mystery nor uncon- 
 trollable uncertainty about the result, but the new 
 birth of the Spirit would be dependent upon the will 
 of man, as to the when he would please to administer 
 tjie outward rite. But not so; for as -the wind that 
 bloweth when and where it listeth, so is every one 
 that is born of the Spirit. 
 
 It is most manifest, therefore, from our Lord's 
 own illustration, if it has any point or propriety at 
 all, that no invariable inherent or imparted virtue 
 abides in the water; nor any certain or constant 
 effect attends its application in baptism to ensure 
 spiritual regeneration. All that we can fairly argue 
 from this passage is, that submission to the outward 
 rite of Baptism is a conditional means a divinely 
 required preliminary to our receiving the inward 
 benefit, being a token and sign of our faith ; for, as 
 the sign and the thing signified are joined together by 
 God's institution, they must not be separated in our 
 apprehensions; but if we would be ensured of the 
 one, we must pay a reverent regard to the other. 
 
 The very principle of Sacraments is, that they 
 signify something ; and in order to show what they 
 signify, the sign and the thing signified are usually 
 placed in the word of God in close juxta-position, so 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 97 
 
 that they stand before us as shadows directing to a sub- 
 stance. When the sun of truth is above our horizon, 
 the shadow is plain, and easily distinguishable from 
 the substance. When it is below, both look to us alike, 
 and are taken the one for the other. In heaven 
 alone, where the sun may be said to stand always in 
 the meridian, there will be no shadow, for there Sacra- 
 ments will cease, merged in the visible reality. 
 
 The other passage which we have referred to 
 (Titus iii. 5) as being supposed to relate to Baptism, 
 is a remarkable instance of this bringing of the sign, 
 and the thing signified, into immediate juxtaposition, 
 and giving to the one the name of that which is 
 wrought by the other. God is there declared to have 
 saved us jointly by " the washing of regeneration' (an 
 expression that aptly, from the ordained end of the 
 rite, denotes baptism) ; and " the renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost" which is the real thing signified. 
 
 They who contend that baptism is regeneration 
 actually, and charge those with disparaging the Sacra- 
 ment who deny this, commit a much more serious 
 mistake (if mistake that be) ; for they are guilty, by 
 insisting so exclusively upon the "washing of regenera- 
 tion" as the real thing, of altogether setting aside, theo- 
 retically, at least, " the renewing of the Holy Ghost" 
 which is the spiritual process thereby denoted.* 
 
 * Jewel, in his reply to Harding (p. 442), makes this very 
 pertinent remark " Verily, to ascribe felicity or remission of sin, 
 which is the inward work of the Holy Ghost, unto any manner of 
 outward action whatever, is a superstitious, a gross, and a Jewish 
 error." 
 
 H 
 
98 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 To ascertain the exact place of Sacraments is cer- 
 tainly one of the most difficult points in systematic theo- 
 logy. That they have some important connection with 
 salvation is so evident from Holy Scripture, that no 
 one will presume to deny it who has any proper 
 respect to the Divine word. " He that believeth and is 
 baptised" we are told (Mark xvi.), " shall be saved" 
 Salvation then plainly is, in some way, dependent 
 upon Baptism. But we must be careful that we do 
 not press, even a positive statement like this, too 
 far. For this positive most strongly implies in it a 
 negative limitation to this effect : He that believeth not, 
 though he be baptised, shall not be saved. And this point, 
 the next clause, without relation to which this ought 
 never to be taken, brings out with the most instruc- 
 tive negative significance : " And he that believeth not 
 shall be damned" not simply, he who is not baptised. 
 The omission of this in the negative expression of the 
 sentence, where it would seem to be required to the full 
 completion of the antithesis, was surely not without 
 its design. It is upon this, we need hardly observe, 
 our Church grounded her limitation in the catechism 
 in regard to the necessity of the Sacraments, when 
 she taught her catechumens to say, in answer to the 
 question : " How many Sacraments hath Christ or- 
 dained in his Church ?" " Two only, as generally * 
 necessary to salvation." 
 
 * That is, not absolutely or in every case, but only " where they 
 may be had," as stated in the service for the baptism of adults. 
 It would be quite beside our purpose to enter here into the question 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 99 
 
 The doctrine then involved in this passage of 
 scripture is clearly this, that Baptism is necessary as a 
 sign of that obedience of faith which is unto salvation 
 necessary only as a general rule, but not so absolutely 
 necessary (which it must be, if the grace of Sacra- 
 ments be never communicated except through the 
 channel of Sacraments, or if the grace that saves be 
 in the Sacraments themselves) that there can be no 
 salvation without it. Ordinarily necessary, but not 
 essentially necessary, is all that we are warranted in 
 predicating of Baptism by this the strongest dogmatic 
 delivery upon the subject made by our Divine Lord. 
 
 There is, however, yet another class of references 
 to this ordinance which, to treat the subject fairly, we 
 must not pass unnoticed. In the Apostolic Epistles 
 we meet with frequent allusions to Baptism, and it is 
 spoken of there in terms, to say the least, of consider- 
 able strength. And as it is to this part of Scripture we 
 are taught to look for the full development of 
 Christian doctrines which had been left obscure, or 
 only darkly hinted at, in the Gospels, it is to the 
 same we naturally turn for further information, if 
 there be any to be given, touching the nature, inten- 
 
 of infant baptism, or to discuss how far, in their case, it is efficacious. 
 We would only remark, en passant, that if the salvation of infants 
 depends absolutely upon their receiving- baptism, which is what some 
 seem to hold, then it depends upon the seal of God's covenant rather 
 than upon God's covenant itself, though that, as including- his pro- 
 mises, is the real ground of all our hopes. The seal may be of great 
 advantage to assure salvation without itself giving salvation ; and it 
 is the contempt of this, not the want of it, it is most reasonable to 
 believe, will exclude from the benefits of God's covenant. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 tion, and efficacy of Christian baptism. What, then, 
 is the witness borne to this divine institution, con- 
 sidered as involving a doctrine, in the writings of the 
 Apostles ? The only statements of any weight (besides 
 those we have already noticed) are these : (Rom. vi. 
 3, 4, 1 Cor. xii. 13, Gal. iii. 27, Col. ii. 12) "Know 
 ye not" says the Apostle in the first of them, " that so 
 many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were 
 baptised into his death ? Therefore we are buried with 
 him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was 
 raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even 
 so we also should walk in newness of life." 
 
 " For by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body 9 
 ivhether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or 
 free : and have been all made to drink into one Spirit " 
 (1 Cor. xii. 13.) 
 
 " For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ 
 have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, 
 there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
 female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus' (Gal. iii. 27). 
 
 " Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are 
 risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, 
 who hath raised Him from the dead" (Col. ii. 12). 
 Now, the first and last of these may be classed under 
 one head. They both, it is very clear, refer to Baptism 
 in its representative character, just as the Church of 
 England states it in the exhortation at the end of the 
 baptismal office. There is no efficacy ascribed to the 
 rite in either of them to produce the effects which, by 
 the figure of a significant action, it denotes to be 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 101 
 
 necessary in any person to constitute him a real Chris- 
 tian. And if it could be argued from these passages 
 that effects of a higher order, and of a more positive 
 nature, than this were attendant, as the actual con- 
 sequences of baptism in any to whom it is administered, 
 it would necessarily follow that they would be in all 
 a result which fact decisively negatives. Baptism, 
 then, is here spoken of according to what it signifies 
 only in relation to our duties, not what it actualises. 
 
 In the other two passages quoted, the rite, as the 
 context shows, is referred to in relation to the body 
 of the Church. The Apostle brings it forward in proof 
 that there is now no longer any distinction between 
 nations, races, and ranks of mankind in regard 
 to their religious condition, if they are Christians, for 
 as all take upon themselves one profession by baptism, 
 all are by this made to be members of one corporate 
 body, of which Christ is the head. The expression, 
 " have put on Christ" evidently, by the very nature 
 of the figure used, relates to profession. It may, 
 however, be urged, perhaps, that in the other of these 
 two passages (1 Cor. xii. 13), Baptism is spoken of as 
 an act of the Spirit, and in such a way as to imply that 
 all who are so baptised are thereby made partakers 
 of the Spirit. To this we answer, very true ; but then 
 it is to be observed particularly, that it is not of the 
 baptism of water, but of the baptism of the Spirit, 
 the Apostle here speaks (" for by one Spirit ye are 
 all baptised into one body"), consequently, the " body" 
 here intended must be the true spiritual Church, 
 
102 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 " the mystical body of Christ, consisting of the blessed 
 company of all faithful people." None but those who 
 are baptised by, or with the Spirit, are in this body 
 at all. There may be, and no doubt is, an allusion to 
 water baptism, as the visible mode by which we are 
 admitted into this body, in the word " baptised, " as 
 also to the Holy Communion in the expression, " have 
 been all made to drink into one Spirit ; " but as, con- 
 fessedly, not all who partake of the Holy Communion, 
 do " drink into one Spirit," so neither, by parity of 
 reason, can we conclude from this verse that all who 
 are baptised with water are baptised into one Spirit. 
 There is, then, no power in the ordinance of baptism 
 itself to graft into Christ. The most that we can infer 
 from this, the strongest statement of the kind on record 
 in the Epistles,, is, that they who " receive baptism 
 rightly," are, instrumentally by the Sacrament, and 
 vitally by the Spirit, made members of Christ's body 
 the Spirit being the real efficient agent in producing 
 life in all who are living members. For no life impart- 
 ing power is here ascribed to the rite of baptism itself; 
 that is not the main idea, the principal subject of the 
 passage but rather the Spirit's all pervading agency 
 in every produced spiritual result. The altered relation 
 here supposed to be brought about in and through, 
 not by baptism, is only union with the living lody 
 of the Church. 
 
 It may be worth while to remark in this place, that, 
 if to be " born of water " involved necessarily the being 
 " born of the Spirit" or if the one might be taken to be 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. .,, v - 
 
 _ 
 
 the constant concomitant of the other, because of the 
 juxtaposition of the two expressions, then, vice versa, 
 to be " born of the Spirit" would necessarily imply 
 that the person was " born of water" whether water 
 had ever been used or not, which is manifestly absurd. 
 Putting together then, now, into one view, all 
 that the New Testament expresses in regard to 
 Baptism, the whole of what we can conclude as 
 respects the Sacrament itself (unless we will presume 
 to be wise above what is written) amounts only to 
 this : that it is an ordinance of Divine ordainment ; 
 that it engrafts every person to whom it is applied into 
 the visible body of the Church; that "the promises 
 of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be 
 the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are hereby 
 visibly signed and sealed;" that without submission to 
 it, ordinarily, there is no salvation ; that it is thus a 
 conditional, though not an efficient means of grace 
 grace being a gracious consequent rather than a 
 necessary result of the ordinance; that they who 
 receive it " rightly," are made the subjects of the Spirit's 
 influence ; but that in no instance is the grace of Sacra- 
 ments contained in the Sacraments themselves, or, ne- 
 cessarily, as in a material substance, conveyed by them ; 
 so that, strictly speaking, they carry with them no 
 inherent or vital efficacy, being, as the venerable 
 Hooker has well said, "not physical but moral in- 
 struments of salvation, duties of service and worship, 
 the use whereof is in our hands, the effect in God's ; 
 which, unless we perform as the Author of grace 
 
104 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 requireth, they are unprofitable ; for all receive not 
 the grace of God, who receive the Sacraments of his 
 grace " (p. 595). In a word, Sacraments are exhi- 
 bitive, not communicative, of grace ; external seals, 
 not operative agents ; sure witnesses of God's good 
 will, not of themselves effective workers of those 
 heavenly dispositions of mind which mark the true 
 Christian, which, wherever found, are the results of 
 the divine favour. They indicate to all what are 
 their spiritual needs ; they imply special obligations ; 
 they are signs to signify grace ; but they are seals to 
 assure it, and instruments of the Holy Ghost to apply 
 it, and that, not as a medicine, but after a moral 
 manner, only to real believers in Christ. 
 
 Such is the general view which we gather of 
 Sacraments from a survey of all that is predicated of 
 them in the New Testament. 
 
 But now, how very different is the represen- 
 tation often given of them in the writings of men. 
 They are " causes efficient ; " they " carry in them 
 the grace which they signify ; " they are " essentially 
 necessary to salvation ; " they " work an entire change 
 in the individual " (though an unconscious babe) to 
 whom they are administered. Baptism of itself is 
 declared to " wash away sins ;" " it imparts an angelic 
 nature to the recipient ; " by it man is " formed anew" 
 is born again, in all cases, of the Spirit; the " miracu- 
 lous water is impregnated with the Holy Ghost ; " and 
 giving life is hence pronounced to be " life-giving." 
 
 It is a point of moment to the integrity of the 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 105 
 
 truth that these assertions should be disproved. How 
 shall we disprove them? As the letter of Scrip- 
 ture is not sufficient of itself to bar out such 
 extravagant notions but they profess to find their 
 warrant in it it clearly will not be sufficient, taken 
 as it stands, to refute them. All reference to any 
 authority, ab extra, to decide whether the doctrine in- 
 volved in them be true, is out of the question ; for it is 
 upon the authority of human interpretation alone the 
 doctrine rests. We must have recourse to argument. 
 We must make sure of our data. We must reason upon 
 Scripture premises, and apply them. This is the 
 way we proceed in order to ascertain what is true, 
 and to distinguish it from what is false in philosophy. 
 And as false systems of philosophy are not overthrown 
 by adducing seeming individual departures from its 
 laws, but rather by the ascertainment of some great 
 general law, which accounts for all those seeming 
 departures by referring them to one common prin- 
 ciple, so we must cast about for the discovery of 
 some general spiritual principle in relation to Sacra- 
 ments, which, while it accounts for, denies not any 
 actual effects, observed ever to be consequent upon, or 
 apparently wrought by, Baptism, if we would explode 
 all false notions, and bring out in its severe simplicity 
 the one only law, or cause, of sacramental efficacy. 
 
 Any man who possesses the genius of the genuine 
 philosopher, will not in his divinity, any more than in 
 his philosophy, allow his judgment to be carried away 
 by what may be only exceptional cases or deceptive 
 
106 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 appearances, instantice monodicce, as Lord Bacon calls 
 them ; but his watchful eye and thoughtful mind will 
 be exercised in the discovery of the law, or causative 
 principle, which prevails in all the cases. The 
 apple will not fall from the tree without his inferring 
 the cause of its descending in every instance towards the 
 earth ; nor will the fire ascend without flashing into his 
 mind the causing power of its ascent. Where a person 
 of a less philosophic cast of character will get perplexed 
 and bewildered amidst a multiplicity of apparent con- 
 tradictory instances (all of which, if he could but see 
 it, are reducible to one or other of two laws), he will 
 seize hold of some general principle, and apply it to 
 solve every difficulty, and to account for every effect, 
 which may be classed as falling under the denomina- 
 tion of the phenomena of religion. 
 
 Divinity has, it may be assumed, its laws, or gen- 
 eral principles, as much as natural philosophy ; and 
 just as in natural philosophy, the observance of these 
 enables us to explain all the mysteries of the material 
 world, and to assign the causes of all the various phe- 
 nomena we witness in that, so it is in divinity. The 
 laws of nature are, we know, few, and sublimely simple; 
 and yet every effect, every strange appearance, every 
 startling result, is reducible to one or other of them : 
 so, we believe it will be found to be in regard to the 
 laws of what may be termed spiritual science. 
 
 Our great Teacher, it has been truly observed, com- 
 bined in himself as much of the character of a philoso- 
 pher as of a divine. His observations and parables and 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 107 
 
 incidental remarks, evinced a most profound insight 
 into the laws of nature, or the principles which hold 
 sway in the material economy of this visible world; and 
 by his seizing hold of these principles, and applying 
 them, as he often did, to the illustration of spiritual 
 truths, he has led us to infer that spiritual operations 
 are subject, in the same way, to "general laws," and 
 are brought about by agencies equally accordant with 
 their own nature as things material.* No man, indeed, 
 ever possessed in a more surpassing degree than our 
 Lord, that highest faculty of genius, the power of 
 generalisation ; in other words, the power of reducing 
 a number of facts or operations many of them 
 perhaps apparently very diverse to one simple prin- 
 ciple. A very striking example of this we have in his 
 resolving the whole of the first table of the law into the 
 one principle of the love of God, and the whole of the 
 second into the love of our neighbour. Nor was his 
 generalising genius confined to the acts merely of an 
 external Amoral law ; it penetrated into those which 
 were purely spiritual, and assigned all effects to their 
 proper agencies, never ascribing to a physical agent or 
 
 * Of the general laws or principles to which we have alluded, the 
 following are instances : " He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he 
 that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." This is the law of self- 
 sacrifice, of the truth of which our Lord gives this illustration from 
 nature : " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it re- 
 maineth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." Again : " To 
 him that hath shall be given, and to him that hath not shall be taken 
 away, even that which he seemeth to have." Again : " If any man 
 will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." 
 These are all general principles, and many others might be given out 
 of the Gospels. 
 
108 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 instrumentality that which could be wrought only by 
 one of a different nature. " The flesh profrteth nothing" 
 says this keen observer of causes ; it is the Spirit that 
 quickeneth." 
 
 One general observation applies to these general 
 principles, that they are universal and infallible tests 
 of truth. As such they ought to be taken ; for it is 
 only by subjecting our theories or opinions to the test 
 of one of these primal and all-pervading laws that we 
 can ascertain whether or not they are sound. If a 
 theory or opinion in religion will bear its own proper 
 test of this kind, it may be concluded that it is founded 
 in truth ; if it will not bear this, it is certainly false. 
 What, then, is the law or principle wilich applies to 
 the question of sacramental efficacy ? It is that laid 
 down by our Lord in his memorable conversation with 
 Nicodemus in these words, " That which is born of 
 the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is 
 spirit" At first sight, there seems nothing in this 
 statement beyond the enunciation of a self-evident 
 truth, taking the term "flesh" in its natural sense ; 
 but when we come to examine in what sense this 
 term is used, theologically or in relation to doctrine 
 in Scripture,* we at once perceive that the statement 
 
 * Examples of this peculiar use of this term are the following- : 
 " What hath Abraham our father found through the flesh ?' (Rom. 
 iv. 1 , translated as it stands in the original,) " Having begun in 
 the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal. iii. 3.) " For 
 we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice 
 in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." (Phil, iii, 3.) 
 " If any man thinketh that he hath whereof he might glory in the 
 flesti, I more." "As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh." 
 (Gal. iii, 12.) In all of which places the term flesh is evidently put for 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 109 
 
 is far more than an answer to the ignorant objection 
 which called it forth, and enunciates, in fact, a gen- 
 eral principle, applicable to all questions of religious 
 influence, or of produced spiritual effect. When ex- 
 pressed in a philosophic form, that principle is this : 
 that no effect can rise above its cause, and that, such as 
 the generating cause or agent employed in any case 
 is, such in nature will be the effect. This is an abso- 
 lute verity, and all the sophists in the world could not 
 disprove it, that no effect can rise above its cause. This, 
 then, may be taken as an axiom in moral, as it is in 
 natural science. Now, if we take this simple prin- 
 ciple and apply it, as it ought to be applied, with an 
 honest mind and a fearless hand, it will slip the key- 
 stone out of many a towering fabric of false doctrine, 
 and bring it down to its proper level, the dust ; leav- 
 ing foundation room for the erection in its place 
 of that solid system of divinity, every block' of 
 which is of pure white marble, which will bear the 
 most searching test, and stand for eternity. It is 
 always necessary to remove the obstructions of error 
 from the mind first, and the heaps of superstition 
 which may have accumulated, if we would ground it 
 securely upon the rock of eternal Truth. 
 
 Assuming this, then, as an axiom in divinity, how 
 does it apply to the question before us ? the question 
 of sacramental efficacy. It at once determines this 
 
 all that is external in religion, all that is of the nature of ceremony, 
 or outward rite. In accordance with which sense of the word, the 
 Apostle Paul uses the expression " carnal ordinances" in Heb. ix. 10. 
 
110 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 point, that the material element employed in the ad- 
 ministration of Baptism can exercise no manner of 
 influence whatever in the production of any attendant 
 spiritual effect. Neither can it be the medium, 
 properly speaking, or agent, of any such effect ; for 
 spiritual effect is never wrought by any material agent. 
 It can be wrought only by an agent of the same 
 nature with itself. Obvious and certain as this truth 
 is in relation to things natural, it has been very 
 commonly overlooked in regard to things spiritual. 
 With that proneness to superstition and idolatry for 
 which fallen man is remarkable, and which inclines 
 him ever to ascribe to things visible and tangible 
 those effects which are wrought only by the invisible 
 and spiritual, he has been led to regard those material 
 substances, which the Almighty, in condescension to 
 our weakness, has appointed as signs for the help of 
 our faith, as efficient causes has hence been led to put 
 his trust in them, and not in Him, and has thus given 
 to the creature that honour which belongs only to the 
 Creator. 
 
 A spiritual birth (such as the new birth is) can, it 
 is evident, be produced only by a spiritual agent. 
 Water may be the outward sign of the effects of that 
 agent upon the soul, but it can never itself be the 
 efficient cause or immediate agent by which the new 
 birth is directly brought about ; for then a spiritual 
 birth would be consequent upon the application of a 
 material element ; which, upon the principle asserted 
 by our Lord, can never be the result. Such as 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. Ill 
 
 the nature of the agent employed is, such, he 
 affirms, is the nature of the progeny. Clearly, then, 
 the material element of water in baptism can, of itself, 
 be only a bare sign. 
 
 There is one objection, however, to this view of the 
 case, which may be raised. It may be said, cannot the 
 Almighty impart a spiritual property to the con- 
 secrated water, whereby that may become efficacious 
 of a spiritual benefit upon the soul ? The obvious 
 answer is, that the water is applied only externally 
 to the body in baptism, and is not conveyed into 
 the soul, as would, in the very nature of things, be 
 necessary, if the new birth were produced in it by this 
 element as an efficient agent. But besides this 
 obvious answer, we may remark, that there is no 
 ground in Scripture, nor in any of God's known works 
 or operations, for believing that he thus confounds 
 things of an opposite nature, or ever produces any 
 creature but by an agent of the same nature as itself. 
 Those who are born again are indeed, expressly, and 
 with marked distinction, spoken of in Scripture as 
 born, "Not of blood, nor of the mill of the flesh, nor of 
 the will of man, but of God " (John i. 13) ; and if not 
 by the mill of man, which is a spiritual agent, much 
 less by a material agent of man's application. 
 
 If the new birth, or spiritual regeneration, were the 
 imparted and invariable effect of baptism, then surely 
 it is most strange that St. Paul should speak so dis- 
 paragingly of the ministration of this rite, as he does 
 in the first chapter of his first epistle to the Coriii- 
 
112 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 thians. Upon this assumption the baptising of men 
 would be the highest possible ministerial function, for 
 it would be attended with an effect of a life-giving, 
 and therefore of a truly divine order. But beyond 
 question no such idea could have possessed the 
 Apostle's mind, when he "thanked God" that he had 
 baptised so few persons with his own hands. It was 
 to the word of God, and not to water, he looked for a 
 divine power. 
 
 But still those who hold the doctrine of regeneration 
 through the agency of water, not sacramentally merely, 
 but actually, or what is usually termed " baptismal re- 
 generation,"* may argue that as it is of God's appoint- 
 ing, it is his appointment which renders it efficacious 
 for this end. To which we reply, first, that the blood of 
 bulls and of goats was of God's appointing, but that 
 did not give it the power to take away sins ; and, 
 secondly, that it is not the application of the water 
 that in any way is operative to the production of the 
 new birth, but our own right use of the Sacrament, 
 in the exercise of faith in God's promise, and in the 
 power of the Divine Spirit to act directly upon the 
 heart of sinful man, to produce there the purity of the 
 new life. For, obviously, moral effects can be brought 
 about only by moral and not by material means. 
 
 One very common mode of describing Sacraments 
 
 * There would be no just ground to object to this form of ex- 
 pression, if those who use it would allow the adjective, as it ought, to 
 qualify the substantive. Spiritual regeneration is the thing prayed 
 for by the church : baptismal, or sacramental regeneration, is the thing 
 pronounced as imparted by the administration of the rite. 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 113 
 
 is to speak of them as "channels of grace." But 
 how they can be " channels," properly speaking, unless 
 grace be a material substance which can be conveyed 
 through a material medium, does not appear. It can 
 only be by a figure of speech that they are channels. 
 For grace is neither kneaded into dough in the Lord's 
 Supper, nor melted into water in Baptism, that it can 
 be conveyed after the manner of a physical agent into 
 man's nature ; nor is salvation wrought even by the 
 word of God, but as that acts morally, or as a moral 
 agent, direct upon the mind.* 
 
 Of the absurd notion that regeneration is wrought 
 in and by baptism, and is identical with it, there is a 
 withering refutation to be found in Coleridge's " Aids 
 to Reflection." In answer to those who say that 
 regeneration is only baptism, that thoughtful man 
 remarks, " I think it sufficient to reply : if regene- 
 ration means baptism, baptism must mean regenera- 
 tion : and this, too, as Christ himself has declared, a 
 regeneration in the spirit. Now I would ask these 
 divines this simple question : Do they believingly sup- 
 pose a spiritual regenerative power and agency inher- 
 ing in or accompanying the sprinkling of a few drops 
 of water on an infant's face ? They cannot evade the 
 question by saying that baptism is a type or sign. 
 For this would be to supplant their own assertion, 
 
 * The term " convey " as applied to " grace," is equally incorrect, 
 unless it be taken in its technical legal sense ; for as Bishop Bedell 
 remarks, " obsignation is the sole and only instrumental conveyance 
 which the sacraments have." Letter to Dr. Samuel Ward, quoted by 
 Goode (p. 321). 
 
 I 
 
114 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 that regeneration means baptism, by the contradictory 
 admission that regeneration is the significatum of 
 which baptism is the significant. Unless indeed they 
 would incur the absurdity of saying that regeneration 
 is a type of regeneration, and baptism a type of itself ; 
 or, that baptism only means baptism. And this, indeed, 
 is the plain consequence to which they must be driven, 
 should they answer the above question in the negative. 
 But if their answer be, Yes, we do suppose this 
 efficiency in the baptismal act, I have not another 
 word to say. Only, perhaps, I might be permitted to 
 express a hope that, for consistency sake, they would 
 speak less slightingly of the insufflation and extreme 
 unction of the Papists ; notwithstanding the not 
 easily to be answered arguments of our Christian 
 Mercury, the all-eloquent Jeremy Taylor, respecting 
 the latter : " which since it is used when the man is 
 above half-dead, when he can exercise no act of 
 understanding, it must needs be nothing. For no 
 rational man can think that any ceremony can make a 
 spiritual change without a spiritual act of him who is 
 to be changed : nor can it work by way of nature, or by 
 charm, but morally, and after the manner of reasonable 
 creatures." 
 
 There is strong, plain truth also in that remark of 
 Bishop Bedell's, " Verily I think this conceit of 
 Sacraments to make them medicines is the root of all 
 error in this matter." The gross absurdity of the 
 thing, would, we might suppose, be sufficient to evince 
 that the grace signified in the Sacraments is not con- 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 115 
 
 tained in the signs. For if by grace be meant the 
 favour and good-will of God, if pardon and forgive- 
 ness of sin, if cleansing and renewing power, if finally 
 the holy influence of the Spirit, what can be imagined 
 more senseless, and more absurd, than that such ex- 
 cellent and heavenly things as these, should be inclosed 
 in the material elements of water, bread, and wine, and 
 be by them conveyed through the body into the soul ! 
 The signs have no need of grace, nor of pardon and 
 forgiveness ; nor can they, properly speaking, convey 
 grace. To what purpose, then, should grace be 
 communicated to them, that in and through them it 
 might be received ? How can such a mode of recep- 
 tion profit the souls of men ? 
 
 But this method of arguing is, it will perhaps be 
 said, pure Rationalism, and finds its type only in the 
 Syrian captain's question, "Are not Abana and 
 Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the 
 waters of Israel ? May I not wash in them, and be 
 clean ? " The truth is, his reasoning was right as re- 
 garded the subject ; it was not the waters of one river 
 more than of another, that could cleanse him of his 
 leprosy ; but the power of that God, whose command, 
 as a token of his faith, he was required to obey. 
 Nor was any priestly act of man's needed to give effect 
 to the applied element. No words were rehearsed either 
 over Naaman, or over the Jordan,to impart power to 
 the waters to cleanse (and power of themselves they 
 had none) ; but it was the faith which led the man to 
 submit to the divine appointment that was the real 
 
 i 2 
 
116 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 means effectual to the obtaimnent of the benefit. So 
 in all cases, what is required is the opus operantis, the 
 faith of the receiver, rather than the opus operatum, 
 the work of the minister. 
 
 Great stress is laid by some divines upon what is 
 termed the " consecration " of the elements, and their 
 administration by a Priest. It is argued, that be- 
 cause Sacraments can be administered only by men of a 
 consecrated order, therefore their effect must depend in 
 some way upon ministerial power. But here Hooker 
 supplies us with a just answer. " The grace of Bap- 
 tism cometh by donation from God alone. That God 
 hath committed the ministry of Baptism to special 
 men, it is for order sake in his Church, and not to 
 the end that their authority might give or add more 
 force to the Sacrament itself" (p. 627). As to the 
 consecration itself, it may safely be conceded, that 
 although it adds no efficacy to the element, it im- 
 presses upon it a new significancy ; and. that while it 
 in no wise changes its nature, it gives to it a new end. 
 Just as wax is only wax till the seal of the Sovereign 
 is imprinted upon it, so water is only water till it is 
 consecrated ; then it becomes a sacramental sign- 
 not to impart grace, but to assure grace. 
 
 Some efficacy in Sacraments, we shall perhaps 
 be told, we, as English Churchmen, must admit 
 there is, because the Church defines them to be 
 " effectual signs of grace." We grant it : but without 
 admitting the objector's interpretation of the term 
 "effectual; " To affirm that they are "effectual signs 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 117 
 
 of grace/' is a very different thing from affirming that 
 they are " signs effectual of grace; " which is the inter- 
 pretation put upon this phrase by some writers who 
 are not at all wanting in other matters in mental 
 acuteness. But that signs can be productive of the 
 effects which they signify only by an outward figure, 
 is a thing we may believe perhaps when we find that 
 painted fire can burn.* The fact is, these writers 
 confound things that differ ; they fail to distinguish 
 between effectual and effective, and convert an effectual 
 sign into an effectual cause.-f And herein they exhibit 
 a childish ignorance. For what man of sense, when 
 told that a loud clap of distant thunder was a power- 
 ful sign of a heavy storm approaching, would under- 
 stand such an expression to mean that that sign was 
 powerful to produce the storm. A sign is a sign, and 
 nothing more. But a sign may properly enough be 
 termed an effectual sign, when it is not a bare sign of 
 profession merely, or figure only of a something that 
 is non-existent, but of a really existent effect produced, 
 
 * Thus Johnson explains " effectual" to mean sometimes, "vera- 
 cious," "expressive of facts." 
 
 f Tn what sense, and to what degree, Sacraments may be affirmed 
 to be causes efficient, is thus accurately defined by Dr. Win. 
 Whitaker, who was Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge in 1580 : 
 "Dicimus enim esse efficacissima organa Spiritus Sancti, et esse 
 causas etiam instrumentales gratise ; et hoc illi dicunt etiam (. e. Pon- 
 titicii), sed aliter illi, aliter nos. Nos dicimus esse instrumenta, su- 
 mendo hoc nomen large, quia Deus utitur is iis in conferendo nobis 
 
 gratiam Non ergo sunt sacramenta causse instrumentales 
 
 gratia, aliquid per se operando, sed quia sacramentis adhibitis Deus in 
 anima gratiam operatur ; ergo sacramenta nihil ex opere operato effi- 
 ciunt, id est, ob id tantum quia adhibentur." Preelection de Sacra- 
 mentis (p. 6'2-f)3). 
 
118 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY,, 
 
 or signified as a thing to be produced.* And hence, as 
 Sacraments are signs of effects really wrought, or to 
 be wrought by the grace of God, in them that believe, 
 therefore they are described as " effectual signs ; " not 
 because they produce the effects of which they are 
 signs (that is impossible), but because they are signs 
 of effects actually though invisibly produced, where 
 the grace of God is present to work with the sacra- 
 ment or sign.f 
 
 That this is the sense in which the composers 
 of our Articles used the expression "effectual signs," 
 may be easily made evident by a few quotations from 
 their writings. Thus, Cranmer, speaking of the pre- 
 scribed form for the administration of the Sacraments, 
 says, " Christ useth not so many words without effect- 
 ual signification ; " he " effectually worketh, not in the 
 bread and wine, but in the godly receiver of them " 
 (p. 34). Again: "Which although they (bread 
 wine, and water) have no holiness in them, yet they 
 be signs and tokens of the marvellous works and holy 
 effects which God worketh in us by his own omnipo- 
 tent power" (p. 11). Again: "And although the 
 
 * Sacraments are not, therefore, nuda et inefficacia signa, be- 
 cause, as Bishop Bedell says, " All that come to the sacrament, elect or 
 non-elect, receive the pardon of sin, original and actual, sacramentally ; 
 and whosoever performs the condition of the covenant, hath the 
 fruition of that, whereof before he had the grant under seal." 
 
 t The Franciscans make the sacraments to be effectual because 
 God gives them effectus regulariter concomitantes ; and to contain 
 grace no otherwise than as an effectual sign : and that grace is received 
 by them as an investiture by a ring or staff, that is, obsignan&o ; 
 which is an opinion that comes much nearer the truth than that held 
 by many of our professed Protestant divines. 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 119 
 
 sacramental tokens be only significations and figures, 
 yet doth Almighty God effectually work in them that 
 duly receive the sacraments, those divine and celestial 
 operations which he hath promised, and by the sacra- 
 ments be signified." Bishop Ridley remarks (p. 19), 
 that Christ's words spoken upon the cup are as " effect- 
 ual in signification" as spoken upon the bread. The 
 same writer in another place says, " I confess Christ's 
 natural body to be in the sacraments indeed by Spirit 
 and grace, because that whosoever receiveth worthily 
 that bread and wine, receiveth effectually Christ's body 
 and drinketh his blood (that is, he is made effect- 
 ually partaker of his passion)" (p. 274). Archbishop 
 Grindal observes (p. 62) that the sacrament "doth 
 effectually lay before the eyes Christ's body." Why ? 
 Obviously, not because it made his body to be actually 
 there (that was not his doctrine), nor because its end 
 was effectually wrought by the sacrament, but because 
 it was evidently, or in effect, as we say, seen in the 
 sign. Our Reformers never supposed the sign to have 
 any power in itself, or imparted to it, to produce its 
 signified effect ; for, to quote Cranmer (the original 
 author of our Articles) again, " Sacraments are signs 
 to assure us, not signs so much by carnal observation 
 to affect us, and work in us." * 
 
 * It is very curious that even Hooker uses the word " effectual " 
 in relation to the Sacraments, in the same qualified sense, when he 
 explains them to be " means effectual whereby God, when we take 
 the sacraments, delivereth into our hands that grace available unto 
 eternal life, which grace the sacraments represent or signify" not, be 
 it observed, themselves effectuate. 
 
120 SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 The doctrine which ascribes sacramental efficacy 
 to the outward signs per se is, we may observe, as un- 
 philosophical as it is theologically erroneous. The 
 whole of what we know of the operations of nature 
 (and " nature," we must remember, is but another name 
 for the method of God's working) tends to disprove 
 it. For how are all the great operations of nature 
 wrought ? Not by the things that we see around us 
 (they are but the signs of the Divine Power), but by 
 secret invisible agencies. We call those things indeed 
 causes, which fall under our observation as the imme- 
 diate agents ; but they are rather means and instru- 
 ments than, properly speaking, causes. We speak of 
 the earth as bringing forth, of the water as fructifying, 
 of the air as animating, and of the sun as ripening ; 
 but is it not really these agents that produce these 
 effects, but it is He who is the source of life, and the 
 energising influence in all agencies, who makes use 
 of these various means, and by them works their 
 several effects. Just so it is in relation to Sacra- 
 ments, only with this difference, that as the latter 
 have respect to a moral subject, and not a natural, 
 they work after a moral manner indeed, as signs of 
 God's grace, they address themselves directly to the 
 mind. 
 
 That some efficacy attends Sacraments, when 
 received rightly, only with this limitation as to the 
 mode, we may safely conclude. But what is the 
 precise nature or extent of the grace of Sacraments, 
 or how that grace operates to produce its effect, we 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 cannot pretend to determine ; nor does it boot for us 
 to know. It would be presumption in us to inquire 
 too nicely into the way in which God works upon the 
 human spirit to effect its regeneration ; nor does it 
 become us to pry too inquisitively into the reasons of 
 God's peculiar appointments. Let it suffice for us to be 
 certified that such and such things are ordained of 
 God, for such and such ends, and required of us as 
 the condition of benefits to be received, and then let 
 us, with child-like simplicity, submit to his appoint- 
 ments. To ordain laws is God's belie vingly to obey 
 is ours. 
 
 Of one thing, however, we may feel absolutely 
 certain ; and that is, that whatever grace accompanies 
 Sacraments, it is to be traced, not to the Sacraments 
 themselves, but to that Great Divine Spirit, the Third 
 Person in the Ever Blessed Trinity, who may, by way 
 of distinction, be described as Deity in action. All 
 souls are subject to his control, and may be benefited 
 by his secret operation. "It is the Spirit that 
 quicJceneth." 
 
 That He should please to work by means of visible 
 elements as signs, must be regarded only as an 
 economy accommodated so far to our sensible con- 
 dition, and designed in the way of help to our dull 
 apprehensions of spiritual realities. But that any real 
 virtue is in the elements themselves, or is imparted 
 through them, except as our faith in the Giver of all 
 grace makes them the medium of its apprehensions, 
 
SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY. 
 
 none can prove.* For Sacraments were not insti- 
 tuted to give grace, but to be witnesses of God's 
 grace. 
 
 " Christ," as Bullinger has well said, " is the 
 strength and substance of the Sacraments, by whom 
 only they are effectual, and without whom they are of 
 no power, virtue, or effect." He, through the Spirit, 
 who in the economy of redemption acts subordinately 
 to Him, works an effectual change in all those who 
 constitute the living members of his Church ; and 
 He, so far as by the help of reason and of Scripture, 
 we can ascertain, uses the symbol of the Sacrament 
 only as a symbol, to body forth to the eye the inscrut- 
 able spiritual benefit bestowed, and not as of itself 
 endued with, or possessing, any quickening power. 
 
 * On this point, again, Dr. William Whitaker supplies us with some 
 accurate distinctions : " Sacramenta efficere gratiam ut media et instru- 
 menta suo modo non negamus, sed quia illi (i.e., Pontificii) gratiam 
 ad sacramenta alligant, et in sacramentis includunt, sic ut per se gratiam 
 afferant, non possumus probare. Neque enim instituta in eum finem 
 sacramenta sunt, ut gratiam infundant ex natura sua et per se, aut ut 
 in se vim arcanam sanctificandi habebant perpetuo insitam, ut illi 
 volunt, sic ut, licet non credas promissionibus, tamen sacramenta 
 faciant ut credas, et te justificent. Nos vero sacramenta instituta 
 esse dicimus, non ut fidem infundant, sed ut fidem antea infusam 
 confirment in promissionibus, easdemque promissiones nobis obsignent ; 
 et vim sacramentorum earn esse dicimus ut iis, qui non credunt pro- 
 missionibus, nullam gratiam sacramenta conferant, iis vero qui credurit 
 maximam." (Prcelectiones de Sacramentis^. 7.) 
 
SYMBOLISM. 
 
 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 ESTHETICS have grown greatly into favour in this 
 age of revived ecclesiastical taste. It is the more 
 necessary, therefore, to inquire into their effects, to 
 ascertain, if possible, whether they rest upon a pure 
 religious basis, and whether the law of their influence 
 is such as to promote a robust and healthy, or only a 
 feeble parasitical piety. 
 
 It is an acknowledgment which has been made by 
 one of the most distinguished writers of the present 
 day on religious Art,* that this is a question of great 
 importance, and one which remains as yet " entirely 
 unanswered." An inquiry " dogged, merciless, and 
 fearless" into this subject is what, he says, he earn- 
 estly desires to see instituted. It may look like pre- 
 sumption in us to attempt to discuss so difficult a 
 question ; it would doubtless appear more modest to 
 leave it untouched for others, who may be better 
 capable of penetrating into its subtle depths, and 
 tracing the occult influences of this science of signs : 
 but in the absence of any criteria or guiding princi- 
 ples supplied by others to enable men to form any 
 decisive opinion one way or the other, we would 
 humbly endeavour to furnish them with some con- 
 
 * John Ruskin. 
 
124 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 siderations which may help them in determining 
 whether Symbolism is an aid or no to the actings of 
 true religion. 
 
 " There are, it seems to me," Mr. Ruskin says, 
 " three distinct questions to be considered : the first, 
 what has been the effect of external splendour on 
 the genuineness and earnestness of Christian worship ? 
 The second, what the use of pictorial or sculptural 
 representation in the communication of Christian 
 historical knowledge or excitement of affectionate 
 imagination? The third, what the influence of the 
 practice of religious art on the life of the artist ?" 
 (Note 2 at the end of the Seven Lamps.) 
 
 The last of these is a question that lies quite out 
 of our line ; into this, therefore, we shall not enter ; 
 but to the two former, which we may conveniently 
 condense into one under the general inquiry, How 
 far Symbolism, or the use of visible emblems and aids 
 to devotion, is consistent with the spirituality and truth, 
 and conducive to the ends of Christian worship, we 
 hope to be able to supply some answer. 
 
 Symbolism has been defined to be, " the having 
 something in common with another by representative 
 quality:" or, to take Mr. Ruskin's own definition, 
 "it is the setting forth of a great truth by an im- 
 perfect and inferior sign." Whichever of these defi- 
 nitions we take, it is evidently supposed that there is 
 a real analogy or correspondence, if not in nature, at 
 least in some particular property or feature between 
 the sign used and the thing signified. And what we 
 
SYMBOLISM. 125 
 
 have to ascertain is, whether there be anything by 
 representative quality between the spiritual verities of 
 religion and the symbols usually adopted to set them 
 forth ; and also what is the real nature of the influ- 
 ence which they exert upon the worship which we 
 seek to render to the Most High.* 
 
 The basis of all true worship, it will be admitted, 
 is to be found in that sublime " announcement made 
 by the Great Teacher of mankind to the woman of 
 Samaria " God is a Spirit." This truth, simple as 
 it is, had never been discovered by the philosophers of 
 antiquity. It was new even, in this positive form, to 
 the pages of Revelation. The Jews, in common with 
 the Samaritans, though taught to regard Jehovah 
 without any similitude, still imagined him to be local, 
 or more to be worshipped in one place than in an- 
 other. And as to the conceptions of the most acute 
 among the Heathen, the very highest of them never 
 went beyond imagining Deity to be the soul of 
 the universe, which was a kind of spiritual Pantheism ; 
 while the great mass of the people among them con- 
 ceived of Him, and were in the habit of worshipping 
 
 * There are many collateral considerations, cross-influences and 
 questions, connected with this subject, into which it will be impossi- 
 ble for us to enter within the compass of a limited essay. All that 
 we can do here is to lay down certain broad indisputable principles, 
 without staying to inquire how they have been or may be modified, BO 
 as to be guarded against abuse by other influences. Should, however, 
 this, our first attempt to fathom a difficult question meet with accept- 
 ance, we may, perhaps, at some future day endeavour to follow it out 
 in all its bearings and relation?, corroborating our arguments by 
 historic facts. 
 
126 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 Him, under the grossest bodily shapes and represen- 
 tations. But Christ swept away the false conceptions 
 of the one, and corrected the mistaken notions of the 
 others, by the vivid and decisive declaration " God 
 is a Spirit ; and they that worship him must wor- 
 ship him in spirit and in truth." 
 
 There is something in this assertion, " God is a 
 Spirit," that purifies while it expands to a boundless 
 degree all our conceptions of the Great Supreme. 
 It separates Deity at once from all connection with 
 whatever is gross or degrading in the ideal, by separ- 
 ating him from all that is corruptible, local, seen, 
 limited, material, and perishable. It scatters into 
 nothingness all notions of time, place, form, figure, 
 or possible created similitude in relation to Him, and, 
 by necessary consequence, all the accidents and 
 elements of imperfection, elevating Him to an infinite 
 and eternal distance above all visible things, his 
 only temple the universe the only altar where he is 
 worshipped, the inmost recess of the human soul 
 the only shrine in which he dwells, his own glorious 
 perfections. 
 
 The nature of the Object of worship must neces- 
 sarily determine the mode and kind of worship that 
 is to be rendered to him. Men of science know 
 full well, that if they would not be deceived in their 
 theories they must make them consistent with facts. 
 It is thus we must proceed if we would not err in 
 our theorising in the matter of theology. We must 
 seek to obtain true notions of the nature of God, 
 
SYMBOLISM. 127 
 
 of his peculiar perfections, which are the constituent 
 elements of his glorious character, the right know- 
 ledge of which is the grand pre-requisite to all suitable 
 and acceptable worship. What, then, are the pro- 
 perties of God, considered simply as a Spirit ? It is 
 only by going back to first principles in regard to the 
 Deity, getting them clearly recognised by the mind, 
 and admitted as data, that we can resolve the ques- 
 tion, " What is the true nature of religious worship," 
 or guard ourselves against the admission of elements 
 which go to vitiate its whole character. 
 
 Now spirit, it may be observed, is distinguished 
 from matter by these properties, power, invisibility, 
 and incapability of being made to assume any particular 
 shape or figure. 
 
 First, power is the property of spirit. It is a 
 vulgar mistake to suppose that matter, as such, 
 possesses any power. It has not the power even to 
 put itself in motion. Wherever there is motion, or 
 active life, there spirit in some form or other is the 
 mighty agent that produces it. God, as the Great 
 Eternal Spirit, is the prime original mover of all things, 
 the cause of all causes, the life of all life ; and the 
 effects which we witness around us in the world are 
 but the signs, the passing shadows of his hidden and 
 mysterious power. And it is not only matter he con- 
 trols, but mind, only with this difference in the mode 
 (which is a point not to be overlooked), that he acts 
 on matter intermediately through matter, and on 
 mind through mind. No evidence or proof of any 
 
128 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 kind can be adduced to show that the Divine Ruler ever 
 violates this law of action, or confuses material and 
 moral laws one with another, in their operation in 
 producing their distinctive effects. If discrepant 
 cases seem to arise, or effects are wrought which 
 appear to be of a spiritual kind, and. yet are traceable 
 to material agencies, it must be that man's powers, 
 being perverted, work backwards where they ought to 
 work forwards, or that there is some latent decep- 
 tion in the whole process. For it is so certain, that we 
 may lay it down as an axiom, that the effect of matter 
 on mind is only, always, and invariably to deaden 
 the effect of mind on matter to quicken. 
 
 Another property of spirit is invisibility. It is as 
 a pure Spirit that the. Lord is the " invisible God" 
 Spirit, even in the common acceptation of the word, 
 is a thing that cannot be seen it is too subtle to be 
 the object of vision. But invisibility necessarily 
 belongs to Him who is infinite. Were it possible for 
 him to be the object of sight, he must be limited and 
 local, and by necessary consequences could not be 
 infinite. But infinite he must be in order to be God, 
 and to govern all things. As being infinite, he can- 
 not be pictured to the human eye under any form, nor 
 figured out according to his true nature by any act or 
 skill of man, as the apostle justly argued in his 
 sublime discourse to the Athenians. It is a further 
 property of spirit, then, or rather consequence of its 
 nature, that it is incapable of being made to assume 
 any definite visible shape or figure. This is true of 
 
SYMBOLISM. 129 
 
 all spirit as spirit, and especially of the great Infinite 
 Spirit. 
 
 From considering what are the properties of spirit in 
 general, let us proceed to notice those which are pecu- 
 liar to God as God or the infinite Eternal Spirit, the 
 source of all power, the Creator and Preserver of all 
 other spirits or as he is emphatically denominated in 
 the scriptures, " the Father of spirits." As such, the 
 following things may be predicated of him, that he is 
 necessarily eternal, immaterial, omnipresent, and pos- 
 sessed of infinite wisdom and intelligence, himself filing 
 all things, yet distinct from them, and confined to no 
 place. 
 
 1 . He is eternal, and the alone eternal. Matter 
 cannot be eternal, for matter is continually under- 
 going change, whereas that which exists from all 
 eternity must be absolutely unchangeable. It must 
 exist of itself, and continue for ever to exist by a law 
 of necessity, incapable of annihilation by any power 
 whatever; which obviously is not the property of 
 matter. Besides matter is perfectly passive, and 
 could not of itself give the varied forms of beautiful 
 life, and still less create the intelligent agents which 
 we behold in the world around us. Reason and 
 understanding, we know, exist in certain creatures. 
 And since they could not arise out of nothing, nor can 
 be produced by any combination of material elements 
 within created power, they must have had an intelli- 
 gent author. Intelligence and understanding can no 
 more arise out of what had none, than matter could 
 
 J 
 
130 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 spring from nothing. It is spirit that thinks. It is 
 spirit that gives life and intelligence. Nothing but 
 spirit, then, could have existed from eternity. 
 
 The reason why God must necessarily be an im- 
 material Being is, that the powers of thought and of 
 moral intelligence are the attributes of mind and not 
 of matter, and must necessarily have existed before 
 matter, in order to give existence and form to matter. 
 They cannot belong to what is material ; for whatever 
 is material is divisible into an indefinite number of 
 parts, and what properties belonged to the whole would 
 attach to all the parts, and thus there might be, not 
 one God, but many. But God is one, and can be 
 but one, because he is eternal. 
 
 It is equally certain, we may remark, that that 
 which has existed from eternity can be only good. 
 To suppose that that spiritual evil which we find in 
 the world has existed from the beginning is palpably 
 absurd : for " spiritual evil is a deviation from a given 
 rule ;" and both the rule, and the giver of it, must 
 have existed before the deviation. That which exists 
 from eternity is alone subject to no rule ; it is a law 
 to itself; it exists quite independently of our con- 
 ceptions, retaining through all changes its own 
 unchangeable nature. 
 
 Omnipresence is another property of God as a Spirit. 
 To give life to all things, and to govern all things, he- 
 must necessarily be present with all things. As our 
 souls must be present in our bodies to animate and 
 govern them, so God must be present in every 
 
SYMBOLISM. 131 
 
 part of the animated universe filling all space, 
 penetrating all substances, pervading all minds, in 
 order that they may be upheld, animated, directed. 
 
 As an omnipresent and an intelligent Spirit, he 
 would seem necessarily also to be omniscient. All the 
 perfections of God, indeed, are coequal as they are co- 
 existent. As where our minds are, we are for the 
 moment; so as God is all mind, there is no place 
 where he is not to observe, to see, to know. He is 
 privy to all purposes. He is present in all times as 
 well as in all places. Eternity is his habitation ; time 
 and place are only the standing points, the platform, 
 from which we survey his mighty ongoing operations. 
 He is round about us on every side, within us, 
 and judges of us not by our outward actions, but by 
 our inmost thoughts. There is no escaping from his 
 scrutiny ; he looks through us with his penetrating 
 glance ; his eye follows us wheresoever we go. Hence 
 those words of the Psalmist : " Whither shall I flee 
 from thy Spirit, or whither shall I go from thy pre- 
 sence ?" In God we live and move and have our 
 being. He is also in everything around us. All nature 
 is full of God. And yet we must not confound him 
 with his works : this would be Pantheism. He is 
 distinct from them as mind is distinct from matter 
 as distinct from them as we are personally distinct 
 from the things around us upon which we operate. 
 Distinct personal existence is the necessary property of 
 mind. As our soul can be present in the body without 
 destroying any of its properties, so God, as a pure 
 
 J 2 
 
132 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 Spirit, and infinite, can be present in the same place 
 with all material substances without displacing or 
 destroying any of their properties. Wherever he is 
 present (and that is everywhere), it is in real power, 
 and in all his plenitude. But see him, hear him, feel 
 him, take measure of him, we cannot. His manner 
 of existence, how he can be in all things, and yet 
 distinct from them, everywhere present, and yet, pro- 
 perly speaking, in no place, is a mystery that goes 
 altogether beyond our comprehension. 
 
 The question, then, here presses upon us, " How 
 can we worship such a Being ; a Being without any 
 definite form or figure, and having no local habi- 
 tation ?" Is it possible for us to realise his presence 
 and approach him, without some visible medium, some 
 material or symbolic representation to bring him 
 sensibly before us ? Are not such aids absolutely 
 necessary to creatures constituted as we are ? The 
 statement of our Lord frowns back the idea : " God 
 is a Spirit ; and they that worship him must worship 
 in spirit and in truth." 
 
 We must endeavour, therefore, it would seem, to 
 discover some other method whereby the conditions of 
 this great primary dogmatic truth may be fulfilled 
 without recourse had to any material or symbolic 
 aids. We must be prepared to show that there are 
 other means by which, without at all infringing upon 
 the pure spirituality of his nature, we may contem- 
 plate and worship God. 
 
 Where is the seat of devotion ? Undoubtedly it 
 
SYMBOLISM. 133 
 
 is the inmost soul ; and by the emotions of the soul 
 alone can all its acts be carried on, without the aid of 
 any sensible objects. The mental faculty or power 
 whereby we judge and discern moral truths is not itself 
 material ; and so far from finding help from outward 
 material things, it is obliged to withdraw itself from 
 all bodily operations, and infold itself within itself 
 whenever it would nakedly behold truth. The 
 brightest image of God is to be found in the consti- 
 tution of the human soul. That is the only glass at 
 least in which it can be clearly reflected. Material and 
 sensible objects in their very nature are contradictory 
 to the Divine, and do but darken and obscure his image ; 
 but the soul, in its essence and qualities, is, so to speak, 
 congenerous with Deity, and endowed with the same 
 properties. Hence it is into the breast -plate of our 
 own souls we must look, if we would behold the true 
 Urim andThummim in which we may read the glowing ? 
 mystic characters of the Divine nature and will, and 
 hold direct converse with the invisible Eternal Spirit. 
 God, it has been justly remarked, "could write 
 his own name, so that it might be read, only in 
 rational natures." The material objects of the 
 exterior and sensible world bear at the most only 
 the footprints of Deity. In the soul of man we behold 
 as in a mirror his very face. Hence it was that 
 Plato, seeing into things with a purer vision than 
 the other men of his age, often reproved them for 
 their resort to pictures and images to put them in 
 mind of the eot, and exhorted them to look rather 
 
134 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 into their own souls for the knowledge of God, the 
 seat of his dwelling, and the shrine of his worship, 
 telling them that God had so copied himself into 
 the faculties and energies and moral qualities of man's 
 soul, that the lovely characters of divinity might be 
 seen and read there of all men to the very life. 
 
 It needs only to be duly reflected on in order to be 
 perceived, that all material signs and visible emblems 
 must utterly fail even to image forth the things 
 that pertain to God as a Spirit. God is without 
 beginning ; but all material things had a begin- 
 ning.* He is the living God, but they are dead; 
 and how can anything which is lifeless be a fit 
 symbol to represent the Everliving? A spirit has 
 power ; but material things, as we have already 
 remarked, have no power. A spirit is necessarily 
 invisible, and cannot be represented substantively ; 
 a spirit is shapeless, and cannot be shaped forth 
 in any kind of figure ; but all material and visible 
 objects have form and figure. God, as the Father of 
 spirits, is eternal, self-originated, immaterial, immuta- 
 ble, omnipresent, and everlasting, and under what pos- 
 sible sensible images can any one paint or represent 
 these purely abstract ideas? Everything material is 
 
 * This is the meaning of those somewhat obscurely translated 
 words, " For all those thing's" (the materials with which you are build- 
 ing a house to my name) " hath mine hand made, and all those things 
 have been (more properly have had a beginning to be) saith the Lord," 
 in Isaiah Ixvi. 2. There could not be a more sublime reproof than this 
 whole passage, of that littleness of conception in regard to the Deity, 
 which leads men to suppose that they can build temples, as they ex- 
 press it, " worthy of God." 
 
SYMBOLISM. 
 
 necessarily limited and local ; but God' 
 no place, dwelling in his own immensity. Even this 
 glorious world which he has made, but very faintly 
 shadows forth his perfections. The soft upshooting 
 light from behind the everlasting mountains, when 
 the sun has just set, though it carries away our 
 imagination into boundlessness by having no definable 
 border, and seeming to tell of bright regions lying 
 away and away without limit, gives us but a shadowy, 
 though the best sensible idea, perhaps, of his infinity. 
 
 The only means through which we can know God 
 is by his attributes : his essence is inscrutable. Those 
 attributes are displayed in his works and ways, his 
 acts and doings. But still they are objects of 
 contemplation only to the mind ; and it is by the 
 mind alone, or the moral intelligence within us, they 
 can be understood as attributes of the Deity, so as to 
 convey to us, when combined, like the prismatic 
 colours in the sun, a mental image of his pure spiritual 
 brightness. 
 
 The difference between Theology and Religion lies 
 chiefly in this, that Theology furnishes us with right 
 notions of those attributes as constituting the cha- 
 racter, name, or personality, of the Being who is to 
 be worshipped : Religion consists in their felt relation 
 to ourselves with corresponding actions. 
 
 Spiritual devotion needs no place for its actings, for 
 it never finds itself out of the infinite sphere of the 
 divinity ; but wherever it beholds beauty, law, harmony, 
 goodness, love, wisdom, holiness, justice, truth, there it 
 
136 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 finds some line and trace of God, and by means of 
 these perfections it mounts up as by a ladder of sun- 
 beams to the invisible dwelling-place of Deity. 
 
 Nothing* can be more self-evident than that the 
 worship which shall give to God the honour due to 
 his name must be like God in its nature : in other 
 words, it must be purely spiritual. The external 
 manifestations of it are for the benefit of our fellow - 
 men : the essential character of it must have respect 
 to God. The homage we render to a king must be 
 visible, because he is visible; but it must also be 
 suited to the dignity of the king, or it would be re- 
 garded as an insult. The Infinite Supreme cannot 
 allow himself, because of his unchangeable perfections, 
 to be viewed or treated in any way that is unworthy 
 or inconsistent with his character and true nature. It 
 is on the ground that God is a Spirit that our Lord 
 affirms, "they that worship him must worship him 
 in spirit and in truth" * To worship him in spirit 
 
 * It is a point of some moment to the determination of the ques-^ 
 tion now before us, What is the true force and meaning 1 of these words? 
 Mr. Ruskin, in his second volume of the Stones of Venice, makes the 
 following extraordinary observation upon this remark of our Lord's : 
 " Observe Christ's own words on this head : ' GOD is a spirit, and they 
 that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.' The wor- 
 shipping in spirit comes first, and it does not necessarily imply the 
 worshipping- in truth." What a strange assertion to come from a man 
 of so much sense ! What could have called it forth ! Sadder even is 
 the occasion of its being made, than the misinterpretation it is put 
 forth as a sort of apology for Madonna worship ! But the falseness of 
 the distinction here attempted to be drawn between different kinds of 
 worshippers may be easily made manifest. Our Lord asserts two things 
 to be necessary to the worshipping of God as a Spirit. Mr. Ruskin says 
 that both of these are not absolutely necessary, but that the one will 
 
SYMBOLISM. 137 
 
 undoubtedly means to worship him in the inner 
 shrine of the soul, with pure, spiritual thoughts and 
 emotions, and not as dwelling in place : to worship 
 him in truth, as undoubtedly means to worship him 
 without any of those material symbols and representa- 
 tions which, from their very nature, viewed in relation 
 to Him, are opposed to truth. The only things, then, 
 on which we are allowed to fix our gaze (and this 
 must be by the mind's eye) are those bright, eternal 
 perfections of God through which alone we can know 
 him, and which constitute his true, essential beauty. 
 Ideas of GOD are what we are allowed to form, but 
 not, strictly speaking, conceptions. We are to con- 
 template him as he exists in his pure spirituality, and 
 not to aim to give him in our thoughts any form of 
 objectivity. 
 
 It may be objected to this view of the matter, that 
 the process is too abstract ; that it is impossible for 
 us to apprehend God as a pure Spirit ; that to attempt 
 to do so is to send our thoughts forth to float in a region 
 of boundless vacuity, where they can find no resting- 
 
 suffice when the other is wanting 1 . To illustrate the absurdity of this, just 
 suppose the statement to be To build a church you must have stone 
 and cement : Who would think of interpreting this to mean, only that 
 the cement was very desirable, but not as necessarily included as the 
 stone. Or again, canvass and colour together make a picture. The 
 canvass is absolutely necessary, but this statement does not necessarily 
 imply the presence of the colour! The fact is, our Lord's words here are 
 a hendiadys, and used to describe what he means by the "true worship- 
 pers" The " true worshippers" according to him, are those who 
 " worship the Father in spirit and in truth," and others are no wor- 
 shippers of God at all, but only of the idols of their own imaginations ; 
 or, as he had just said, of they " know not what." 
 
138 SYMBOLISM, 
 
 place ; that from the very constitution of our nature 
 we must body forth the Deity to our conceptions 
 under some shape or form, to realise his existence 
 at all. But this is shallow thinking. Take, for 
 example, the human soul, which is a spirit. Is it 
 necessary to conceive of this under any bodily shape 
 or form in order to make it the subject of our medi- 
 tative contemplation ? Can we not regard it simply as 
 moral intelligence, existing abstractly, and reflect upon 
 its wonderful properties as such, just as we can con- 
 ceive of rectitude from our innate idea of the thing, 
 without actually drawing a straight line to represent 
 it? 
 
 Our arguments hitherto have applied only to pure 
 Theism ; and so far, we suppose, they will be ad- 
 mitted to be valid. But there is another view of the 
 question, which is, How far Symbolism stands in an 
 authorised relation to the great facts and doctrines 
 and Divine Author of Christianity ? Here, it may be 
 thought, it finds a normal sanction, inasmuch as " the 
 second commandment is, in the letter, utterly done 
 away with, by the fact of the Incarnation." Such 
 is the bold statement which has been advanced by no 
 mean authority (the late Dr. Arnold). It becomes the 
 more necessary, therefore, that we should weigh care- 
 fully all that can be adduced in support of Symbolism* 
 
 * The symbolism which we are here discussing 1 is not, it will be 
 observed, that verbal symbolism which consists in the use of meta- 
 phors and figures of speech; but the embodied symbolism of 
 sculptured or pictorial representation. 
 
SYMBOLISM. 139 
 
 as a supposed legitimate aid to devotion under the 
 Christian economy. 
 
 First, it has been argued that " God has sanctioned 
 one conceivable similitude of himself, when he de- 
 clared himself in the person of Christ." (Idem.} The 
 passages of Scripture which have been supposed to 
 warrant this conclusion are such as those in which 
 he is declared to be "the image of the invisible 
 God" "the express image of his person;" and Christ's 
 own words to Philip, " he that hath seen me hath 
 seen the Father." But in this view of these ex- 
 pressions it is not difficult to detect a fallacy of 
 conception resting upon a false interpretation. These 
 statements cannot possibly refer to the visible or 
 bodily nature of Christ (and it is only in that nature 
 he can be depicted) ; for in that there was nothing out- 
 wardly distinctive from the nature of other human 
 beings, except indeed that "his visage was more 
 marred than any man's, and his form than the sons 
 of men." It would manifestly be profane to imagine 
 that this was expressive of Deity. It must have 
 been rather in his acts in those moral qualities and 
 divine perfections of character which he displayed 
 that he was the image of the invisible God; and 
 that he who had seen the Son had seen the Father. 
 This, Jesus himself has explained to have been his 
 meaning by declaring that the words which he spake, 
 and the works which he performed, were not done by 
 himself (that is, as man), but "by the Father that 
 dwelt in him" (John xiv. 10). If those words and 
 
140 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 works, or rather the principles from which they 
 sprang, can be depicted to the natural eye, or em- 
 bodied in any material form, then may a fitting symbol 
 be invented to represent Incarnate Deity. 
 
 This disposes of the shallow observation made by 
 Dr. Arnold, and of all observations of the like kind. 
 
 The most that lies within the power of art is to 
 produce the figure of a man, drawn, if you please, 
 after the most perfect type, and then, by an arbitrary 
 association of ideas, to call this figure " Christ." But 
 it can body forth, however life-like, nothing, above 
 what is human, unless it is in the power of the human 
 to produce what is divine. Whether it be a living 
 Christ or a dead Christ that is intended to be repre- 
 sented, you can make no observable distinction between 
 him and any other man under the like circumstances, 
 but by some artifice of art (such as the nimbus around 
 his head), and not in truth. The crayon touches 
 of fiction must be brought in to give even an ideal dis- 
 tinction to your figure. And even these will prove 
 deficient. For let it be a dying Christ you wish to depict. 
 Your pencil may portray his sufferings in their visible 
 effects, but it cannot portray the invisible causes of 
 them. It may portray the accursed tree, but not the 
 curse of the law there borne. It may portray Christ 
 bearing the cross to Calvary, but not Christ bearing 
 the sins of many. You may depict the nails piercing 
 his sacred, sinless flesh, but who can depict eternal 
 justice piercing both flesh and spirit ? You may trace 
 the form of the soldier's spear, but not the soul-strokes 
 
SYMBOLISM. 141 
 
 of a sin-hating God the cup of vinegar put to his 
 mouth, but not the cup of wrath which he drank to 
 the lowest dregs the derision of the Jews, but not 
 the desertion of the Almighty. You may describe the 
 blood issuing from his body, but not the waters of 
 life streaming from his Divinity, pouring out oceans 
 of spiritual and eternal blessings. You may paint 
 the crown of thorns, but not the crown of glory he 
 purchased.* Still less can you portray the living 
 virtues of the Redeemer, the inward excellences from 
 which flowed all the virtue of his acts that divine 
 benignity which glowed in his bosom the wonderful 
 gentleness and compassion sustained by conscious 
 power and authority, which characterised his whole 
 demeanour. All these things, and many others of the 
 like kind, can be contemplated aright only as the sub- 
 jects of a sanctified imagination, or through the 
 spiritual perceptions of faith; and to attempt to 
 embody them in material symbols, is but to sub- 
 stitute eyes of stone for eyes of flesh, and to seek 
 the living among the dead. The fact of his birth, 
 or of his death, you may indeed, by this means, bring 
 to mind ; but by no such means can you teach the 
 doctrine which either of those facts involves. 
 
 One great end, it would appear from Scripture, 
 for which Christ became incarnate and died, was to 
 manifest the exceeding great love of God towards 
 mankind his mercy towards the guilty a thing 
 
 * For these observations I am indebted to Maclaurin's celebrated 
 sermon on " Glorying in the Cross of Christ." 
 
1 42 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 which could not be learned from his operations in 
 nature. But this unspeakable love is what no pencil 
 of the painter can portray it can be conceived of 
 only by the mind, and is to be learned from the 
 Redeemer's acts, not from his bodily form. For the 
 purpose of teaching, then, or even for the excitement 
 of the highest and purest form of affection , as distin- 
 guished from mere animal tenderness, such religious 
 aids as images or pictures of Christ are obviously 
 powerless. Your carved or painted figure is dead, 
 and as dead, it cannot speak with a living pow r er : it 
 possesses not one single thing in common with Divinity; 
 and, therefore, as a representation of him "in whom 
 was life" it can be no true symbol to convey true notions 
 of the Godhead, even as it dwelt in Christ bodily. 
 
 Whether it be lawful to make use of any such 
 representations of the God-man Christ Jesus in our 
 religious worship is another question. But if it be, 
 and if images and pictures of Christ were intended to 
 be a medium for instructing us in the divine character, 
 or of exciting our devout affections, it is surely a most 
 unaccountable circumstance that there should have 
 been no print of him struck off no true likeness 
 taken, and handed down, under apostolic authority, 
 as an heirloom to the Church. We might have ex- 
 pected, upon this hypothesis, that there would have 
 been one exact resemblance sketched, and most care- 
 fully preserved by divine ordainment ; true copies of 
 which the Church should have the privilege of fur- 
 nishing to all her worshippers. But even the Romish 
 
SYMBOLISM. 143 
 
 Church, with all her audacity in idolatry, has never 
 pretended to such a possession, except her pseudo- 
 print upon a pocket-handkerchief ! * 
 
 It is a fact by no means to be forgotten in the 
 discussion of this question, that God has withdrawn 
 Christ altogether from our view. Surely there must 
 be some reason for this surely this must have some 
 end ? If we inquire from Scripture what that end 
 is, we learn that it was with the very purpose of 
 obliging us to believe on him without beholding him 
 with the bodily eye. It is an infringement, indeed, 
 upon the great law of faith to presume to depict him 
 now to the sight. Thomas believed because he had 
 seen : more blessed is he who believes without seeing. 
 
 Great as are the advantages in many respects of 
 being able to fix our eyes upon the object, or even 
 upon a picture of the object of our affections, or of 
 any person upon whom we are depending for benefits, 
 a little consideration will show that in our religious 
 regards it is far better that we should not be able to 
 
 o 
 
 fasten our gaze on the object whom we desire to love 
 and adore. 
 
 Sublime greatness, by an inevitable law of human 
 feeling, becomes invested with the attribute of little- 
 ness, and its impression on the mind is consequently 
 diminished, the instant it is presented to us under a 
 
 * Respecting the Sudarium shown by the Romanists, of which it 
 may be remarked there are six rival ones, the learned Romish doctors 
 solve the difficulty by saying that the handkerchief applied to our 
 Lord's face consisted of several* folds, consequently the impression of 
 the countenance went through them all, and they are all genuine ! 
 
144 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 definite, conceivable, precisely outlined form. If the 
 Divine Redeemer, then, be presented to us con- 
 tinually under the aspect of a mere pictured man, 
 it necessarily restricts, limits, and narrows our con- 
 ception of Him. Our view is hereby drawn and 
 confined down to a precise image of human person- 
 alityan individual graphical form sending forth no 
 rays of divinity is placed before us and to that form our 
 contemplations are, by the direct and obstinate power of 
 the senses, restricted. Thus our ideas of him become 
 all darkened. It is the mere human quality of 
 the being we behold, with all its accidents of mortal 
 condition, that fastens most strongly on our minds, 
 and it becomes next to impossible for the thoughts to 
 clothe that Being with any of the glory of a super- 
 human majesty. There is no scope left for the ele- 
 vating actings of the imagination ; it cannot expand 
 itself into splendid ideal conception, as it can upon a 
 Being who is contemplated as glorious only through 
 his recorded wonderful works and excellences. Thus 
 it appears that there is a positive loss, in the use of a 
 sensible image to bring Christ before us, of all those 
 diviner elements of his Being which excite the 
 sublimest kind of affection. 
 
 There was a constant tendency in the minds of 
 the apostles to view their Lord through the humili- 
 ating accidents of his humanity, and to lose sight of 
 his divine but hidden glory. To keep this in check 
 seems to have been the chief reason why he wrought 
 some of his particular and most god-like miracles- 
 such as quelling the tempest on the sea. And to 
 
SYMBOLISM. 145 
 
 correct this tendency so as to prevent their entertain- 
 ing low ideas of Him, was probably the proximate 
 design of the Transfiguration a scene which no human 
 pencil, though dipped in the colours of heaven, can 
 adequately portray. 
 
 Great, then, as we may imagine would be 
 the advantages of being able to fix the sight upon 
 some visible representation of the object whom we 
 adore, there are manifestly greater in leaving 
 the conceptions free ; for the mind can then array 
 the Lord Christ in every glory which speculation, 
 imagination, adoring reverence, can combine, in an 
 ideal of the magnificence of the exalted Mediator. 
 
 And this mode of conceiving of him, we may 
 remark, was clearly intended, because all the Scrip- 
 ture descriptions of him in his exaltation (we might 
 specify in particular the visions of St. John) are of 
 the most transcendent and unearthly kind. 
 
 It is quite a mistake to suppose that we cannot 
 give as intense and glowing an affection and admira- 
 tion to an unseen but admired object, as to a seen. 
 We know by experience that it is perfectly possible 
 to view beings whom our eyes never have fastened 
 upon, even in picture, with the most animated interest 
 and satisfaction. Who needs the picture or statue 
 of a Howard to convey to his mind a vivid con- 
 ception of that noble self-sacrificing philanthropist? 
 or of a Wilberforce, to give him an enlarged idea of 
 the mental magnitude of that eloquent advocate for 
 the emancipation of the slave ? 
 
 K 
 
146 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 If it had been the divine intention that Christ 
 should be worshipped as a visible object, or through 
 the form and figure of a man set before our eyes ; or 
 had this mode of drawing near to him been condu- 
 cive to the purity and earnestness of Christian wor- 
 ship, then what we might reasonably have anticipated 
 would be, not that he should have been withdrawn 
 from our sight, but rather that he would have been 
 elevated in visible glory in the heavens, where all his 
 true servants, being gifted with the special kind of 
 vision which was bestowed on Elisha's servant, 
 might behold him, and pay to him the adorations of 
 their admiring homage. But no such economy, 
 nor anything approaching to it, is that established 
 under the New Testament: on the contrary, 
 "if any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new 
 creature ; " " and though we have known Christ after 
 the flesk, yet now henceforth know we him (i. e., after 
 this manner) no more." (2 Cor. v. 16.) 
 
 The great lesson which it seems to have been in- 
 tended we should be taught by this economy is, that 
 God requires us to walk on in the dark towards the 
 heavenly Canaan as he did Abraham, in the exercise 
 of a brave, unquestioning, trustful faith, with no one to 
 go before us, and no light to guide us, but his direct- 
 ing voice taking him simply at his word, seeing, as 
 faith will enable us to see, " Him who is invisible," 
 and following, where he leads the way, with un- 
 faltering step. 
 
 It is a point which we must by no means fail to 
 
SYMBOLISM. 147 
 
 notice, in our endeavours to judge of the lawfulness and 
 suitability of visible symbols to body forth our Divine 
 unseen Saviour as an object of worship, that it is only 
 his human nature that can be represented in picture, and 
 it is not in his human nature, but in his divine, that he 
 is to be the object of our worship. His human nature 
 is the medium only of mediation. He took that for 
 the purpose of suffering death, of entering into the 
 presence of God as our High Priest, and of finally 
 judging us as man. By worshipping him represen- 
 tatively under the accidents of his bodily form, we do 
 in fact worship that part of him which was created, 
 rather than that which was divine. But waiving this* 
 he has now a " glorified " body, which cannot possibly 
 be portrayed, for that is what no eye hath seen. This 
 glorified body is, too, a "spiritual" body, and as being 
 spiritual it is contradictory to its very nature to represent 
 it as material. It is by its very condition invisible,* in- 
 vested with inconceivable splendours, exalted far 
 above all heavens, and by its conjunction with Deity 
 fills all things. What an indignity then, and a de- 
 gradation, is done to him to represent him still, 
 when we would worship him, as he appeared in the 
 days of his humiliation. How obvious is it that the 
 effect of this must be to lower and degrade him, rather 
 than to elevate and improve us. It just reverses, in- 
 deed, what appears to have been the Divine intention ; 
 for instead of making his humanity the means of 
 
 * The reader would do well to refer to 1 Tim. i. 17 and 1 Tim. vi. 
 14, 15, 16, in connection with these statements of ours. 
 
 K 2 
 
148 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 exalting us to Divinity, it brings down, and keeps 
 down, Divinity to the level of our poor debased 
 humanity. 
 
 Conclusive beyond all question as these arguments 
 seem to be against the use of pictures and images of 
 the person of Christ in Divine worship, the same 
 objection, it may be thought, does not lie against the 
 agnus Dei as a symbol of him* because Christ is 
 spoken of by St. John as appearing in the form of a 
 Lamb slain even in heaven. In thus representing 
 him, however, in a material image, it is to be ob- 
 served that we are stereotyping as literal that which 
 was obviously intended to be understood figuratively. 
 The term, " the Lamb," is a well known appellation 
 for the Messiah and when John the Baptist pointed 
 him out to his disciples under the expression, " Be- 
 hold the Lamb of God," we should hardly think they 
 looked to see the literal form of a lamb. When the 
 term only is used, the mind immediately transfers the 
 idea to the man Christ Jesus suffering for the sins of 
 the world ; but when the actual form of a lamb is 
 presented as an object for sensible observation, it is the 
 creature rather than the doctrine upon which the mind 
 fastens, and the figurative semblance becomes per- 
 petuated rather than the reality. If this emblem of 
 Christ cannot be justified, when put before us in a 
 
 * The Council of Constantinople, held in 692 ? positively prohibited 
 the use of this symbol, and commanded to be substituted for it the 
 human figure of our Saviour. The object of this was to put history 
 in the place of Symbolism, 
 
SYMBOLISM. 149 
 
 substantive material form, still less can such obscure 
 ones as the pelican and the fish. 
 
 The only plausible reason that we can conceive of, 
 as what might be urged in favour of the fantastic 
 figure of a lamb carrying a cross (the common mode of 
 sculpturing this emblem), would be, that it was only a 
 symbolic form of setting forth a fact ; but it cannot 
 be doubted, that it is generally looked upon as re- 
 presentative of the Pwson of the Saviour, and an aid 
 in the worship of Him, in which view, like the golden 
 calf, it must be an idol. But symbolism once admitted, 
 does not stay even where it might seem to have Scrip- 
 ture sanction, it has indulged in unlimited phanta- 
 sies. Hence, even the griffin (0 nefandum !) has been 
 employed as a symbol to denote " the union of the 
 divine and human natures in the person of Christ ;" 
 and how can this be defended ? 
 
 There is another symbol used, and very common 
 in our churches, for the Third Person of the ever 
 blessed Trinity, which we shall be expected not to 
 pass by unnoticed. The figure of a Dove, descend- 
 ing amidst painted rays of glory, is an emblem of the 
 Holy Ghost, which seems at first sight to have a 
 direct Divine sanction, because it was in " a bodily 
 shape like a dove " aupariKy &, (Luke iii. 22), he 
 descended upon Christ at his baptism. But even in 
 regard to this it may be doubted whether we have not 
 taken the liberty of converting a mere visible sign to 
 certify to a fact into a standing idol in violation of 
 the letter, if not of the spirit, of the second command- 
 
150 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 ment.* For the Scripture does not say that the Holy 
 Ghost descended and lighted upon Christ in the actual 
 bodily form of a dove, but only "like a dove;" that 
 is, like a dove as to his manner of descending, first 
 hovering over and then settling. These words do 
 not express or define the bodily shape in which the 
 Divine Spirit appeared, but only, at the most, the 
 general outline of the appearance which indicated his 
 presence.f It was similar probably to the lambent 
 flames or tongues of fire, so called, of which we read 
 
 * u It is an instructive fact that in none of the monuments of the 
 early Christians in the Catacombs at Rome, is there to be seen any 
 representation of the Godhead, as is now so common in the Komish 
 churches, under the figures of an old man, a young man, and a dove. 
 The same statement is true with regard to the Crucifixion. Not a 
 single attempt to portray it is to be seen in any of these ancient 
 monuments. The lofty faith of the primitive Christians dwelt so 
 much upon the Divinity of our Lord, that they shrank in reverence 
 from the idea of coarsely representing- the mere corporeal pangs which 
 weighed him down in the hour of his mortal agony. But at length, 
 under the growing influence of a carnalising faith, subjects which 
 at first they regarded with so sacred an awe that they scarcely dared 
 to comment upon them in words, lost their divine idealism, and were 
 coarsely shadowed forth by sensible objects." Kip's Christmas Holi- 
 days at Home. 
 
 This is confirmed also by the confession of a French writer, M. 
 Didron, Icon, de Dieu, who sajs, p. 204 : u II faut le dire enfin les 
 premiers Chretiens jusqu'aux cinquieme et sixieme siecles furent assez 
 mal-disposes pour les images en general; tous etaient iconoclastes, 
 ceux-ci un peu plus, et ceux-la un peu moins." 
 
 f Whitby, in Luke iii. 22, correctly observes, that if the <rw/iariK< 
 H had related to the bodily shape, it should have been w<m 
 Trtpurrtpa^, as of a dove, not wcrct Trtpiartoav, as a dove. There was 
 sensible proof also given of the presence of God the Father on this 
 occasion, but that was by a voice only, and how can that be symbo- 
 lised? 
 
SYMBOLISM. 151 
 
 in Acts ii. 3. And this very difference in the de- 
 scription, we may remark, is a proof that no exact 
 resemblance to either the one or the other of these 
 created objects was intended ; the Apostles mention 
 them only in the way of imperfect comparison, being 
 unable to describe precisely what they saw. To say 
 the least, no " common representative quality " can 
 possibly be traced between the Holy Ghost and two 
 such very different objects as a dove and a tongue of 
 fire, to justify their both being used as symbols of 
 Him, It is generally assumed, we believe, that the 
 dove is an emblem of the nature or disposition of the 
 Holy Ghost ; but we do not recollect any Scripture 
 warrant for viewing it even in this light. If, however, it 
 were regarded strictly as an emblem only thus far, 
 there might not perhaps be any impropriety in its use ; 
 but it is notoriously employed, not as an emblem merely 
 of a particular quality, but to represent the Person of the 
 Holy Ghost ; and in this view it manifestly falls under 
 the condemnation levelled by the Apostle against the 
 practice of the heathen, of " changing the glory of the 
 incorruptible God into an image made like to cor- 
 ruptible man, and to birds,'' 1 &c. (Rom. i. 23.) 
 
 As regards the doctrine inculcated by these symbolic 
 figures of the Second and Third Persons of the Holy 
 Trinity, there is one observation which we think ought to 
 have weight, which is this : that in representing the 
 Lord Jesus Christ by himself, or the Holy Ghost by 
 himself, by an image, we are not only representing 
 two out of the three Persons of the ever blessed 
 
SYMBOLISM. 
 
 Triune Jehovah as creatures, but we are virtually 
 dividing the substance of the Godhead, because we 
 can form none of the Eternal Father (none having 
 ever been given), nor of the one infinite indivisible 
 Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Per- 
 sons and one God. 
 
 It militates, then, altogether against the myste- 
 rious, inscrutable nature of the Divine Being, as one 
 God in Trinity, to make images or pictorial represen- 
 tations of any one of the three Divine Persons or Sub- 
 sistences, with the view of bodying forth by a symbol 
 any true idea of Deity ; while it nullifies his spiritu- 
 ality, obscures his perfections, and, by necessary con- 
 sequence, as it conveys false notions into our minds, 
 it vitiates the whole character of our worship of Him. 
 
 Even that most purely abstract emblem of the 
 Trinity in Unity, the triangle in a circle, so frequently 
 placed in the windows of our churches, though inno- 
 cent enough, perhaps, as an emblem, will be found, 
 when analysed, to involve a grave theologic error. As 
 a symbol, indeed, of the doctrine verbally enunciated in 
 the Athanasiari Creed, it involves a two-fold fallacy; for, 
 first, the three lines, which are supposed to represent (he 
 three coequal Persons of the Trinity, are not coincident, 
 but meet at angles, and so far are opposed to each other ; 
 and next, these lines are different in their properties 
 from the circle, which is intended to represent the one 
 God ; while, obviously enough, they ought to be either 
 three equal sized triangles, and yet but one triangle, 
 or three equal sized circles, and yet but one circle, if 
 
SYMBOLISM. 153 
 
 they are to represent truly the three Divine Persons, each 
 of which is equally God, of the same nature, power, and 
 properties, and yet the three but one God. Here, 
 then, in plain language, we have a linear lie. If it 
 be said that the three lines are only the circle deve- 
 loped out of one into three other forms, as ready to 
 resolve themselves into the same single form again, 
 then the doctrine taught by this symbol is no other 
 than the Sabellian heresy ! * 
 
 The practice now becoming so common, of filling 
 the house of God with sculptured figures and pictorial 
 signs (many of them of a very nondescript character), 
 tends, we cannot but think, to turn divinity into a dark 
 system of Egyptian hieroglyphics, which it must 
 puzzle people far more than the most obscure verbal 
 descriptions to understand. Amidst crosses, crucifixes, 
 agnus Deis, doves, triangles, anchors, pisces, and 
 pelicans, our theology, indeed, threatens to become 
 like algebra, a science of symbols, without, like 
 algebra, bringing to the truth the advantage of clear 
 demonstration. If Symbolism is to be carried to 
 such an extent that the walls of our churches are to 
 
 * A story is told of the great Erasmus, that walking" one day in 
 the fields, in deep thought upon the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, 
 and unable to resolve it, he went up to a poor peasant and asked him 
 to explain it as a thing possible ; whereupon the poor unlearned man 
 cropped a piece of trefoil, and holding it up before that acute but per- 
 plexed divine, he said, "Behold, sir, here is a Trinity in Unity." This 
 was an emblem, and a fitting one, found in God's own works; and 
 against the use of the trifolium, being an example of three in one, 
 and all of the same nature, supplied from God's own works, we see 
 no particular objection. 
 
154 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 be covered all over with these mystic signs, we shall 
 soon need a new " Church Dictionary " to take with 
 us in the place of our Prayer Books.* 
 
 The ground often taken, we are aware, to justify 
 the introduction of the system of symbolic repre- 
 sentation into our places of worship, is, that the 
 Almighty sanctioned the use of emblematic figures in 
 the provisions of the Jewish tabernacle and temple ; 
 from which it is inferred that there cannot be any 
 impropriety in our resorting to similar methods of 
 setting forth spiritual truths. We grant the fact, 
 but demur to the conclusion. We live under a 
 changed economy; and with a change in the eco- 
 nomy comes a change in the ordainments for religious 
 worship. If we might revive the mode of worship 
 instituted under the dark typical dispensation of the 
 Old Testament, then might not only the system 
 
 * Who, for instance, if he saw the four rivers of Paradise, Pison, 
 Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates, drawn upon the walls of a church, 
 would ever decipher that these symbolised " the sweetness and ful- 
 ness of the Gospel ?" one of the emblems in St. Mark's, Venice. (See 
 Ruskin's Stones of Venice, vol. ii., p. 114.) Again, who would ever 
 discover for himself that the octag-onal form of the font denoted rege- 
 neration ; or that vertical lines were " suggestive of activity, and 
 denoted the diligence of angels to stimulate our sluggishness ; " or 
 that horizontal lines suggested u the idea of repose, and spoke to the 
 Christian of peace and tranquillity here and hereafter, of rest in this 
 world and beyond the grave ?" These are only specimens of this dark 
 science, taken from a small work recently published, in which a more 
 frequent use of Symbolism in our churches is strongly advocated. 
 
 " It would need a volume " (the confession made by Lord Lindsay in 
 his work on Christian Art, vol. ii. p. 22) " to point out each minute par- 
 ticular; and in a thousand instances individual fancy must interpret 
 what individual fancy first enigmatised.'' 
 
SYMBOLISM. 155 
 
 of imaging forth imperfectly revealed truths by 
 symbols be restored, but many other things of the 
 most soul-binding nature, and there would be no 
 advantage in our being under " the dispensation of the 
 Spirit." But, waiving this, there is a wide difference 
 to be observed between the nature and intention of 
 the Jewish symbols and the use to which others 
 would apply Symbolism among ourselves. They were 
 not designed to represent spiritual existences, or the 
 objects on which the people were to fix their adoring 
 regards ; but only the modes and circumstances of that 
 method of receiving man which God would, in due 
 time, introduce ; they were the ways and means only, 
 so to speak, by which the Almighty would be ap- 
 proached, not ordained to be incentives to devotion. 
 Moreover, it must not be overlooked (though this fact 
 is frequently blinked) that the most significant of the 
 symbols in the temple the golden censer, the ark of 
 the covenant, and the cherubims of glory overshadow- 
 ing the mercy-seat were not seen by the people, for 
 they were veiled off from their view. It is true this was 
 itself a figure ; but, at the best, these things were but 
 " weak and beggarly elements," as the Apostle calls 
 them ; things fitted only for the age of human child- 
 hood stilts and crutches for limping minds leading- 
 strings for babes till they could walk alone ; and to 
 return to them would only be to return to second 
 childhood after passing that age. They were never 
 intended to be perpetuated, but were imposed only 
 until "the time of reformation." They were signs 
 
156 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 needed then to help men's conceptions, because the 
 spiritual verities to which they related were not re- 
 vealed. But the things typified by them have now 
 appeared in their reality; we know them as the 
 alphabet of our theology, and have no need of any 
 shadows to convince us of the existence of the sun, or 
 to make clear to us that there are such things as 
 trees, and mountains, and roadways in our world. 
 " The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth 
 came by Jesus Christ." 
 
 The strongest defence of all that can be urged in 
 favour of a Christianised system of Symbolism, un- 
 doubtedly, is the fact that Christ has himself ordained 
 the two Sacraments as outward and visible signs or 
 symbols. " He has himself ordained these : " but he 
 has ordained no others : that were reason sufficient, 
 we might suppose, for using these, and these alone, 
 for keeping him and his doctrine in our remem- 
 brance. In the Jewish tabernacle no other figures 
 were allowed to be made but such as God had shown 
 Moses " the pattern of in the mount." But, in order 
 not to be led to mistake the bearing of these ordinances 
 upon the question before us, let us not omit to ask 
 ourselves what the Sacraments are signs or symbols 
 of. They are not signs, properly speaking, of heavenly 
 subsistences, but only of certain actions or inward 
 effects. Water, to wit, in Baptism represents an effect, 
 not a thing. The bread and wine in the Lord's 
 Supper the bread being broken, and the wine poured 
 out are ordained to bring to mind a solemn reli- 
 
SYMBOLISM. 157 
 
 gious fact ; and in a secondary sense only do they 
 represent the spiritual effects upon the soul of faith 
 in that fact. These two considerations, then, that 
 they are directly ordained of Christ, and that they are 
 symbolic only of certain spiritual benefits which we 
 derive from Him, separate them at once from all other 
 symbols which are of man's invention, of the best 
 of which we may truly say, that they have little 
 meaning and no grace. 
 
 If men will introduce other symbols, and ascribe 
 a spiritual efficacy to them, we see not how they are 
 to be cleared from the charge of setting up other 
 Sacraments than those which Christ instituted. 
 
 Figurative teaching, we shall be told, abounds 
 everywhere in Scripture ; and because figures of 
 speech are freely made use of by Prophets and Apos- 
 tles to image forth to the mind the invisible spiritual 
 things which are the objects of faith, some have hence 
 concluded that it is equally allowable and safe to set 
 them forth by pictorial and sculptured forms. But 
 in thus arguing they overlook the very different law 
 of operation that comes into play when a thing 
 addresses itself direct to the mind, and when its proxi- 
 mate impression is on the bodily senses. Figures of 
 speech make their presentation of truth immediately 
 to the intelligence within, and it is the truth that is 
 seen in this intellectual view rather than the ideal 
 image; but material and pictorial forms impress 
 the visible image more immediately on the sensorium, 
 which, from its plastic susceptibilities, receives and 
 
158 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 retains that as its abiding effigiem. Hence by this 
 method the figure of the thing rather than the thing 
 itself becomes pedestaled in the imagination. But 
 there is a power in the mind, which is brought into 
 instantaneous action in regard to all that is immedi- 
 ately addressed to it, whereby it at once frees itself from 
 the grossness of a verbal image ; which action of the 
 mind is intercepted by a visible image, to the behold- 
 ing of which it becomes tied down by the controlling 
 power of the senses ; so that, instead of its being a help, 
 the visible image obviously becomes a hindrance to the 
 pure mental contemplation of any object whose nature 
 is purely spiritual. In a word, the difference between 
 the two operations is just this : in the one case, it is 
 the image going in to present the truth to the mind; 
 in the other, it is the mind coming out to lodge in the 
 image. 
 
 Whatever tropical illustrations, taken from the 
 works of nature, were allowed by the Divine Spirit to 
 be employed by the Prophets to illustrate the invisible 
 realities which appertain to Godhead, and are the ele- 
 mental subjects of religion, the interdict as to man's 
 forming any material verisimilitude of them, as helps 
 to his worship, is as permanent as originally it was 
 awful. 
 
 If from figures of words we might proceed to 
 make figures of things that is, if the existence of 
 the one in Scripture furnished just ground for us to 
 embody in material form, or to paint on canvass, the 
 exact correspondent, this would justify the most horrible 
 
SYMBOLISM. 159 
 
 representations of the First Person of the ever blessed 
 Trinity (such as were exhibited by way of caricature in 
 the shop windows of the late infidel, Mr. Carlisle), 
 drawn from the verbal symbols used to describe his 
 Being and power in the writings of the Prophets. But 
 nothing could be further, we may be certain, from the 
 intention of the divine writers than hereby to anthro- 
 pomorphise the Deity, or to supply painters with an 
 outline for their presumptuous etchings. Figures of 
 speech are resorted to only as necessary helps to our 
 understandings ; and those used by the Prophets in 
 relation to the Deity are of the grandest and boldest 
 kind, to magnify our conceptions, to elevate our 
 minds, and to enable us, as far as possible, to enter- 
 tain worthy ideas of the majestic greatness of the 
 Most High. But it is particularly to be observed 
 that you see no similitude in any of these descriptions ; 
 you have only a grand idea shadowed out, by which 
 you are made to see, and yet you see not, a Being of 
 dimensions so vast, and of stature so lofty, that you 
 cannot compass even the conception of his magni- 
 ficence. For example, take the following from the 
 Prophet Isaiah : " Thus saith the Lord, The heaven 
 is my throne, and the earth is my footstool ; where is 
 the house that ye build unto me, and where is the 
 place of my rest? For all those things hath mine 
 hand made, and all those things have been (have had 
 a beginning), saith the Lord." And what a decisive 
 rebuke is that launched by the Apostle Paul against all 
 attempted representations of the Godhead, or any of 
 
160 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 those things that pertain peculiarly to the Godhead 
 " God that made the world, and all things therein, 
 seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwell eth 
 not in temples made with hands," wherefore " we 
 ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold 
 or silver, or stone graven by art and man's device." 
 (Acts xvii. 24, 29.) 
 
 The principle to be borne in mind by us is, that 
 nothing visible, however vast and symmetrical and 
 beautiful its figure, or rich and costly and skilfully- 
 carved its material, can convey, even though it should 
 be irradiated, like a summer cloud, with the purest 
 light, any other than a false idea of the Divine nature. 
 To illustrate this from a human example : suppose, 
 in order to convey to our minds a bright ideal of 
 human nature, conceived of in its utmost perfection 
 of vigour and gracefulness of form, a sculptor placed 
 us before the Apollo Belvedere, and said, " Behold, 
 there is Man !" would this be true ? Would it not be 
 less than half the truth, and virtually a hollow false- 
 hood? Where is man's mind that mind which, 
 though constituting the essential distinction of man, 
 enters not at all into the material of the sculptor ? 
 Would it not be requisite, to form a true ideal 
 conception of Man, that we should bethink 
 ourselves of an intellect and a moral intelligence, 
 which, however it might embody itself in so 
 beautiful a form when animate, could never be fused 
 into it as a thing of life, to make it true to what it 
 is taken to represent? And if this be so with our 
 
SYMBOLISM. 161 
 
 nature, how much more is it the case with Him who 
 is a pure Spirit ? 
 
 As all the things that pertain to Deity such as 
 grace, truth, righteousness, love, mercy, holiness, 
 wisdom, power, faithfulness which are the elements 
 with which Religion is conversant, are all congenera 
 with God's own nature, they cannot be represented by 
 any material or sensible forms, so as to be looked upon 
 by the eye, but must be conceived of, if conceived of at 
 all, according to their own mode of being that is, as 
 principles of moral action, and, as such, objects that 
 can be contemplated only immediately by the mind. 
 If embodied in any representative forms, those forms 
 have " no quality in common with them," and can be 
 but pure fictions of the fancy. In a word, they are, 
 in the strictest sense, what the Scripture designates as 
 a'^Xa, idols all kinds of which, we need not ob- 
 serve, are, by that supreme authority from which 
 there is no appeal, utterly condemned. 
 
 We have thus shown that Symbolism, as applied 
 to things purely abstract or spiritual, proceeds on an 
 essentially false principle ; and if it be wrong in 
 principle, it would seem to follow, as a necessary 
 moral consequence, that it must be pernicious in 
 practice. 
 
 To inquire whether it is so, we may regard as the 
 second part of our subject. 
 
 There are two points of view under this head in 
 which we have to look at it: first, as an aid in 
 teaching truth ; and second, as to its influence in 
 
 L 
 
162 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 exciting pure religious emotions. Is it effective for 
 either of these purposes ? 
 
 First, as an aid in teaching truth, we may remark 
 that symbols have no place, properly speaking, where 
 the truth intended to be taught is already known. 
 Their proper office is to shadow out things unknown. 
 In that specifically symbolic book, for instance, the 
 book of Revelation, most of the symbols used (and 
 these are only verbal symbols) relate to the celestial 
 state, and to things as yet unreVealed, which could 
 be shadowed forth only by the aid of figures. 
 Mysteries are the true subjects for Symbolism, 
 because Symbolism leaves them mysteries still; as 
 they are intended to be, till realised in their anti- 
 type, when the shadow merges into the reality. They 
 serve only to convey to our minds a kind of indistinct 
 outline of some great approaching object, without 
 giving to us any definite idea or conception of that 
 object. It is not, then, the truth, strictly speaking, 
 they teach ; but rather they hide the truth, presenting 
 it before us at most only in shadowy being, and if 
 rested in, as viewed literally, they hold the mind 
 hoodwinked, under the pleasing sophistry of the senses, 
 iii bondage to materialistic fancies. 
 
 To return to a system of dark symbolic teaching, 
 in regard to those spiritual verities of the Gospel 
 which now stand revealed in mid-day light, is about 
 as absurd as if we were to return to read our alphabet 
 after the method by which children are usually taught 
 it, namely, by being told A stands for apple, and B 
 
SYMBOLISM. 163 
 
 stands for butterfly. When we have once learned to 
 read written sentences composed of words, and ex- 
 pressive of facts and thoughts, we abandon altogether 
 the study of the alphabet. 
 
 Symbols, viewed in relation to the revealed truths 
 of Christianity, obviously can teach us only what 
 AV knew before ; and in respect to this, they teach us 
 falsely and deceptively; for they present that before 
 us as material and having a substantive form, 
 which in its very nature is spiritual,* and without 
 form. They thus convey wrong ideas altogether 
 into our minds. Against the use of any material 
 representations of spiritual things for the purpose of 
 teaching, Bishop Ridley, the martyr, has this very strong 
 argument : " Images in the church either serve to 
 edify or to destroy. If they edify, then is there a kind 
 of edification which the Scriptures neither teach nor 
 command, but always disallow. If they destroy, they 
 are not to be used ; for in the Church of God, all 
 things ought to be done to edify." (Parker Society's 
 edition of his works, p. 86.) 
 
 There are also to be found in the Scriptures some 
 very strong express condemnations of the practice of re- 
 sorting to material symbols to teach. One of the most 
 
 * There is a curious example of this over a richly sculptured door- 
 way in Rochester Cathedral, where a pure spirit, escaping out of 
 purgatory, is represented in the shape of a human body in stone. 
 The ancient symbol for the human soul was a butterfly ; and there- 
 fore, it would have been much more artistic to have represented a 
 butterfly as coming 1 up, amid a cloud of flame and smoke, out of a deep 
 pit, leaving the intelligent observer to decipher from this the thing 
 intended. 
 
164 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 remarkable is, that in Habakkuk ii. 19, " Woe unto 
 him that saith to the wood, Awake ; to the dumb stone, 
 Arise, it shall teach" What it is a teacher of, in his 
 opinion, he states in the preceding verse : it is " a 
 teacher of lies." Even the uninspired author of the 
 Book of Wisdom could tell us, that " the painting of 
 the picture and carved image with divers colours 
 enticeth the ignorant, and is the beginning of whore- 
 dom." The prophet Jeremiah is still less compli- 
 mentary to those who, in this way, display their taste 
 in the Fine Arts. " Every man is brutish in his know- 
 ledge : every founder is confounded by the graven 
 image : for his molten image is falsehood, and there 
 is no breath in them. They are vanity, and the work 
 of errors." (Jer. x. 14, 15.) 
 
 The question may here be raised, whether the 
 practice, which has been adopted even by our Pro- 
 testant forefathers, of teaching Scripture history to 
 their children by figured tiles and pictures, is dangerous 
 and ought to be discarded. And this question is the 
 more interesting because the system of conveying in- 
 telligence by pictures, or illustrated papers, has had 
 a remarkable revival within the last few years. 
 There can be no doubt that the eye may be a very 
 great assistance to the ear, and that through the one 
 information may be conveyed both more quickly and 
 more impressively than through the other, according 
 to the oft quoted lines of Horace 
 
 " Seg-nius irritant animos demissa per aurem, 
 Quam quse sunt occalis subjecta fidelibus, et quse 
 Ipse sibi tradit spectator/' 
 
SYMBOLISM. 165 
 
 But then it is to be borne in mind that the things 
 concerning which information is given by this method 
 are all supposed to be known, or such as possess the 
 property of visibility in their own nature, and not 
 things purely spiritual or invisible. In regard to the 
 more abstract truths of religion, picture teaching, 
 having no substantial basis, can find no place. 
 
 The point at which it appears to us, we ought to 
 stop is with the historic, or, as it has been termed, 
 the "dramatic" in Scripture, and not to extend sym- 
 bolic representation at all to the Divine Personae of 
 Christianity, or that which is in its nature essentially 
 spiritual. Used only as means of keeping up the 
 memory of certain actions or events in the life of 
 our divine Lord, pictorial and sculptural representa- 
 tions may have their safe use. But even for this 
 purpose the kind of prints, we are inclined to think, 
 which ought to be chosen as being the least 
 likely to corrupt the taste of the young, are plain 
 sketches of Scripture scenes, mere graphical outlines 
 of the principal figures, distinguished by their being 
 named, and their several actions significantly marked. 
 For even in this use of such representations there 
 may be much mischief, if, as is too often the case, 
 Christ and his apostles are presented to the eye as 
 distinguished only by nobleness of feature or splen- 
 dour of dress, which must leave a false impression, and 
 vitiate men's notions of what constitutes true dis- 
 tinction. But, when truthful in form and sober in 
 colouring, they may be helpful while they are harm- 
 
166 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 less in the instruction of little children, inasmuch as 
 they serve to convey ideas of things into their minds 
 even before they can read verbal descriptions of them, 
 and to imprint them vividly in life-long remembrance 
 upon the tablet of their souls. We can easily believe, 
 too, that in an age of ignorance like that of the 
 mediaeval period, when Symbolism was most resorted 
 to, its objective images were instructive even to the 
 " children of larger growth." But in an age like this, 
 when almost every person can read, and treasure up in 
 the preservative cells of memory an exact knowledge 
 of truths the most abstract that can be expressed in 
 words, they can scarcely be needed. Verbal compari- 
 sons, also, exist in abundance to help our conceptions ; 
 and the graphic portrayings of Prophets by their bold 
 figures of thought, and the pure limning of Apostles, 
 must be a far more effective, as it is a far less gross 
 means of instruction than any material images. 
 
 But the most important question, is, what is their 
 influence in exciting pure religious emotions ? Are 
 they an aid, or are they not, to the actings of genuine 
 piety ? Do they help to elevate, or do they tend to 
 restrict and debase the spirit of devotion ? 
 
 Now if we look a little into the philosophy of 
 Symbolism, when made use of as an agent to produce 
 religious emotions, what is the basis upon which it 
 rests? It proceeds upon the supposition that that 
 which is material can not only represent, but excite 
 and give birth to that which is spiritual ; that is, that 
 a spiritual effect can be the offspring of a material 
 
SYMBOLISM. 167 
 
 agent ; which is a natural impossibility, as our Lord 
 has taught us by that remarkable observation of his, 
 noticed in the former chapter, " That which is born 
 of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the 
 Spirit is spirit." 
 
 Such as the producing cause is, in any case, such 
 in nature must be the thing produced. But the pro- 
 ducing cause, admissibly in this case, is a dead 
 material object or image, making its impress upon 
 the sensorium, and not direct upon the soul. It 
 follows inevitably from this, that the devotion thus 
 produced is of an essentially sensuous nature, and not 
 spiritual. What is of man can never elevate above 
 man. 
 
 But can we not, it may be asked, avail ourselves 
 of the material to travel up to the spiritual and invi- 
 sible of the works of nature, for instance, to rise to 
 nature's God ? and if the material can thus, under 
 one aspect, be the means of elevating the mind to the 
 spiritual, why not in the other? Before we yield 
 assent to this plausible hypothesis, we must call in 
 the aid of reflection. A little thought will make 
 manifest that there is both a substantial and a modal 
 difference in the two cases. In the first place, the 
 one are, by the supposition, the works of God; 
 in the other they are the works of men. In the 
 second place, it is to be observed, that in the former 
 process, it is the mind, the spiritual part in man, sub- 
 jecting the material to itself, triumphing over it, and 
 converting it into a ladder whereby to ascend to the 
 
168 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 invisible ; in the latter, it is the mind subjected to the 
 material, tied down and restricted to it, and the 
 material, being thus brought to act directly (and that 
 dead material) upon the mind through the bodily 
 senses, by means of them holds it in chains and keeps 
 it down. The processes being thus the reverse of 
 each other, the results must be reverse. 
 
 If any visible media of worshipping God were 
 allowable, as objects for the mind to rest upon, it 
 would surely be the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, 
 and stars, those glorious productions of Almighty 
 power ; but even the looking up to these to worship 
 them, or the making of them stepping-stones and 
 resting places for our thoughts, is expressly forbidden, 
 it will be remembered, in the Bible. (Deut iv. 19.) 
 They fall infinitely short of the elevation of the 
 Eternal ; and if we were to pile star upon star, and 
 planet upon planet, and sun upon sun, arid system 
 upon system, we should but be erecting a throne for 
 God, upon which he would sit elevated immeasurably 
 higher, towering like some vast mountain above the 
 surface of this earth, till its head is lost sight of in the 
 deep unfathomable depth of a mist-covered immensity. 
 
 When men make use of the material to sym- 
 bolise, and through the material symbol think to 
 elevate to the spiritual and invisible, they do in fact 
 but bring down the spiritual to the level of the 
 material ; and the effect is the same, and the imposi- 
 tion upon the mind is just the same as when a person 
 looks on while objects are made to pass rapidly by 
 
SYMBOLISM. 169 
 
 before his organs of vision he fancies that he is. 
 nearing them just because they are made in appear- 
 ance to near him. 
 
 If the heart of a man be really and earnestly 
 set upon God, he will feel no need of external 
 objects to bring him riigh to his apprehensions ; but 
 like as to Adam, when first brought into existence, 
 God, though unseen, was the immediate object that 
 filled his mind, so will such a man find himself wholly 
 surrounded and enveloped in Deity, God above, 
 below, within, around, everywhere. 
 
 If pure intense devotion depended in any degree 
 upon the aid of visible objects, then the necessary 
 consequence would be, that a blind man could not 
 worship God with as intent a devoutness as one who 
 could see ; which conclusion is negatived by expe- 
 rience ; for we may appeal to what every one knows 
 to be his own habit, whether it is not the fact that 
 he closes his eyes when he would realise the presence of 
 God, and pray to him with his whole heart and with- 
 out distraction. The argument of the Eomanists in 
 defence of what we think to be their idolatry in the 
 worship of the Host is, that the worship is not ren- 
 dered to that which the eye can see, the accidents of 
 bread ; for that they admit would be idolatry. But 
 this tells against the use of images, and pictures, 
 and of all sensible objects ; because if we are to wor- 
 ship by them not the image which we see, but a 
 something in it which we do not see, then surely we 
 can worship without seeing what we woifchip. We 
 
170 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 believe it will be found to hold as a general rule, 
 that the more intently we fix our minds in the act of 
 worship, the less we avail ourselves of the use of our 
 sight. " Every person," Mr. Ruskin remarks (p. 39 
 of his third volume of the "Stones of Venice "), " ac- 
 customed to careful reflection, knows that its natural 
 operation is to close his eyes to the external world. 
 While he is thinking deeply, he neither sees nor feels, 
 even though naturally he may possess strong powers 
 of sight and emotion." There is truth in this. And 
 this being so, it follows that no visible aids are neces- 
 sary to the actings of the soul's most intense adorations 
 of the Great Unseen ; while it is further certain, that if 
 the spirit of true devotion be not in the heart, no 
 symbols of divine things, however expressive and 
 appropriate, can bring it out. 
 
 But to deal fairly with Mr. Ruskin's observations, 
 and not to quote him merely where it suits our pur- 
 pose : we must not fail to observe that in one place 
 (p. 174, vol. iii. of the "Stones of Venice") he speaks of 
 Symbolism as " the soul's language," " that great sym- 
 bolic language," as he calls it, " of past ages which 
 has now so long been unspoken ;" * and in various 
 other places of his richly eloquent works, he com- 
 mends this as a noble mode of developing the con- 
 ceptions of Religious Art. We deny not its utility in 
 exercising the skill, nor in bringing out the genius of 
 the original artist ; nor do we deny the fact noticed 
 by Southey in his Book of the Church, that as 
 
 * For iurttfer observations on thi.^. see Xote A in the Appendix. 
 
VV>- N r 
 
 SYMBOLISM. X&Tl ^?> 
 
 ^f# 
 
 regards all our deeper religious emotions, the 
 naturally " seeks for fancies, types, and dim simili- 
 tudes," wherein to embody its conceptions, and even 
 " extracts from them consolation and strength." But 
 what we deny is, that the similitude, when wrought into 
 a material form, and presented to the eye of another, 
 can excite or give birth to the same pure religious 
 feeling as that from which itself perhaps originally 
 sprang. For if this were so, then would the handi- 
 works of man produce that pure spiritual effect which 
 the Scriptures everywhere trace to God, reversing 
 that decisive and deeply philosophic statement made 
 by our Lord, " That which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is 
 spirit." 
 
 The difference of the effect (to avail ourselves of 
 an exquisite illustration from Cudworth's Sermon, 
 " on Keeping Christ's Commandments") between the 
 devotion that is produced by the external agencies of 
 a so-called religious Symbolism, appealing to the 
 senses, and that produced by the action of the Spirit 
 of God from within, is, that in the one case, men are 
 " like dead instruments of music, that sound sweetly 
 and harmoniously when they are only struck and 
 played upon from without by the musician's hand ;" 
 but in the other, " it is as if the soul of music had 
 incorporated itself with the instrument, and lived in 
 the strings, and made them of their own accord, 
 without any touch or impulse from without, dance up 
 and down and warble out their harmonies." 
 
172 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 It is the foregoing statement of our Lord's which 
 directs us to the true producing cause of all pure 
 spiritual worship. Symbolic images, when put in 
 the form of material figures, act immediately upon 
 the outward senses ; and by acting upon them, 
 they only excite and enflame the natural feelings. 
 This is the influence ascribed to them by the Pro- 
 phet, when he accuses the worshippers of images of 
 " enflaming themselves with idols under every green 
 tree." (Isaiah Ivii. 5.) To the eye of the ardent 
 devotee the cold rigid features of the statue may 
 dimple and smile, but this fancied effect has its origin 
 in the mind of the devotee himself, and springs from 
 the source of that fond feeling which is the very essence 
 of idolatry. The impressions of these outward objects 
 cannot be conveyed at the furthest beyond the 
 "natural mind." They reach not to the spirit, or 
 that inner moral sense which is the seat and source 
 of all genuine religion. Pure spiritual devotion 
 emanates from the soul within, and can neither be 
 produced nor strengthened by any inanimate material 
 agencies from without. It is the originated effect of 
 the regenerating and indwelling influence of the Holy 
 Ghost, inspiring man with the spirit of devoutness 
 towards the Father of spirits. As a man must first 
 receive the light of the sun into his eye, and have the 
 form of it imprinted on the retina, in order to see the 
 sun, so must our souls first be made godlike in order to 
 see God, so as to worship him in spirit and in truth. 
 Our own rectified moral perceptions, then, are the true 
 
SYMBOLISM. 173 
 
 medium of all spiritual apprehensions and intercourses 
 of the soul with God. It is thus the sun is seen by 
 its own image reflected in the waters. 
 
 It is sometimes urged, that the analogies of things 
 natural with things spiritual, supply at once a model 
 and type, and also a warrant for art in resorting to its 
 imitative Symbolism. It cannot be denied, that a 
 great multitude of analogies with moral truths strike 
 our imagination as we walk and muse through the 
 scenes of nature. Almost every object, to a devout 
 mind, seems to symbolise some spiritual truth. And 
 no doubt it is a most profitable employment for the 
 soul to pluck these blossoms of the tree of life that 
 grows so hard by the tree of knowledge, and to treasure 
 them up among its stores of instruction. The seeds 
 they contain carry in them the principle of immor- 
 tality. No one ever made more frequent or more apt 
 use of natural objects to illustrate spiritual truths 
 than our divine Lord ; and most vividly, in all the in- 
 stances in which he has resorted to this method of 
 teaching, do his exquisite parables set forth those 
 truths. But whether this analogy of things heavenly 
 with things earthly be a really existing fact, or merely 
 a magic creation of the mind itself, to supply its own 
 felt need of suitable verbal terms to body forth its 
 more spiritual conceptions, is a question.* 
 
 The Apostle John, who saw heaven only in vision, 
 had its scenes represented to him under the forms of 
 symbolic imagery ; but the Apostle Paul, who had 
 
 * See Note B, on Analogy, in the Appendix. 
 
174 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 actually been caught up into heaven, heard " unspeak- 
 able" things, which it was not in the power of man 
 even by means of figures, to utter. 
 
 Assuming that nature has infolded in her visible 
 works an element of spiritual teaching, it is hence 
 argued that man may superadd it to his artistic 
 imitations. But in his works, it is to be observed, 
 the correspondence is only of one earthly thing to 
 another the heavenly element, assumed to be in 
 the works of nature, is left out, and cannot, by any 
 human power, be infused. Man is, we know, in a 
 certain respect, the image of God; but no one could 
 affirm that the painted figure of a man is in any 
 respect, the image of God it is only the image of a 
 man with that which made him like God, his MIND, 
 wanting. 
 
 Another argument frequently used is, that as man 
 is a complex being, consisting of a body as well as 
 a soul, there must be a provision made by religion for 
 both parts of his nature external symbols for his 
 external sense as well as truths internal for his inter- 
 nal soul. Abstractions, it is said, are only for angels ; 
 and man, while he is in the body, must be taught by 
 forms. This is in a measure true ; but it fails as a 
 proof of what it is intended to establish namely, that 
 Symbolism can aid to elevate the mind in acts of 
 spiritual devotion. For it involves a palpable moral 
 contradiction to suppose that through our lower nature 
 we are to be elevated in our higher ; the design of 
 religion is through our higher nature to act upon us 
 
SYMBOLISM. 175 
 
 so as to elevate us above our lower ; and therefore, to 
 this end all the modes of religions influence should 
 be adapted. This end is most certainly not to be 
 attained by an oppressive employment of material 
 Symbolism. 
 
 It is to the soul of man, and not to his bodily 
 vision, the voice of Nature, and all figures of thought 
 founded upon Nature, directly address themselves ; 
 which gives them a manifest advantage over all mate- 
 rial representations as direct means of spiritual influ- 
 ence. " Earthly objects which take the eye naturally 
 lead the thoughts to earthly things," is the unwitting 
 confession dropped by one who would have Symbolism 
 to become as much the mark of the present as it was 
 of a former age. God, the great Master has told us, 
 seeks now those to worship him who will worship him 
 in spirit and in truth. Surely then, if we convert his 
 house into a menagerie of Symbolism, by filling it with 
 such figures as fishes, lambs, stags, peacocks, lions, 
 griffins, pelicans, and doves, we may expect that he 
 will come ere long with the fire of indignation in 
 his face, and the scourge of vengeance in his hand, 
 and say, "Take these things hence." Even of his 
 Father's own house, which his disciples were dis- 
 posed to view with ah idolatrous admiration, he had 
 occasion to say, " Seest thou these great buildings ? 
 There shall not be left one stone upon another that 
 shall not be thrown down." 
 
 There is a dangerous facility in the lapsed human 
 mind to worship the work of its " own hands," in the 
 
176 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 supposed symbolic architecture of splendid temples, 
 and tlie sculptured forms of carved images, and 
 to fancy all the while that it is worshipping God. 
 There cannot be a more complete condemnation of 
 this kind of worship, nor indeed of the use of any 
 material media in our approaches to the Deity, than 
 that implied in this prophecy of Isaiah, " In that day 
 shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall 
 have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he 
 shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, 
 neither shall respect that which his own fingers 
 have made, either the groves, or the images." 
 (Isaiah xvii. 8.) 
 
 The power of a sensuous Symbolism to awaken 
 religious emotions is always found to be a favourite 
 principle with the worldly rather than the godly. 
 Hence it is not uncommon to hear persons of this 
 habit of mind speaking in almost terms of ecstacy 
 of the emotions they have felt, and the devoutness 
 that has come over them, and the heavenliness of 
 their experienced feelings as they have trod the aisles 
 of some magnificent cathedral, gazing upon its lofty 
 groined roof and life-like sculpture, or listening to 
 its pealing anthems. But if the loftiness of the roof, 
 and the upward spring of the arch, and the pointed 
 pinnacle, can elevate the mind to just conceptions of 
 God or of heaven, or inspire the soul with the pure 
 aspirations of a genuine devotion, then must those 
 persons be most godly and devout who have been 
 employed in constructing, or who live in the im- 
 
SYMBOLISM. 177 
 
 mediate vicinity of a cathedral church. We need not 
 ask, Is it so ? * 
 
 Upon this point Mr. Ruskin has furnished us with 
 a very trenchant and decisive answer, the more 
 remarkable as coming from such an admirer of fine 
 architecture. " The German critics," he says (vol. i. 
 "Stones of Venice," p. 146), " have ingeniously and 
 falsely ascribed the system of aspiration, so called, to 
 a devotional sentiment pervading the Northern Gothic. 
 I entirely and boldly deny the whole theory. Our 
 cathedrals were, for the most part, built by worldly 
 
 * That deep mental analyst, the celebrated John Foster, records a 
 circumstance which seems to throw light upon the real influence and 
 tendency of these sensuous impressions from religious objects upon 
 worldly minds. " While musing- upon a favourite design of travelling, 
 a gentleman one day entered the cathedral at Worcester, in the time 
 of service. Walking in the aisle arid listening to the organ, which 
 affected him very sensibly, his wish to travel began to glow and swell 
 in his mind into an overwhelming passion, which bore him irresist- 
 ibly to a determination. He could not have felt more if he had seen 
 an apparition, or heard a voice from the sky. Every idea on the 
 subject seemed to present itself to his mind with a surprisingly vivid 
 clearness and force, and he believes that from that moment nothing 
 could have prevented his undertaking the enterprise, but the com- 
 mencement of the war.*' From this Foster proceeds to argue (and 
 we think justly), that the tendency even of these religious excitements, 
 as they are supposed to be, is only powerfully to reinforce any passion 
 which the mind is at the time indulging, or to which it is predisposed, 
 and that they have no power of themselves to produce devotional 
 feeling. A young man inclined to vicious pleasures, thus coming into 
 a magnificent church, and listening to the thrilling strains of "sacred 
 music," would feel his passion enflamed to intensity, and its object 
 probably invested with such a glowing seductiveness as would lead 
 him direct from the cathedral to the brothel. At all events, we know 
 that this is no uncommon occurrence in Romish cities, where the reli- 
 gious ceremonial is the most gorgeous and fascinating in all the exter- 
 nals of sensuous excitement. 
 
 M 
 
178 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 people, who loved the world, and would have gladly 
 stayed in it for ever : whose best hope was the 
 escaping hell, which they thought to do by building 
 cathedrals, but who had very vague conceptions of 
 heaven in general, and very feeble desires respecting 
 their entrance therein; and the form of the spired 
 cathedral has no more intentional reference to heaven, 
 as distinguished from the flattened slope of the Greek 
 pediment, than the steep gable of a Norman house 
 has, as distinguished from the flat roof of a Syrian 
 one. We may now, with ingenious pleasure, trace 
 such symbolic characters in the form we may now 
 use it with such definite meaning ; but we only pre- 
 vent ourselves from all right understanding of history, 
 by attributing such influence to these poetical sym- 
 bolisms in the formation of a national style. The 
 human race are, for the most part, not to be moved 
 by such silken cords ; and the chances of damp in the 
 cellar, or of loose tiles on the roof, have unhappily much 
 more to do with the fashions of a man's house-building 
 than his ideas of celestial happiness or angelic virtue." 
 Again, the same author says: "We attach, in modern 
 days, a kind of sacredness to the pointed arch and 
 groined roof;" but "There is no sacredness in 
 round arches nor in pointed; none in pinnacles 
 nor in buttresses ; none in pillars nor in traceries. . . . 
 They were never built in any separate, mystical, and 
 religious style ; they were built in the manner that was 
 common and familiar to everybody at the time." (P. 99.) 
 If there be truth in this, the religious influence 
 
SYMBOLISM. 179 
 
 which some ascribe to church architecture and Sym- 
 bolism must be wholly a fiction of men's own fancy. 
 The experienced effect cannot be produced by the 
 objects looked upon from without, so much as by 
 the action of the mind from within. The whole 
 question, then, turns upon whether this be not a 
 morbid action of the religious mind, taking occasion 
 to aggravate its own disease by feeding upon those 
 material excitements for which it has an appetency, 
 rather than upon that pure spiritual food which sus- 
 tains the real inward life of the soul. Were there 
 not certain agreeable emotions, more in unison with 
 the "natural man" than the "spiritual," connected 
 with the exercises of a pictorial piety, it seems im- 
 possible to account for the fondness with which the 
 lovers of the theatre and the concert have ever in- 
 clined to this mode of worshipping God. The 
 excessive delight of the world in the Fine Arts, 
 christened with the name of " Christian Arts," when 
 employed in the service of religion (a delight revived 
 of late years, and growing stronger every day), 
 probably has its origin in that Ideal Idolatry which 
 many have no hesitation in indulging, who would 
 shrink with horror from literal idolatry.* And the 
 fear is, that this, if unchecked, will, as it has done 
 before, in former ages, end in actual idolatry. The 
 pleasurable emotions, the positive fascination, which 
 people experience when contemplating a life-like 
 
 * For Note on Mr. Ruskin's " proper sense of the word Idolatry," 
 see Appendix C, at the end. 
 
 M 2 
 
i 
 
 180 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 painting, or a finely- executed statue, that has thrown 
 around it the drapery of sacredness and of pious 
 sentimentality in the circumstances, such as the scene 
 of the Crucifixion, or in particular, when contem- 
 plating the clustered Symbolism of a finished Gothic 
 Church, give it a power which few can resist. The 
 transition from feeling to conviction is short and 
 often quick. Because they experience these sensa- 
 tions from the works of Religious Art, they will readily 
 conclude that the influence exercised by them is of a 
 powerfully religious nature; but that it is only a carnal 
 or quasi-religious influence, is, we think, manifest from 
 the fact that it is felt and delighted in most by the 
 least spiritually minded persons, and never is found 
 to act as a purifier of the morals. May it not, then, 
 be the true history of the process we are considering, 
 that the sensitive and insincere in religion are merely 
 caught, by a subdolous Symbolism, in the spider's web 
 of their own sentimental sophistries. 
 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them," is a prin- 
 ciple that applies equally well as a test to theories as 
 to men. 
 
 It would not be difficult, we believe, to prove, if 
 space permitted, from the progressive decline of 
 nations, once great and illustrious alike by purity in 
 / religious faith and moral dignity of action, that the 
 tendency of external splendour and a large use of 
 material Symbolism in places built for the worship of 
 } God, is to corrupt and debase the minds of the people, 
 and to bring about that gross condition of carnality of 
 
; 
 
 SYMBOLISM. 181 
 
 conception and licentiousness of conduct, in which all 
 that is truly noble, and pure, and elevated, becomes at 
 length buried in a living* mass of fetid and putrefying 
 humanity. We do not say that this result is produced 
 simultaneously with the perfection of Art (the effect 
 must follow after the cause) ; but what we do venture 
 to assert is and we challenge disproof of it that 
 almost immediately after the period when a nation has 
 arrived at the climax of its greatness, when, as a 
 matter of course, Art has been most cultivated, and 
 has displayed its cedar, and vermilion, and gold its 
 rich sculpture, and carving, and gilding, in every 
 form of imagery and in the most finished style, may be 
 dated the commencement of that nation's decline. 
 From this, the inference seems to us inevitable, that 
 an excessive delight in works of Art, as applied in aid 
 of religious worship, is one proximate cause, at least, 
 of national corruption and debasement. The material 
 and the sensuous here take the place of all that is 
 spiritual and pure. We have only to cast our eye over 
 those countries where " Religious Art," as it is termed, 
 has been sunned to its richest degree of ripeness, and 
 to compare the moral condition of their inhabitants, 
 with that of those of other countries, in which the most 
 severe adherence has been kept up to simplicity and 
 truthfulness in church architecture, in order to see 
 that in the latter the morals and the manners have 
 been preserved most pure and uncorrupt. In proof 
 of this, it is sufficient to point to Italy as contrasted 
 with England, or Sicily as compared with Scotland. 
 
182 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 Material emblems, making their appeal to the 
 senses, cannot possibly purify the morals or the 
 heart. They have a tendency rather to predispose 
 the mind to fall in with all the grosser forms of 
 idolatry.* There seems to be a species of moral mes- 
 merism in them, which acts with a fascinating energy 
 upon their admirers. Indeed, it is too self-manifest 
 to need any argument to make it clear, that the 
 habit of contemplating religious facts and truths con- 
 tinually as embodied in sensible and material forms, 
 supposed to be representative of them, must tend to 
 materialise rather than to spiritualise the mind, and 
 to lead it to rest in the figure rather than to bring it 
 nigh to the reality. Even when used as suggestive only, 
 or as the medium of our approaches to the Invisible, 
 they are not without their dangers ; for as it has 
 been admitted by one who is, on the whole, in favour 
 of these material aids to devotion (Dr. Moberly), 
 " interposed means of worship are very apt to become 
 substituted objects of worship." If this be the case, 
 there must then, whatever may be their decorative 
 beauty, be great peril in multiplying symbols in our 
 churches, as aids to devotion. 
 
 f The gross and rampant idolatry that has overrun 
 the Romish Church was not all, it is to be remem- 
 bered, born in a day : it was the slow and insidious 
 growth of a number of concessions yielded in this 
 
 * Overbeck, the artist, who from being a Protestant became a 
 Romanist, gave as his reason, that " he could not worship the art 
 without subscribing 1 to the faith which gave it birth." 
 
SYMBOLISM. 183 
 
 direction, under unsuspected forms, to sensitive and 
 imaginative minds, such as Paulinus of Nola, till at 
 length, like the ivy, which at first creeps round and 
 adorns the oak, it over-topped and stifled the Truth 
 itself, and converted what was once a noble tree, into 
 a rotten leafless stump. The same course, if pur- 
 sued generally, and to any large extent, in regard to 
 our churches, must, by a law of natural moral effect, 
 end in the same result. The Truth will become ob- 
 scured by being enshrined in symbols, till its light 
 at last will wholly disappear ; and idolatry, dark, in- 
 tense, impervious, will settle over Protestant Christen- 
 dom ; for idolatry is as inseparable an accident of 
 images as darkness is of a shadow. 
 
 Are we then to build our churches, it may 
 be demanded, in a mean and meagre style, with 
 the view of keeping our devotion pure? Is this 
 necessary ? 
 
 Now we are far from arguing that mean and de- 
 based buildings, possessing neither grandeur nor im- 
 pressiveness, are the fittest to foster pure spiritual 
 worship, or to sustain an elevated devotion. The 
 temple of the visible world around us, in its dread 
 magnificence of lofty deep blue dome, and pillared 
 mountain majesty, and rich tracery of forest and river, 
 might teach us a different doctrine. 
 
 There is such a thing, we cannot forget, as the 
 principle of association in the human mind, by which 
 it is powerfully influenced. This acts upon us chiefly 
 through the outward senses; and against the ill effect 
 
184 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 of this upon our sensitive nature, by the association 
 of Religion with anything that is mean or offending 
 to good taste, it is wise in us to guard. Religion has 
 no connection with what is low, coarse, or debased. 
 And if associated constantly in the mind through the 
 vision with buildings or objects of this character, it is 
 in danger of becoming thereby degraded, and its finer 
 actings deadened. It can exist, indeed, without any 
 external aids ; but its health may be very materially 
 injured by its being constantly exposed to influences 
 alien to its own nature. As, on the one hand, if we 
 would corrupt our religion into idolatry, we have only 
 to convert our churches into chambers of imagery ; 
 so, on the other, if we would degrade it into vulgarity, 
 we have only to confine our worship to mean and 
 degrading fabrics. Churches, then, with no feature 
 about them but meanness, or, what is even worse, a 
 gorgeous deceptiveness, are by no means to be taken 
 as patterns, for such are not accordant with the act- 
 ings of an elevated or pure piety. What best befits 
 / a place for Divine worship is a sober, solemnising, 
 grandeur a character of repose, like the .stillness of 
 the starry heavens at night, which, though laying the 
 beams of their chambers upon the variable waters of 
 this world, seem ever unmoved : that sublime repose 
 of mighty energy, and intelligence, and of rest amid 
 action, being the most impressive type which this 
 whole creation presents of the Eternal Majesty and 
 Power. There cannot be a doubt, we think, that 'a 
 building after this type, helps, so far as anything ex- 
 
SYMBOLISM. 185 
 
 ternal can help, to the worshipping of God in spirit 
 and in truth. 
 
 When, nowever, men erect splendid temples under 
 the idea of making them " worthy of God," they do 
 but display the grovelling baseness and the childish 
 littleness of their own conceptions. For feeble even 
 at best are our boldest imitations of the features of 
 Great Nature. There can be no temple worthy of 
 God, properly speaking, but the temple of the universe 
 that vast and magnificent temple which his own 
 hands have erected which, as seen by us, has the 
 starry firmament for its roof, the misty cloud-capped 
 mountains in the horizon for its walls, the broad 
 plains of this varied green earth for its tesselated 
 pavement, and the many sounding ocean for its 
 organ, pealing everlasting anthems in praise to its 
 Almighty Creator. Talk of buildings which can lift 
 the mind to elevated ideas of God why, what can 
 elevate the mind like this ? The works of God's own 
 hands must be the best visible means of ascent to his 
 own invisible abode. 
 
 I once stood in the cavje-cathedral of Staffa, and 
 never did I feel any place impress me with such a 
 sense of the sublime. Why ? It was not because of 
 its vastness, for it is not so very spacious ; nor of its 
 splendour, for beyond its marvellously vaulted roof, un- 
 supported by a single pillar, it has no such very striking 
 features ; but because I felt that wondrous temple, 
 wrought out by the smooth hand of the ocean, to be 
 the work of God and not of man. If a church be 
 
186 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 magnificent in its architecture, and exhibitive of great 
 originality of conception in its structure, our admiration 
 is far more likely to be turned back upon tfie architect 
 than to act out towards the Deity, who is there in- 
 tended to be worshipped. Or, if not so, the mere 
 thought occurring to the mind, in regard to any 
 building, however vast or however grand, that it is of 
 human erection, for the worship of the Great God, 
 stamps it at once with the impress of littleness, and 
 is a cloud passing over all our admiring contem- 
 plations. 
 
 There is one consideration, however, by which we 
 ought, undoubtedly, to be influenced in the erection of 
 temples for divine worship. We may make them 
 worthy of ourselves, though we cannot make them 
 worthy of God. We may bestow upon them our 
 richest and best, and adapt them in some measure to 
 the pure sublimity of the religion which we profess, 
 though we cannot render them fitting dwelling-places 
 for the Most High. It is for us, and not for Him, 
 they are required. The object of them is to have 
 places where we may assemble together to pray, and 
 hear his Word, and carry on unitedly, but without 
 distraction, the worship of the Great Unseen. The 
 best building, then, for such a purpose, must be that 
 which best subserves this end.* 
 
 In their internal fittings, and adornments, and 
 general features, we may observe, they should be 
 
 * " The most beautiful forms of Gothic chapels are not those which 
 are best fitted for Protestant worship." John Ritskin. 
 
SYMBOLISM. 187 
 
 marked by all that is graceful, chaste, and sternly 
 truthful. All gewgaw splendour, and tawdry orna- 
 ments, and 4 fictitious embellishment should be rigidly 
 excluded. As they are to echo with the voice of 
 Truth, let there be nothing in them which looks a lie. 
 Banished be all transparent falsehoods. Everything 
 should be real, pure, impressive what it seems, 
 and nothing more with as little as possible to with- 
 draw the soul from spiritual worship, arid as much as 
 possible, in general character, to press in upon the 
 mind the feeling that God is verily in this place. 
 Costly they ought to be for our own sakes, truthful 
 for God's. We ought not to lie anywhere, least of 
 all in the temple of Truth, and to perpetuate it in 
 wood and stone. 
 
 There are no sculptured ornaments which commend 
 themselves more to our judgment and taste, or that 
 seem less open to exception, than flower-work, and 
 the tracery of trees, and leaves, and fruits : these being 
 always beautiful, chaste, and taken from nature, and 
 these, moreover, being the kind of ornaments which 
 God appears to have sanctioned in Solomon's temple. 
 But all attempted embodiments of purely spiritual 
 things, whether in stone or in picture ; in particular 
 all symbol isings of the Divine Persons of the Trinity 
 ought to be expelled without mercy, as tending 
 directly to idolatry. And even though some signs 
 there may be which are simple enough, yet as all mere 
 signs, when they have not a divinely sanctioned signi- 
 
188 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 ficancy, must be " dark and dumb," when put in the 
 form of images, they are to be discarded as operating 
 rather to confuse the judgment than to enlighten 
 to distract rather than to help to fix the attention ; 
 and to destroy rather than to inspire the spirit of 
 pure devotion.* 
 
 It will be perceived that we incline to the opinion 
 that religion depends for its living vigour and pure 
 actings very little upon any kind of church archi- 
 tecture. And even this Mr. Ruskin, warm admirer 
 of architecture as he is, has the honesty to confess. 
 " The more I have examined the subject the more 
 dangerous I have found it," he says, " to dogmatise 
 respecting the character of the art which is likely, at 
 a given period, to be most useful to the cause of reli- 
 gion. One great fact first meets me. I cannot 
 answer for the experience of others, but I never yet 
 met with a Christian whose heart was thoroughly set 
 upon the world to come, and, so far as human judg- 
 ment could pronounce, perfect and right before God, 
 who cared about art at all." (P. 103.) "The fact 
 seems to be that strength of religious feeling is 
 capable of supplying for itself whatever is wanting in 
 the rudest suggestions of art, and will either, on the 
 one hand, purify what is coarse into inoffensiveness, 
 
 * " Whereas it is commonly alleged," says the martyr Ridley, 
 " that images in churches stir up the mind to devotion, it may he 
 answered that contrariwise, they rather distract the mind from prayer, 
 hearing 1 of God's word, and s other godly meditations." (Parker Society's 
 Edition, p. 87.) 
 
SYMBOLISM. 189 
 
 or, on the other, raise what is feeble into impressive- 
 ness. Probably all art, as such, is unsatisfactory to 
 it." (" Stones of Venice," vol. i., p. 105.) 
 
 But while pure devotion cannot be produced, or 
 in any way greatly helped in its exercises by Art, that 
 which is false and deceptive, we doubt not, can easily 
 be originated by its sensible impressions. There can 
 be no difficulty, for example, by means of darkened 
 windows, and magic colours, and huge figures of un- 
 earthly form, to excite a sense of mystery and awe 
 to thrill the animal soul (which is quite a distinct 
 thing from the spirit) with a strange feeling of dread, 
 which may be mistaken for devoutness, but which has 
 no more real or necessary connection with it than the 
 dread of some overhanging mountain, lest it should 
 fall upon you, has with adoring reverence for Him 
 who built the mountain. The one may be felt where 
 the other is never thought of. This is an entirely 
 different thing from that holy reverence, and adoring 
 submission, and humble trust, which a contemplation 
 of God in his attributes of justice, and power, and 
 mercy inspires. Men are ready enough, without 
 having direct temptations to it placed before them, to 
 mistake religiosity for religion, arid to put pietism in 
 the place of piety. 
 
 Right views of God, and right views of ourselves, are 
 the two things which lie at the basis of all true worship ; 
 and these alone can render our devotions acceptable. 
 Without these our worship, though most gorgeous 
 and grand in all its externals, may be nothing but the 
 
190 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 grovelling of superstition our devotions nothing but 
 acts of ^//"-idolatry. 
 
 Would you shut the Imagination, then, altogether 
 out, as one of our intellectual powers, from the sphere 
 of religion, and give it no scope for its actings? it 
 will, perhaps, be inquired ; to which we answer No 
 emphatically, No. The Imagination is the most crea- 
 tive, and, therefore, the most divine of all our facul- 
 ties, possessing wondrous power to vivify what to the 
 eye seems lifeless, to give form to what is shapeless, 
 to body forth to the mind as a thing of substance what 
 is invisible and intangible infusing soul, and thought, 
 and feeling, and animated existence into the multi- 
 tudinous shadows of spiritual being the bright and 
 beautiful, but fleeting similitudes of heavenly things, 
 which, like rainbow hues in a fast-fleeting shower, 
 play around us for a moment in this sensible world, 
 and then are for ever gone, leaving no trace behind 
 them, unless the Imagination seizes them, and gives 
 them luminous reality in its own ideal conceptions; and 
 no doubt, one of the noblest exercises of this faculty is, 
 to employ itself in reading and studying those sym- 
 bolic characters wherewith God has engraven the 
 antitypes to things eternal upon the interminable 
 scroll of the visible universe. But as soon as ever 
 we attempt to fix these twilight apprehensions of ours 
 in material images we darken them altogether : when 
 we petrify them by putting them in forms of stone, 
 they at once take their place among the dead. The 
 Imagination must be left perfectly free, if it is to fulfil 
 
SYMBOLISM. 191 
 
 its creative functions with living power. And as to 
 scope for it, there is a wide and magnificent field for 
 its highest office, that of tracing similitudes of divine 
 things, in the varied creature forms, and scenes, and 
 lambent, almost spiritual images, which present them- 
 selves to its solemn gaze everywhere around in nature. 
 These are the proper objects on which for it to 
 exercise itself, and not on any human embodiments of 
 the ideal ; for these are the only types and symbols of 
 heavenly things which are at all fitted to be resorted 
 to for so divine and elevated a purpose. The instant 
 you put even its own warm fancies into a material 
 form you freeze them, and, like frozen rivers, they 
 become arrested in their course. 
 
 The mind, we know from our own consciousness, is 
 ever reaching forth to catch at whatever is a type or 
 semblance of the divine attributes, or of those sublime 
 relations of man which are to be eternal ; and this argues 
 its affinity with Godhead, and is an assurance of our 
 being destined ultimately to hold converse with Deity, 
 not through the darkened manifestations, as now, of 
 this lower world, but face to face, in that world where 
 man shall " see even as he is seen, and know even as 
 he is known." And it is an observation worthy of 
 being made, and with which we may fittingly conclude 
 this Essay, as evincing the inferiority of Symbolism to 
 the immediate visions of the mind, and its insufficiency 
 for the highest order of worship, that the heavenly 
 state is described in the Book of Revelation by the 
 absence of all those material objects which here are 
 
192 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 the brightest symbols of the divine glory the sun and 
 the moon, and the visible temple, towards which men 
 are ever more disposed to turn their admiring and 
 adoring gaze, than in heart to the living God. " And 
 I saw no temple therein," says St. John, "for the 
 Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 
 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the 
 moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten 
 it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." It follows from 
 this, that it must be a more sublime and more spiritual 
 mode of worshipping God to do without sensible aids 
 than to depend upon them. 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 193 
 
 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 IN many parts of Christendom are exhibited, for 
 the excitement of pious emotion, or, it may be, for 
 some other purpose, what they assure us are pieces of 
 The True Cross. So large is the quantity, indeed, of 
 ligneous material shown in different quarters of the 
 world, which has had ascribed to it this character of 
 pseudo-sanctity, that if the whole of it could be 
 brought together, it would, as some one has truly 
 said, be sufficient to build another Noah's ark. Yet 
 all of it together, we may confidently assert, would 
 not save a single soul. How amazing, then, is it that 
 men gifted with the light of reason can offer to this, 
 as the Romish Church teaches her votaries to do, 
 according to her own graduated degrees of devotion, 
 the highest form of worship, that termed latria ; or 
 that devotees can be found so infatuated as to pay for 
 the privilege even of giving it a holy kiss ! But why 
 should we wonder that impostors exist, while so many 
 thousands of people are to be found in the world 
 willing to be imposed upon ? Most truly has the wise 
 man said, " There is no new thing under the sun." 
 What is this but an old form of superstition revived 
 under circumstances to give it a new interest the 
 
 N 
 
194 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 senile devotion of the idolater of ancient days, winch 
 has been scathed by the burning sarcasm of the 
 Prophet into a species of curious petrifaction, in the 
 words " he falleth down to the stock of a tree" ? 
 
 But it is not the Romanists alone who have 
 become wood-worshippers ; others there are to be 
 found, who have invented a doctrine of the Cross quite 
 as much at variance, we believe, as this with the true 
 doctrine of the Cross ; some go even further, and not 
 only adore a material substance, but an empty sign. 
 The very existence, however, of a fictitious, is a proof 
 that there must be a genuine, doctrine of the Cross ; 
 and to discover this to ascertain what is meant in 
 Scripture by the expression so frequently to be met 
 with there, " the cross," and how this is applied, is a 
 question of no small moment to the interests of truth. 
 To an investigation into this question the present 
 Essay will be directed. 
 
 Now, that the expression is never used by Christ 
 and the Apostles in relation to a material cross, to 
 which any virtue is ascribed, is very evident ; for in 
 every place where it occurs, except the few relating 
 directly to the crucifixion of the Saviour, the expres- 
 sion is applied figuratively, or in a mystical sense. 
 We are told that each man who would be a Christian 
 must "take up his cross" must "bear his cross." 
 We read of the "preaching of the cross" of the 
 "offence of the cross" and of some "who are the 
 enemies of the cross of Christ;" while such are the 
 immunities and benefits which we derive exclusively 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 195 
 
 from the cross, that the Apostle emphatically depre- 
 cates the idea of glorying in anything "save in the 
 cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 From a comparison of these two forms or modes 
 of expression, it is clear that there are two kinds of 
 cross for the Christian, which we may distinguish as 
 being the one, that which Tie is to bear, and the other, 
 that which is to bear him. 
 
 If we examine how the equivalent term " cruci- 
 fied" is applied, we shall arrive at the same results 
 either it is Christ who is spoken of as crucified for 
 us, or we are pressed with the necessity of being 
 crucified with him. For example : St. Paul declares 
 that when he came to preach the Gospel to the 
 Corinthians, he came determined not to know anything 
 among them save " Jesus Christ and him crucified" 
 (1 Cor. ii. 2). "We preach Christ crucified" (1 Cor. 
 i. 2, 3). "Christ hath been set forth evidently 
 crucified among you" (Gal. iii. 1). "Knowing that 
 our old man is crucified with him" (Rom. vi. 6). "I 
 am crucified with Christ" (Gal. ii. 20). "They that 
 are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections 
 and lusts" (Gal. v. 24). " By whom the world is 
 crucified to me and I to the world" (Gal. vi. 14). It 
 appears, then, from this survey of the uses made of 
 the term " the cross," and its correlatives, that there 
 are two points of view in which we are to regard it 
 first, as involving a doctrine ; and, secondly, as 
 indicating a practice. 
 
 First, there arises a question as to the doctrine 
 
 N 2 
 
196 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 denoted. Upon this there is difference of opinion ; 
 and in all questions of doctrine it is of essential im- 
 portance to ascertain which is the true. 
 
 It has been asserted that when St. Paul spake of 
 preaching Jesus Christ and him crucified, all that he 
 comprehended in that expression, and its equivalents, 
 was the necessity of our being crucified with him by 
 self- mortification, subjection of the flesh, and the 
 other austerities such as fasting, long vigils, bodily 
 inflictions, and the like, of an ascetic life. Now it is 
 obvious to remark that, if this is what the Apostle 
 meant, he must have preached himself crucified, and 
 not Christ crucified. To insist strongly and exclu- 
 sively upon these works of man's as the means to the 
 attainment of eternal life, is the very essence of self- 
 righteousness, and goes to make void altogether the 
 vicarious character of the Saviour's sufferings for the 
 sinner. 
 
 The point at issue, then, in this inquiry is no 
 other than the great doctrine of the Atonement 
 whether it be really taught in the New Testament. 
 To ascertain this point, we must examine carefully 
 how the apostle applies the expression " the cross of 
 Christ," and also how he handles the fact of the 
 crucifixion of Christ in the way of argument. 
 
 The most frequent application which he makes of 
 this is in opposition to those who contended for the rite 
 of circumcision, or the observance of the law, as neces- 
 sary unto justification. Salvation by the Law, and 
 salvation by the Cross, in his system of theology, stand 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 197 
 
 in direct antithesis to each other. He who submitted 
 to circumcision after Christ had died, as a thing 
 essential to salvation, is represented as placing himself 
 in direct antagonism to the Gospel. The rite of 
 circumcision, it must be borne in mind, was the 
 appointed sign of the legal covenant submission to 
 that signifying that the individual who underwent it 
 took upon himself the obligations of the whole law, 
 and professed to expect salvation by the law. To do 
 this now, the apostle asserts (Gal. v. 4), is to make 
 " Christ of no effect ;" it is " to frustrate the grace of 
 God," and make Christ to have "died in vain'* (Gal. 
 ii. 21). Some effect, then, in the way of benefit to 
 man, independently of any acts of his own any 
 inflictions upon himself, it is most evident the apostle 
 ascribed to the death of Christ upon the cross. What 
 that particular benefit was, is indicated by a variety 
 of expressions, in which the tragedy of the cross is 
 referred to (the solemn transaction enacted there being 
 always dwelt upon by him with special emphasis) ; 
 such, for instance, as the following : " Having made 
 peace through the blood of the cross" (Col. i. 20). 
 " Christ hath blotted out the handwriting of ordi- 
 nances that was against us, which was contrary to us, 
 and took it out of the way, nailing it" (as a paid bill) 
 " to his cross" (Col. ii. 14). " That he might reconcile 
 both in one body by the cross, having slain the enemy 
 thereby" (Eph. ii. 16). The clear intent of these 
 passages is to assert, as a fundamental doctrine of 
 Christianity, its great distinguishing principle that 
 
198 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 an atonement has been made for sin by the death of 
 Christ upon the Cross that the demands of the law 
 have been satisfied by the obedience of Christ to the 
 law for us, he having fulfilled all its requirements 
 and endured all its penalties in his own person ; so 
 that whosoever believeth in him, as the Apostle states 
 (Acts xiii. 39), " is justified from all things from 
 which he could not be justified by the law of Moses." 
 In other words, salvation is the free gift of God 
 through faith in Jesus Christ, independently of any 
 works, or observances, of our own whatsoever good 
 works being the necessary fruits only of this faith, and 
 not in any way predisposing causes of our acceptance 
 with God. 
 
 That this is the Apostle's doctrine of the cross 
 is made still more evident by his arguments against 
 the Judaisers of his day. These he denounces as 
 " enemies to the cross of Christ." Why ? Because they 
 insisted upon the observance of the rites of the 
 Mosaic law (Phil. iv. 2) as necessary to justification, 
 jointly with faith in the Redeemer ; by which means 
 they undermined the all-sufficient merit of Christ's 
 passion. Their object in this, he says, was only to 
 avoid persecution (Gal. v. 11, also vi. 12) persecu- 
 tion from the Jews being the inevitable consequence 
 of a simple cleaving to the cross. " I might have 
 escaped persecution myself," he argues (Gal. v. 1 l),if I 
 would only continue to preach the necessity of circum- 
 cision co-ordinately with reliance upon the sacrifice of 
 the Cross treating that as a permanent ordinance of 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 199 
 
 God, of which faith in Christ was to be the complement; 
 but because I would not yield to this specious, but 
 really anti- Christian principle, therefore do I still 
 "suffer persecution;" and it is proved in my own 
 person that the offence of the cross has not ceased. 
 
 Here, then, in the way of argument, we have the 
 true doctrine of the Cross brought out and dis- 
 played in its undisguised simplicity. It is not by 
 any ceremonial .observances, or additions of human 
 morality, that force is given to it to save, or that its 
 power becomes effectual, but by a simple trust in the 
 perfectness of the one offering there made as an 
 atonement for sin, and in the merit arising from the 
 unsullied acts of the victim. Circumcision, or any 
 other rite, added as of necessity to the completeness 
 of a believer's justification, does but vitiate the 
 whole. " Behold I, Paul, testify unto you that if 
 any man be circumcised (that is, with this view), 
 Christ shall profit you nothing." (Gal. v. ?.) 
 
 It is of importance to observe that this case of 
 circumcision is to be regarded, not as special or 
 exceptional, but as involving a general principle. If 
 we regard it as only special we shall lose the 
 whole practical utility of this Epistle we reduce it 
 to a dead letter. It was not simply because circum- 
 cision was a rite of the law of Moses that it was not 
 to be allied with Christian faith for justification, but 
 because it was being observed upon the principle of 
 the law the principle of justification by works. All 
 works, therefore, all rites and ceremonial ordinances, 
 
200 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 whether they be of Christian institution or of 
 Mosaic, if observed or practised with a view to justi- 
 fication, equally vitiate and make void the sacrifice 
 of Christ. For salvation by the Cross, and riot by 
 submission to this or that ordinance in other words, 
 salvation by Christ's work, and not by man's work 
 is the real gist, the pivot, and turning-point of the 
 apostle's argument both in the epistle to the 
 Romans and that to the Galatians. It is thus, 
 as involving a principle, that the epistles of the great 
 Apostle which discuss the question of circumcision 
 yield permanent instruction. 
 
 There are several passages in the writings of the 
 Apostle Paul bearing upon this subject which are 
 specially open to misinterpretation, but which, when 
 interpreted truly, bring the strongest confirmation to 
 this doctrine. The most prominent of these is that 
 singularly paradoxical statement which he makes in 
 Galatians ii. 20 "I am crucified with Christ; 
 nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
 me : and the life which I now live in the flesh I live 
 by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and 
 gave himself for me." Here, at first sight, the 
 Apostle seems to be speaking of a personal cruci- 
 fixion "J am crucified with Christ;" and, in one 
 sense, truly, it was a personal crucifixion; but then, 
 how, and in what respect? not of his body, but 
 of the tendencies of his mind ; and the thing which he 
 was crucified to was the Law ; as the preceding verse 
 (of which this is a translation in the adapted terms 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 201 
 
 of Christianity) evinces ; for there he says " I, 
 through the law, am dead to the law, that I might 
 live unto God." Dead to the law in what respect ? 
 In respect to all trust in it for justification for, as 
 he observes in the following verse, " If righteousness 
 come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." 
 
 But the most prominent, as the most emphatic, 
 of the Apostle's deliverances upon this question, is 
 that recorded in the 6th Galatians " God forbid 
 that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, by whom (rather, by which) the world 
 is crucified unto me and I unto the world." : The 
 cross of Christ must here mean the sufferings of Christ 
 for us, not our sufferings for him (though the latter 
 might seem to be intended) ; otherwise, it would be 
 the Apostle glorying in himself, an idea which the 
 strong repudiative form of expression he uses, " God 
 forbid" proves he, from his very soul, loathed and 
 abhorred. 
 
 * The sense of the term " the world' 7 is here very peculiar. It 
 is not used (at least so it appears to us) in the sense which it com- 
 monly bears, for the world in which we live, with its lusts and its 
 pollutions, its pomps and its pleasures ; but, more Judaico, to denote 
 what we term the " spirit of the age," or a religious system. The 
 apostle's argument here seems to demand this sense of the word. 
 For what is he arguing against but a false religious system namely, 
 that kind of religion which was altogether external or in the " flesh " 
 that which consisted only in rule-moralities, and ceremonial ob- 
 servances ? In proof that this was the sense in which the Apostle 
 frequently applied this term, other instances more unambiguous may 
 be adduced. For example : he evidently uses the term in this sense 
 in the third verse of the fourth chapter of this Epistle, where he 
 remarks : " Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage 
 under the elements of the world;" which he further explains in the 
 
202 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 It appears, then, from this, that St. Paul saw in 
 the cross of Christ some special virtue, and knew by 
 experience that it possessed a special power, which 
 rendered it worthy both of his sole trust and his 
 incessant extolling. And in perfect conformity with 
 this, his own statement, we find that wherever he 
 preached the Cross was the chosen subject of his 
 discourses, the burden of his every message, the only 
 object in which he delighted to glory. Whenever he 
 warms into earnestness, and kindles into eloquence, 
 and lights up into a flame of impassioned ardour, it 
 is when he is contemplating and labouring to display 
 the splendours of this attractive object, radiant with 
 life and immortality. The glories of all other objects 
 were eclipsed in his view by the transcendent bright- 
 ninth verse, by asking, " But now, after that ye have known God, 
 or rather are known of God, how turn ye to the weak and beggarly 
 elements" (namely of the law), "whereunto ye desire" again "to be in 
 bondage ; ye observe days, and months, and times, and years." Then 
 having swept away this effete system to which they were inclining to 
 return, by one of his masterly arguments, he exhorts them in the 
 fifth chapter, " Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ 
 hath made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of 
 bondage." 
 
 The term is also applied twice over in the same sense in the second 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians ; first, at the eighth verse, 
 where the apostle says, " Beware lest any man spoil you through 
 philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the 
 rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." And next, at the 
 twentieth verse, "Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the 
 rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye 
 subject to ordinances," &c. We may further remark that it is in 
 perfect accordance with this application of the term he uses, when 
 speaking of the Jewish temple, with its typical external services, the 
 expression, a " worldly sanctuary." (Heb. ix. 1.) 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 203 
 
 ness of this. Not the pomp and magnificence of 
 nature, not the glittering productions of human 
 genius, not the splendour of the arts, not the abstract 
 ideal beauty of what the ancient Greeks and Romans 
 paraded under the name of virtue, not the ever- 
 changing and ever-interesting politics of nations, 
 seem for a moment to have engaged his attention. 
 Even when he stood upon Mars' hill, surrounded 
 with the most magnificent monuments of art which 
 the hand of man ever raised, and looked down upon 
 a scene which glowed with all that was brilliant and 
 beautiful, and had philosophers for his hearers, we 
 see him turning the eyes of men to this one object, 
 which alone was glorious in his own. And what 
 gave it this transcendent glory? Doubtless it was 
 the fact that this, by a figure of speech, was the 
 sacred instrument of human salvation that by which 
 sin was atoned for, death vanquished, and heaven won. 
 We read in one place of St. Paul's writings (1 Cor. 
 i. 24) that the cross is " both the power of God, and 
 the wisdom of God." The wisdom of God was dis- 
 played in it, inasmuch as it reconciled and satisfied 
 the opposite claims of justice and mercy, letting both 
 descend upon the earth through the same channel 
 like the lightning and the rain from the same cloud ; 
 and the power of God, inasmuch as it turned and 
 converted men from idols to the one living and true 
 
 o 
 
 God, and produced those fruits of righteousness in 
 them which neither the laws of the Jews, nor the 
 philosophy of the Greeks, could produce. 
 
204 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 After the world had had space given it to try all 
 the inventions of its own wisdom, and all the appli- 
 ances of its own power after it had tried the effect 
 of the most subtle philosophy, and the strains of the 
 most thrilling poetry, and the appeals of the most 
 spirit-stirring eloquence, to set forth the beauty of 
 virtue, and to lead men to the love and practice of it, 
 and all had been proved in vain, then the All-wise 
 introduced this simple but sublime agency, the 
 preaching of the cross the merely testifying to men 
 how God loved them, and sent his Son to die for 
 their sins, and this was at once found effectual to 
 turn multitudes from darkness unto light, and from 
 the power of Satan unto God. 
 
 But, as in the Apostle's days, so now, there are 
 some who despise this method of moving the springs 
 of moral action in mankind ; and, in the pride of 
 their strength, and the plenitude of their vanity, they 
 think that they can devise both a wiser scheme, 
 and apply a more effective agency for moralising, 
 and thereby, as they suppose, saving mankind, than 
 the preaching of the doctrine of the Cross. Hence, 
 not unfrequently, in the face of the fact that the 
 Apostle declares Christ sent him not to baptise t>ut 
 to preach the Gospel, they substitute sacraments in 
 the place of preaching, or they avail themselves of 
 some sensible means of human invention such as 
 the exhibition of a material cross, or the crucifix to 
 work upon the natural feelings, instead of appealing 
 directly to men's hearts and consciences, in order to 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 205 
 
 move them to repentance, and to turn to God in all 
 the acts of pious devotedness. Even if they preach 
 the Gospel at all, it is with an economic reserve, 
 thinking, by hiding some of its more offensive doc- 
 trines under a bushel, to guard it against abuse. 
 
 Such is the wisdom of man ! He perverts even 
 
 the appointments of God, from the idea that he can 
 
 devise more efficient agencies than those which He 
 
 has ordained for making men moral, and elevating 
 
 them to walk worthy of the dignity of immortality. 
 
 But the futility of his schemes, and the weakness 
 
 and inefficiency of all his efforts, are most strikingly 
 
 evinced by the fact that man never did, and never 
 
 can, produce, by all his devices, expedients, and 
 
 appliances, such powerful and such elevating moral 
 
 effects as ever have been, and still are, produced by 
 
 the simple preaching of the cross ; so that hereby it 
 
 is proved that " the foolishness of God " (if the doctrine 
 
 of Christ crucified must be esteemed foolishness) " is 
 
 wiser than men, and the weakness of God " (if, as 
 
 some think, the preaching of the cross is a weak 
 
 instrument of good) " is stronger than men." 
 
 The root of almost all error and apathy in religion 
 has been the mistaken notion entertained by men in 
 general, that they must earn rather than receive their 
 salvation as a free gift ; and the reason why preach- 
 ing has so commonly proved ineffectual is, that they 
 have been oftener taught that they must work for 
 God, than led to behold God working for them. 
 " If," as it has been well said, " if for every rebuke 
 
206 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 that we utter of men's vices, we put forth a claim 
 upon their hearts ; if, for every assertion of God's 
 demands from them, we could substitute a display of 
 his kindness to them; if, side by side with every 
 warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises 
 of immortality ; if, in fine, instead of assuming the 
 being of an awful Deity, which men, though they 
 cannot and dare not deny, are always unwilling, some- 
 times unable, to conceive, we were to show them a 
 near, visible, inevitable, but all-beneficent Deity, 
 whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven, I 
 think there would be fewer deaf children sitting in 
 the market place." * The ground taken by this 
 writer evidently is, that that wonderful exhibition of 
 the Divine love which was made upon the cross is 
 likely to be a far more effectual means of influencing 
 mankind to listen to God's voice than any appeal to 
 their own sense of right, or inborn moral sentiments. 
 And in this he has only agreed with St. Paul, w r ho, 
 as we have seen, trusted wholly to the attraction of the 
 Cross to draw men's hearts away from their gravi- 
 tating tendency towards the world. 
 
 It is particularly to be observed that what the 
 Apostle Paul insisted so strongly upon under the term 
 " the Cross" was the doctrine which this involved ; he 
 was not so infatuated as to hold up the material figure 
 or form of the cross before men's eyes, and expect 
 moral effects to be wrought by that ; what he dwelt 
 upon was the necessity, the object, and end of Christ's 
 
 * John Ruskin. 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 207 
 
 death, and not the mere fact and circumstances of the 
 crucifixion. The one would appeal to the mental and 
 the moral in man, the other only to the natural and 
 sensitive. Even when he reminds the Galatians that 
 " Christ had been evidently set forth crucified among 
 them," it is manifest, inasmuch as the Galatians were 
 not Jews, neither were dwellers at Jerusalem at the 
 time Christ was crucified, that it could not have been 
 before their bodily eyes, but only to theii mental per- 
 ceptions, through the vivid force and power of the 
 apostle's preaching, this fact-like work had been 
 wrought.* It is as an object of faith, and not as an 
 object of sight, that the crucifixion of Christ is to be 
 contemplated ; for it is only by this method that its 
 moral ends, in all their span, and broadness, and force, 
 can be realised and felt, so as to become comprehen- 
 sive and abiding principles of action. Once let a 
 truth take its place among the objects of faith, and 
 there is this advantage about it, that it at once 
 becomes present, like Divinity, in all time. 
 
 There is a scenic preaching of the Cross which has 
 no more vital connection with the true doctrine of 
 the Cross than the image of a man in wax-work has 
 with the real living world. It is quite possible to 
 dilate with soul-touching pathos upon all the circum- 
 
 * This mode of speaking of Christ as actually present where he is 
 only preached, is more than once adopted by the Apostle. Thus in 
 his Epistle to the Ephesians, he says of Christ in relation to them, 
 " And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to 
 them that were nigh ;" though it is certain Christ never visited the 
 Ephesians in person. Wherever he is truly preached, there he 
 may be said to be present. 
 
208 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 stances of the crucifixion, and to appeal to men's feel- 
 ings by exhibiting the crucifix before them in all its 
 tragical forms of interest, without ever bringing out 
 and applying the soul-saving doctrine which it involves, 
 or producing in the hearers one pure spiritual emo- 
 tion. And the strong tendency of the present day 
 seems to be thus to substitute a fictitious for the true 
 cross an image in the place of the reality an 
 object of sight for an object of faith. But pictorial 
 Christianity, consisting only in sensible images, and 
 the impressions which they produce, may cheat and 
 delude, it can never change and renew men's hearts. 
 It is Christ alone dying on the cross for our sins it 
 is Christ alone in the all-sufficiency of his merits to 
 justify, and of his grace to sanctify it is Christ alone 
 received into the heart by faith as the hope of glory, 
 it is this doctrine alone which can save the souls of 
 men ; or, indeed, in any decided manner, moralise and 
 elevate them. 
 
 That " the cross," in this sense of it, is capable of 
 producing these results is certified to us by the facts 
 of both past history and present. It had to contend, 
 as we know, at its first outset, not only with age-long 
 systems of philosophy, but also with the most deeply 
 and widely ramified systems of vice, immorality, and 
 idolatry. The arms of Power, as well as the jealous 
 roots of prejudice, were intertwined, and clung 
 together to protect the then established order of 
 things. Men the most distinguished for their genius, 
 whose writings have supplied a model of style to all 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 209 
 
 succeeding generations, threw the lustre of their 
 names over what had thus received public sanction. 
 Yet all the systems of these monarchs of mind, 
 these princes of philosophy, fell before the cross, 
 like Dagon before the ark, although the arms of 
 empires were stretched out to uphold them, and the 
 splendours of art were thrown around to adorn them, 
 and the harps of poesy were struck to extol them. 
 All, all were too weak to withstand the more power- 
 ful influence of the Cross. Before this, idol temples 
 tottered and tumbled into the dust ; the priests of 
 Paganism fled affrighted ; the wisest were con- 
 founded; the most disputatious were silenced ; and all 
 opponents being driven off the field, Christianity, 
 in the greatness of its strength, was enabled to march, 
 in solitary grandeur, its own majestic way. Thus, by 
 means of the doctrine of the cross was that declaration 
 of God's accomplished : " I will destroy the wisdom 
 of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding 
 of the prudent;" and, as regards the once reverenced 
 philosophers of Greece and Rome, we may now ask, 
 " Where is the wise ? where is the Scribe ? where is 
 the disputer of this world? Hath not God made 
 foolish the wisdom of this world ? For after that in 
 the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not 
 God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, 
 to save them that believe." 
 
 And the Cross has been equally powerful in up- 
 rooting vices as in overturning philosophies. Sins of 
 the most odious kind, that were once common among 
 
 
 
210 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 men and commended, have been banished from 
 society, and there has been introduced into their 
 homes, under the benign genius of Christianity, a 
 purity of affection and a family unity which, even in 
 the best days of heathenism, was utterly unknown. 
 The, ferocity of war has been greatly mitigated, while 
 public virtue and private friendship have become 
 impressed with a principle of integrity and faithful- 
 ness, of truth and self-sacrifice, which has given them a 
 totally altered character. Men that were once sunk in 
 the lowest vices, and abandoned to courses of action 
 the most alien to all that was pure, and just, and holy, 
 have been transformed by it into wholly new creatures. 
 That such changes were effected by the cross in the 
 first ages of Christianity, we have the testimony of 
 Origen, one of the earliest apologists for the Chris- 
 tian faith, in the following unanswered challenge : 
 " Inquire," he says, " into the lives of some among 
 us ; compare our present and our former course of 
 life, and you will find what impieties and impurities 
 men were involved in before they embraced our 
 doctrines; but since they embraced them, how just, how 
 grave, how moderate, how resolute they have become." 
 And have we not heard of similar changes wrought 
 in our own day by the same simple means? What 
 has turned the fierce cannibal New Zealanders into 
 humane and gentle creatures, making them at once 
 kind, truthful, and honest? It has been the doc- 
 trine of the Cross preached to them by our modern 
 apostles. No other means, we have reason to believe, 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 211 
 
 would effect such a change no other means were in 
 this instance employed. 
 
 It is related of the Moravian missionaries, that 
 when they first went out to Greenland they found the 
 inhabitants of that country so sunken in ignorance 
 and barbarism, so dead to all sense of religion, that, 
 acting according to the dictates of human wisdom, 
 tl. Y thought that it would be useless to attempt to 
 evangelise them, except by teaching them first the 
 most elemental principles of theology and morals. 
 They tried this plan for several years, but all in vain : 
 no improvement took place or was produced. At 
 last they determined to preach the Gospel to them, 
 just as God had delivered it in his word, and then 
 they discovered at once that this was indeed " the power 
 of God unto salvation." Those who had before con- 
 tinued unaffected, impenitent, and unconverted, were 
 now melted into penitence, and kindled into godly love, 
 and constrained to obedience, becoming at one and the 
 same time moral and intelligent, and bringing forth 
 in their lives those lovely fruits of Christian graces 
 which are by Jesus Christ, to the praise and glory of 
 God. 
 
 Facts like these, confined to no one country or age, 
 and to no one class or order of men, but witnessed 
 to, more or less, among all, testify, beyond all question- 
 ing or doubt, to the peculiar potency of the Cross. 
 
 But in what, it may perhaps be asked, lies 
 the secret of this wonderful influence ? The philo- 
 sophy, if we may so call it, of the Cross doubtless lies 
 
 o 2 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 in this that it makes its appeal, not to the under- 
 standings merely of men, nor to their mere animal 
 sensibilities, but direct to their hearts. It is so 
 exactly suited to the felt requirements of man's 
 fallen condition ; it so commends itself to the con- 
 scious needs of a sin-wounded conscience ; it so sup- 
 plies man with just what he wants to inspire him 
 with love and confidence towards God, that it lays 
 hold of his affections, those true springs of action, 
 and draws him with an all-overcoming power to 
 devote himself to God's service. All other systems 
 of doctrine address themselves to our understandings, 
 but it is not our understandings that govern our con- 
 duct, but our feelings. As we feel, so we act. The 
 Apostle reveals the true secret of the potency ex- 
 ercised by the cross when he says, " The love of 
 Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge, that if 
 one died for all, then were all dead : and that he died for 
 all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto 
 themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose 
 again." (2 Cor. v. 14, 15.) In the true doctrine of 
 the Cross, then, lies the secret of human salvation. 
 This is the mighty power of God, brought to bear 
 upon the sinful weakness of man. This is the rod 
 of his strength, whereby the heart of man is first sub- 
 dued to obedience, and then strengthened for duty. 
 Wherever it operates savingly, it produces a deep 
 and entire change a change of heart resulting in a 
 change of life a reformation not merely outward but 
 inward a reformation spiritual, practical, glorious. 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 213 
 
 No other instrumentality but this possesses any real 
 moral power. 
 
 How entirely the Apostle Paul relied upon this 
 instrument of salvation how he traced every bless- 
 ing, every immunity, of the Christian to the cross- 
 derived every energising motive from the cross, 
 urged every moral obligation by the cross, may be 
 seen by a reference to his writings. 
 
 Is peace made between God and man? It is, 
 says the apostle, " by the blood of the cross" (Col. 
 i. 20.) 
 
 Is the cause of the enmity between God and man, 
 the law of commandments contained in ordinances, 
 abolished ? " He took it out of the way, nailing it 
 to his cross" (Col. ii. 14.) 
 
 Is the condemnation of sin done away ? " What 
 the law could not do, in that it was weak through the 
 flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of 
 sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : 
 that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled 
 in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
 Spirit." (Rom. viii. 3, 4.) 
 
 Must the world be overcome ? " God forbid 
 that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto 
 me, and I unto the world." (Gal. v. 14.) 
 
 Is the devil to be vanquished, and the fear of 
 death expelled? "Through death Christ destroyed 
 him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, 
 and delivered them who, through fear of death, were 
 
214 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Heb. ii. 
 14, 15.) 
 
 Is sin in general to be renounced ? It is because 
 Christ died for sin, " that the body of sin in us might 
 be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve 
 sin." (Rom. vi. 6.) 
 
 Are good works urged? They are urged on 
 this ground, that Christ "gave himself for us, that 
 he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto 
 himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" 
 (Titus ii. 14.) 
 
 Is any particular grace commended, such as 
 charity, or humility, or forbearance, or brotherly love ? 
 We have set before us the example of Christ : " Ye 
 know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became 
 poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." 
 (2 Cor. viii. 9.) " Let this mind be in you, which 
 was also in Christ Jesus . . . who humbled himself 
 and became obedient unto death, even the death of 
 the cross" (Phil. ii. 5, 8.) 
 
 Is forgiveness of others to be exercised ? " Be 
 ye kind one to another, forgiving one another, even 
 as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." (Eph. 
 iv. 32.) 
 
 Is patience under persecution to be maintained ? 
 It is because " Christ also hath suffered for us, leav- 
 ing us an example that we should follow his steps." 
 
 Are we exhorted to persevere in a Christian 
 course, notwithstanding reproaches, contradictions, 
 opposition ? We are directed to " look unto Jesus, 
 
THE TRUE CEOSS. 215 
 
 who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the 
 cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right 
 hand of the throne of God " (Heb. xii. 2) ; and we are 
 commanded to " take up our cross and follow him." 
 
 It appears, then, from this bird V flight glance 
 over the Apostle's own epistles, that he viewed the 
 cross, not only as the radiating centre of all soul- 
 saving doctrine, but also as involving an all-compre- 
 hensive and most powerful practical principle. The 
 Gospel, in fact, is a system conjointly of doctrine and 
 of duty. Like the celestial system, it has a centre, 
 bright, luminous, all -con trolling, around which all 
 its other bodies revolve in harmonious submission 
 and order. That centre is the Cross, or, in other 
 words, Christ. All lines meet in him, all light and 
 life issue forth from him, all truth is dark till he is 
 risen above the horizon. Lesser lights are only to 
 rule the night ; it is this greater light that is set to 
 rule the day. Only let his light shine, and the path 
 of duty shall become so plain that " the wayfaring 
 man, though a fool, shall not err therein." 
 
 Secondly, we are to view this expression, "the 
 cross," as indicating a practice. 
 
 We have already noticed that there is not only a 
 cross which is to bear us, but one which we are to 
 bear. What the former is has been sufficiently as- 
 certained. The ascertainment of the latter is of 
 scarcely less importance, since as a false notion of doc- 
 trine leads to a mistaken practice, so a mistaken 
 practice tends inevitably to vitiate the integrity of 
 true doctrine. 
 
216 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 It has been commonly assumed, that the cross in 
 Scripture denotes a something which is self -inflicted 
 a something which we are to seek, and voluntarily 
 to take upon ourselves. But a moment's reflection 
 ought to be sufficient to dispel this idea. For what 
 was it that formed the type out of which the painful 
 notion connected with this object took its ideal 
 agonised form ? It was the kind of death to which 
 Roman slaves and the lowest miscreants were sub- 
 jected for their crimes, after first bearing the instru- 
 ment on which they were to suffer. The cross, then, 
 is obviously a thing which is to be laid upon us, not 
 which we are to lay upon ourselves. 
 
 The fact must be borne in mind, that the expression 
 " the cross," used to depict whatever was arduous or 
 ignominious, was in use before our Saviour's cruci- 
 fixion. We find Christ himself using it long before 
 that event. It evidently was not of his own invention ; 
 for he adopts it as a term, the meaning of which was 
 popularly understood. It is clear, then, that we must 
 not unthinkingly trace the origin of the term to the 
 circumstance of our Lord having suffered death upon 
 the cross though we may reasonably suppose he had 
 his far-seeing eye upon that event, when he so often 
 impressed it upon his disciples as a necessity to their 
 true discipleship, that they must be prepared to bear 
 the Cross. 
 
 The death of the cross being a punishment of 
 Roman introduction among the Jews, the term " the 
 cross " seems soon to have passed into a proverbial 
 expression among them, to denote any kind of severe 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 217 
 
 suffering, or inflicted dishonour anything which it 
 might be extremely painful and hard to endure. It 
 was hard to Jews to bear the yoke of the Roman 
 government ; it was still harder to bear the disgrace 
 of a Roman punishment, and this kind of punish- 
 ment was not unfrequently inflicted before their 
 eyes. So frequently indeed was this penalty imposed 
 among the Romans, that all kinds of pains, afflictions, 
 troubles, and unprosperous affairs had come among 
 them to be called crosses. Jesus seized this most ex- 
 pressive term, which he found to be in common use, 
 and applied it to denote that peculiar kind of suffer- 
 ing to which his followers would be subjected (a term 
 which became doubly expressive and appropriate after 
 his own crucifixion), and told all who would be his 
 disciples, plainly and without any disguise, that they 
 must bear the cross, yea, each bear his (own) cross. 
 
 The Christian application of the term, in this view, 
 is what we have to trace out. To trace it out, we 
 must investigate, by careful comparison, the passages 
 with their contexts in which it occurs. 
 
 In the 10th of Matthew (the first place in which 
 we meet with it), after having guarded his twelve 
 chosen disciples against misconceiving the result of 
 his doctrine upon the world at large, by the words, 
 " Think not that I am come to send peace on the 
 earth ; I came not to send peace but a sword. For I 
 am come to set a man at variance against his father, 
 and the daughter against her mother, and the 
 daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law," adding, 
 " And a man's foes shall be they of his own house- 
 
218 THE TRUE CROSS, 
 
 hold," he continues, "He that loveth father or 
 mother more than me, is not worthy of me ; and he 
 that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not 
 worthy of me ; and he that taketh not his cross" (in 
 the parallel passage in St. Luke it is, " Whosoever 
 doth not bear his cross") " and followeth after me is not 
 worthy of me." Now here, it would seem, " the cross " 
 which he that would be a Christian is to take or bear 
 is what our Lord has just been describing the duty 
 of enduring all that enmity, and hatred, and opposition 
 which might be the consequence of the confession of 
 the Christian faith, rather than let natural affection 
 take the precedence of love to Christ. Not one word 
 is mentioned about self-inflictions and bodily auste- 
 rities in this Scripture. 
 
 But it may be thought that if this passage is not 
 clearly determinative of the sense which is to be put 
 upon the expression, " the cross," others may be 
 more so. 
 
 Proceed we then to the next, Matthew xvi. 24, 
 " Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will 
 come after me, let him deny himself, and take up 
 his cross, and follow me." Look we to the preced- 
 ing verses, and we find that Christ had just been 
 reproving Peter for his self-considering advice. 
 When he heard from the lips of his Divine Master 
 that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things 
 of the elders, and chief priests, and be killed, he took 
 him, and began to rebuke him, saying " Be it far 
 from thee, Lord" (or as it is more literally in the 
 margin, " Spare thyself"). " This shall not be unto 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 thee." Then Jesus turned and said, " Get 
 behind me, Satan : thou art an offence unto me : 
 thou savourest not the things that be of God, but 
 the things that be of men," adding the words respect- 
 ing the cross which we have just quoted. Here 
 the cross is evidently not anything we are to in- 
 flict upon ourselves, but that suffering which will 
 be inflicted upon us by others, if, with godly resolu- 
 tion, we proceed on in a straightforward, unswerving 
 course of righteous action, setting our face like a 
 flint alike against all priestly pride and popular pre- 
 possession, determined, come what may, to do the 
 will of God. Again, there is no mention of self- 
 imposed penances or tortures of the body not indeed 
 of anything self-sought but only of that reproach 
 and shame from which none can escape but by turn- 
 ing out of the path of duty. 
 
 In the 10th of St. Mark and the 21st verse we 
 meet with words which seem to involve somewhat 
 more. Jesus is there represented as saying to the 
 rich young man, who professed to have kept all the 
 commands of the second table of the law from his 
 youth, " One thing thou lackest : go thy way, sell all 
 that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt 
 have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross, 
 and follow me." In this place the cross, it appears 
 to us, means, generally, the service of Christ, and not 
 simply the parting with his riches ; for the form of ex- 
 pression used is "the cross," and not "thy cross;" and 
 the taking up of the cross is connected immediately 
 with the invitation " come and follow me" Come and 
 
220 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 take up with a life of reproach and suffering in the 
 place of a life of luxury and ease, after my example, 
 that you may prove your real love to God and man. 
 It is not so much voluntary poverty that seems to be 
 specifically intended here by the Cross (for that is only 
 preliminary), as the endurance of a something that 
 was to follow after from following Christ. But even 
 if we take it to mean the giving away of all his 
 riches to the poor (a cross to him undoubtedly, 
 because, as the result proved, he loved his riches 
 better than his neighbour), that is a very different 
 thing from shutting himself up in a monastery, or 
 inflicting upon himself the profitless penances of 
 ascetic austerity. There is nothing of that kind 
 hinted at even here ; but only the necessity of charity 
 and active devotedness to the service of Christ. 
 
 The next passage to which we have to refer (and 
 this is the last that occurs in the Gospels in which 
 the taking up of our own cross is insisted on), is 
 Luke ix. 23, where it is written : " And he said 
 to them all, If any man will come after me, let 
 him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and 
 follow me." Here, undoubtedly, we have an enlarge- 
 ment of the precept with regard to the cross : it is 
 not confined to any particular act, but is extended to 
 the whole life. But in the context again, it will be 
 observed, as in St. Matthew, it stands connected with 
 Christ's sufferings at the hands of men; for he had just 
 stated : " The Son of man must suffer many things, and 
 be rejected of the elders and Chief Priests and Scribes, 
 and be slain, and be raised the third day." All that 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 221 
 
 we can fairly conclude he intended to enforce by the 
 rule of life laid down here was, that as he would 
 have to suffer, so they, if they would follow him, 
 must expect and be prepared to suffer with him. 
 For he grounds it as a consequence upon the cer- 
 tainty of his own sufferings in the cause of God, that 
 all who would come after him must inure themselves 
 to suffering, and arm themselves with fortitude, by 
 denying their own natural feelings and inclinations, 
 and taking up their cross, that is, the reproach or 
 contempt they might meet with for religion, daily. 
 The taking of it up is evidently put in implied oppo- 
 sition to that shrinking from it, to which our weak 
 self-loving nature would ever incline us. But surely 
 this again is a very different thing from that neglect- 
 ing of the body*, and those self-imposed rigidities 
 of the monastic life, which some consider as consti- 
 tuting the true Cross. To retire into a monastery is 
 not to take up the Cross, but to flee from it. To fast 
 merely is not to follow Christ ; but, when carried to 
 excess, is to unfit ourselves for his service. 
 
 That the taking up of the cross does not relate to 
 the mortification of sin, would, we might suppose, be 
 sufficiently evident from the fact that our Lord, who 
 first bore it, and whose example we are to follow, had 
 no sin to mortify : he was subject to no solicitations 
 of lust from within his chief trials came upon him 
 from without. It is true, He uses the expression, " let 
 him deny himself," in connection with the cross, but 
 the denial here intended is obviously that which has 
 respect to the mind rather than the body to that 
 
222 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 natural prudence and self-preference which invariably 
 incline us to adopt Peter's satanic advice, " Spare 
 thyself." It is true, also, no doubt, that to get the 
 mastery over the mind, and to keep a firm command 
 over the course of our life, we must so far deny our- 
 selves bodily, as the Apostle says he did, as not to 
 pamper and indulge our carnal appetites in easy, 
 luxurious living, which necessarily tends to unfit us 
 for arduous enterprises and the bearing of rough 
 crosses. But beyond this nothing, it appears to us, 
 can legitimately be inferred from any of the passages 
 in the Gospels in which the term occurs, as being 
 denoted by " the cross" 
 
 Nor, if we examine the apostolic Epistles, shall 
 we discover more than this to be included in the 
 term, or any of its equivalents. Take the case of that 
 most hard tried apostle St. Paul. Whenever he 
 speaks personally of being crucified with Christ, it is 
 in reference to the persecutions he had to endure for 
 Christ the sufferings which the doctrine of the cross 
 brought upon him from both Jews and Gentiles. 
 "We are troubled on every side," he says to the 
 Corinthians, " yet not distressed, we are perplexed 
 but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast 
 down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the 
 body the dying of the Lord Jesus 9 that the life also of 
 Jesus might be made manifest in our body." Again, to 
 the Colossians he says, " I rejoice in my sufferings for 
 you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions 
 of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the 
 church." He was, we know, whipped, beaten with 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 223 
 
 rods, stoned, time after time, for his bold, unflinching 
 faithfulness to the truth. These were those marks 
 upon his body, and not any stigmata, or self-inflicted 
 wounds, of which he speaks in the 6th to the Gala- 
 tians, " From henceforth let no man trouble me, for 
 I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." 
 It was to the heroic endurance of this kind of cross, 
 after his example, he exhorted his spiritual son 
 Timothy, saying, " Be not thou therefore ashamed of 
 the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner : 
 but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel, 
 according to the power of God." (2 Timothy i. 8.) 
 
 The conclusion, then, at which we arrive, from a 
 review of these testimonies, is, that he most truly 
 and properly bears the cross of Christ who endures 
 insult, injury, and wrong in his cause; in a word, 
 that a willingness to sit/er for the truth was the Cross 
 which, in particular, Christ intended his disciples to 
 understand they must take up. It is the cross of 
 contempt, the cross of reproach, the cross of hurt 
 feeling and mental agony, the cross of persecution 
 and undeserved dishonour. There are other crosses 
 which may arise in addition to this, but these are 
 crosses which must necessarily come which cannot 
 be avoided except by a compromise of duty. " Who- 
 soever will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer 
 persecution." " If they have hated me, they will also 
 hate you. If they have persecuted me, they will 
 also persecute you. All these things will they do 
 unto you for my name's sake." 
 
 Living the life of the Cross, we see, then, consists 
 
224 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 not, on the one hand, in the fantastic sentimentalities 
 of a factitious piety, but in stern realities. It con- 
 sists not in going over in the mind and treading the 
 stations, as it is termed, of Christ's passion, till each 
 affecting circumstance, like the incidents of a novel, 
 shall soften the heart into a seeming sympathy with 
 the sufferer. It consists not in placing before the 
 eye a cross or a crucifix, in order to call up to vivid 
 remembrance the tragic woes of him who agonised 
 and died on that fatal instrument, and in looking 
 with adoring tenderness on that sacred sign, till all 
 the excited and agitated sensibilities of the heart 
 gush out in a flood of softened emotions and fancied 
 pious affections. Nor, on the other hand, does it 
 consist in those bodily macerations and austerities 
 in which the monastic orders of the Romish Church 
 have placed the highest form of Christian self-denial. 
 Who can, for a moment, believe that it is our duty 
 to destroy our physical constitution, which is as much 
 God's work as our souls, by way of fitting ourselves 
 for his service. We read of St. Francis d'Assisi that 
 long before he received the stigmata (the supposed 
 highest sign of conformity to Christ), " his body had 
 been reduced by fasting, self-torture, and austerities 
 of the most dreadful description, to a mere mass of 
 disease ; his eyes were wasted by constant weeping, 
 the ' gift of tears,' so coveted by the ascetics, and one 
 of the indices of their physical temperament; his 
 stomach, and liver, and nervous system were utterly 
 destroyed ; but the unquenchable spirit still bore up, 
 and his seraphic ardours were more vivid than ever." 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 225 
 
 These statements rest upon the account given of him 
 by St. Bonaventura.* Who can doubt that this is 
 that " neglecting of the body, not in any honour, to 
 the satisfying of the flesh," which St. Paul so sternly 
 condemns. (Col. ii.) Yet this sort of beggarly 
 humiliation, which consists only in starving the body, 
 is what some among ourselves would bring again into 
 practice. Protestant self-denial differs essentially in 
 its object as well as its degree from Popish ; for that 
 is to fit for arduous duty, not to merit heaven by 
 mere self-mortification. 
 
 But we must not omit, in all honesty, to notice 
 that there are some passages of Scripture which 
 apply the ideal of the cross to denote the necessity of 
 our being crucified personally, though in a figurative 
 sense, in our own feelings and desires, " crucified to 
 the world," " crucifying the flesh with its affections 
 and lusts," and having " fellowship with the sufferings 
 of Christ, so as to be made conformable to his death." 
 But all this is to be brought about, it will be found, 
 
 * The absurdity to which the ascetic saints of the Eomish Church 
 often carried this system of bodily self-mortification almost exceeds 
 belief. It rendered them deaf alike to the whisperings of truth and 
 common sense, and led them to ascribe to the devil the suggestions 
 of the plainest reason and prudence. " One night when at prayer," 
 says St. Bonaventura, " the devil called to him thrice, and said that 
 there was no sinner to whom, if converted from sio, God would not 
 show indulgence, but that whoever killed himself with unmeasured 
 penance would find no mercy throughout eternity. But immediately,'' 
 proceeds the narrative, " he knew the old enemy," &c. St. Francis 
 used to call his body " Brother Ass," and say it was to be subdued, 
 and its spirit broken down, like its brutal prototype. This story 
 is retailed by Lord Lindsay in his " History of Christian Art," vol. ii. 
 p. 216. 
 
 P 
 
226 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 not by the Brahminical method of wounds and 
 self-tortures, but by the mental contemplation of the 
 cross of Christ, by laying to heart the solemn ends 
 for which he died, by that vivid sense of the evil of 
 sin which the contemplation of his sufferings begets ; 
 and above all, by the conviction that it is not by the 
 works of the law, or any sin -stained moralities of our 
 own, we are to be justified and saved, but only by the 
 imputed merits and inwrought mind of Christ. It is 
 too often overlooked that our crucifixion with Christ 
 is to follow in the way of moral consequence from his, 
 rather than upon the principle of moral duty. If it 
 is attempted directly by any inflictions of our own, it 
 becomes self-righteousness, and is not, properly speak- 
 ing, the crucifixion of self with Christ that we may 
 live unto God. There is no principle which it is so 
 hard to put to death as the self-righteous principle 
 within us the first born of sin, and the last to die, 
 even in the believer. Till this is destroyed, however, 
 sin will retain its power over us, and hold us in bondage. 
 But when the "expulsive power of a new affection" has 
 been introduced, then the love of sin, together with all 
 trust in the law is cast out the world is disenchanted 
 of its fascinating influence over us and that con- 
 geries of affections and lusts which have their seat in 
 the flesh, and form what is termed the " old man," 
 becomes crucified with Christ by a spiritual mortifi- 
 cation that the body of sin may be destroyed, so that 
 henceforth we should not serve sin. It is thus that 
 the ends of the Law are secured, and can be secured, 
 only by the Gospel. 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 227 
 
 But, in opposition to this principle, most men are 
 for crucifying themselves with a view to salvation, 
 instead of regarding Christ as crucified for them, and 
 letting this act with a sin-extinguishing power upon 
 their souls. Hence the doctrine of Christ crucified for 
 us or, in other words, the doctrine of a free salvation 
 solely through the death and merits of Christ is that 
 which meets with universal human repugnance, and 
 draws upon a man, as it did upon St. Paul, the world's 
 hatred and persecution. There is no doctrine which 
 even the " good moral people," as they esteem them- 
 selves, of the professing Church can so little endure. 
 For holding this, if held in a spirit consistent with the 
 principle, the world will heap upon any one a load of 
 obloquy, ridicule, and slanderous report, which will of 
 itself constitute no light cross. To represent that a man 
 must die to all that is moral, and noble, and virtuous, 
 and excellent in himself, and take his place as a guilty 
 sinner before God, devoid of all good, in order to be 
 saved, even as Christ was numbered with the trans- 
 gressors when he was crucified, this at once stamps 
 him in the world's eyes with that character of base- 
 ness and of shame which provokes its scorning and 
 contempt. Here, then, we find one arm, at least, of 
 The True Cross. 
 
 The other arm of this Cross is formed out of a 
 true Christian's practice. Because he shows himself 
 dead to the world is indifferent to its amusements 
 and its honour is devout and prayerful carries him- 
 self humbly before men. and yet is bold and decisive 
 in all duty towards God will never conceal or com- 
 
228 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 promise any principle but openly confesses Christ 
 upon all occasions, therefore shall he be assailed 
 and traduced accused as rash and imprudent 
 deprived of that hearing which is accorded to others 
 avoided as a dangerous person to have anything to 
 do with, and condemned to a life of poverty and 
 reproach. Thus the scene of our Lord's rejection 
 shall be re-enacted ; and in the mockings and sneers 
 continually cast upon him, the man shall, in a sense 
 almost literal, be made to bear the cross. 
 
 The two arms of the Cross, then, which the real 
 Christian has to bear, may be said to consist of his 
 belief on the one side, and his conduct on the other, 
 while the central upright part which bears him is 
 Christ. 
 
 We do not say that there may not be other crosses 
 which may come upon him ; undoubtedly there are 
 in those trial-tests which God, in his providence, is 
 pleased to send for the chastening and perfecting of his 
 people. Some have laid upon them the cross of a mis- 
 represented character; some of a rebellious family; 
 some of unprosperous circumstances ; some of sharp 
 bodily pains ; some of deep mental conflicts. But 
 none of these is specifically the Cross which we are to 
 take up, that is, the open confession of Christ, 
 with all that a stedfast, unshrinking maintenance of 
 Christian principle will oblige us to endure. 
 
 There are some who manufacture crosses for 
 themselves, by the imposition of uncommanded 
 bodily austerities. But let a man only enter openly 
 into the conflict for truth, against the evil and 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 229 
 
 adulterous generation of his own day, who would 
 corrupt it with the admixtures of error, and he will 
 have quite crosses enough to bear without manu- 
 facturing crosses of his own, whether by the impo- 
 sition of unrequired austerities, or the resultant 
 effects of his own imprudences. St. Paul's prefer- 
 ment was a prison; and when there, under the charge 
 of being a stirrer-up of strife, he found but one 
 Onesiphorus to visit him: all his former adherents 
 stood off from him. The professing Church even is 
 ever found to forsake her best servants when they are 
 in circumstances of dishonour. 
 
 One of the chief ways, it appears from Scripture, 
 in which we are required to take up our cross, is, by 
 a willingness to identify ourselves with those who 
 suffer for the truth ; to take part with them in their 
 reproach; and to administer, so far as lies in our 
 power, to their support, when no worldly honour, but 
 obloquy only, will attend the sacrifice. It is to be a 
 sufficient reason with a Christian for bearing the cross 
 for a brother by sympathy, that for faithful defence of 
 the truth as it is in Jesus, and on no other account, 
 he is subjected to contumely and scorn, to poverty 
 and contempt, to prison and a chain. 
 
 But this is what few, even among Christians, will 
 have the courage to do. This requires moral courage, 
 the rarest, as it is the noblest, of all kinds of courage. 
 Men may be found in multitudes who will face phy- 
 sical danger in its most terrific forms without a fear ; 
 brave the lion in his den, pass undaunted through the 
 thunders of the battle-field, or dash into the crested 
 
230 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 billows of the storm-tossed ocean to save the life of a 
 sinking man, without a moment's hesitation ; and yet 
 few, very few, can be found who will encounter 
 obloquy to succour injured innocence, incur reproach 
 to administer relief to the imprisoned, or nobly dare 
 to identify themselves with one to whom there is 
 attached the chain of undeserved dishonour. Most 
 men, indeed, will shrink instinctively from knowing, 
 or becoming identified with any fellow-man, however 
 good he may really be, on whose name there rests the 
 slightest shadow of shame. But this is not to bear 
 the Cross ; this is not the principle which should 
 actuate the true Christian. Fear is a feeling which 
 ought never to sit on his cheek ; shame should blush 
 itself off from his face, when he stands by the side of 
 Truth. To suffer shame he should be ready ever to 
 be ashamed, never. 
 
 Principle is tested by trial. It is easy enough to 
 profess a religion which all profess, and to act a part 
 which all others act, and to pay honour to a person 
 when all others unite to honour him ; but to stand 
 by the Truth when it stands alone, to patronise it when 
 it is a prisoner, to identify ourselves with it when it 
 lies under dishonour, there lies the trial of faith, and 
 of real Christian courage. Christ was forsaken of his 
 own disciples when they saw him on the way to the cross 
 Paul of his friends when he was cast into prison. 
 This want of moral courage, which is too common a 
 characteristic of Christians, works unmitigated mischief 
 even to society ; for it leaves weakness to be crushed 
 by power, inflicts upon innocence more than the pangs 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 231 
 
 of guilt, and often loses to the community those whom 
 a little timely sympathy and succour would have saved 
 to benefit it by their labours, even if they did not 
 adorn it by their virtues. Moral cowardice, then, 
 which is the basest of all base feelings, is both a curse 
 and a bane. While it tramples upon the weak, it 
 will ever be found ready to cringe to the powerful. 
 
 This feeling usually cloaks itself under the name 
 of " prudence." But of all paralysis, there is none so 
 paralysing as the paralysis of worldly prudence. This 
 is both the feeblest and the most enfeebling of all the 
 virtues. Useful as an adviser, it is most ineffective 
 when made an actor. It can propose right measures, 
 but never carry. It shrinks with affright from the 
 image of its own purposes, the instant they assume 
 a bodily shape and form. It is a thing, therefore, 
 which Christians ought to admit with caution even 
 into their counsels, and never to submit to when the 
 question lies before them whether or not they should 
 take up the Cross. 
 
 One of the most trying of all forms in which the 
 Cross can present itself to us to be taken up, is when 
 we see clearly, and know too surely, that our enter- 
 ing upon a certain line of action, to which we feel 
 called by the commanding voice of duty, will involve 
 the loss of all our friends. To have the conviction 
 staring us in the face that those whose good opinion 
 we esteem, and whose favour we naturally wish to 
 enjoy, will all frown upon and forsake us, if such and 
 such a bold step be taken by us, is indeed sufficient 
 to deter the bravest faith, and to shake almost the 
 
232 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 best Christian's resolution. Yet unless a man is 
 prepared to be forsaken of every friend to submit to 
 be condemned as a public disturber and to have his 
 name cast out as evil in the cause of good ; yea, to 
 be crucified in his every feeling by the piercing 
 weapons of power and of popular contempt, he can- 
 not be said to be one who can bear the Cross. 
 
 The true Christian spirit is a singular combination 
 of opposites ; it is boldness with gentleness, magna- 
 nimity with meekness, apparent weakness with hidden 
 energy, seeming rashness with the very deepest wis- 
 dom. It never calculates consequences in any matter 
 of duty. But this is not the spirit which is most 
 appreciated in the church. It is the men who are 
 esteemed prudent, discreet, safe, that are most hon- 
 oured, as if the highest effect of Christianity were 
 only to make men somewhat more worldly wise. 
 Such men, by hazarding nothing to serve others, en- 
 danger nothing, of course, as regards themselves. 
 The world will ever keep peace with them, because 
 they are at peace with the world. Their religion 
 ruffles no one, and therefore the cry of " These men 
 who have turned the world upside down," is never 
 raised against them. They are not thought even 
 worthy of being traduced. They may be kind, bene- 
 volent, charitable, within their sphere, and rigidly 
 exact in all matters of legal right ; but they have one 
 grand defect. They want range, force, freedom, and 
 a fearless spirit. They never step out of the routine 
 path of prescription. In all matters, they use " the 
 weights and measures of custom/' and of a conven- 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 233 
 
 tional morality. It is the safe, and not the self- 
 sacrificing, they make their standard of duty. Such 
 men carry no cross. ^ 
 
 It seems worthy of special notice that, in the pre- 
 sent age, the only way in which we can practically 
 take up the cross, is by openly identifying ourselves 
 with those who suffer for Christ, and that this is 
 what Christ requires of us. Christ identifies himself 
 with his injured people (" Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
 thou me?"), and we must do the same by our mani- 
 fested sympathy with them, or we shall be classed at 
 the last day with those who have been ashamed of 
 Him and of his word. For " he that receiveth you 
 receiveth me ; and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me." 
 " Be not thou ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, 
 nor of me, his prisoner," says the apostle to Timothy ; 
 where, it is to be observed, he conjoins the not being 
 ashamed of the Gospel with the not being ashamed 
 of himself as suffering for it, implying that the 
 one of these acts involved the other. Again, he 
 reminds him, " This thou knowest, that all they which 
 are in Asia be turned away from me" (he does not 
 say turned away from the truth; that is implied in 
 their very act) ; so that turning away from him is here 
 spoken of as tantamount to turning away from the 
 truth. From these passages of Scripture, we gather 
 this most important principle of Christian duty, that 
 an [open identification of ourselves with Christ's people 
 in their sufferings for his truth, taking their burden on 
 ourselves by sympathy, is the real taking up of his cross ; 
 
 Q 
 
234 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 and that if we are ashamed of them, we are to be 
 considered as ashamed of Him : in other words, that 
 a mere tacit ^mission of abstract Christian truth is 
 not to confess Christ, but that in order to this confession 
 (for it is confession that is required and not mere pro- 
 fession), we must recognise and take part with it when, 
 like its Divine Author, it suffers persecution in the 
 persons of his faithful servants. 
 
 It is a fact in the philosophy of human action, 
 which seems to pass unnoted, that truth and error have 
 no practical existence but as they are embodied in 
 persons. You cannot deal with crime, for instance, in 
 the abstract ; neither can you deal with righteousness 
 in the abstract, It is not the man who denies that there 
 is any wrong in stealing whom you can punish, but 
 the man who steals. It is not the man who expresses 
 his approval of bravery whom you can honour, but 
 the man who buckles on the armour, and does battle. 
 Truth is practically a nonentity till it is incorporated 
 in the person and actions of some living agent ; and 
 until it is asserted and suffers, you cannot honour it 
 in its living veritable reality. 
 
 Here, then, is laid bare the fallacy as well as the 
 falseheartedness of that principle upon which so many 
 are content to rest, namely, that as they admit all the 
 doctrines of the Gospel, they are not guilty of denying 
 the truth, though they decline to identify themselves 
 with its dishonoured professors; that they are not 
 chargeable with refusing to bear the cross, though they 
 do not choose to take part openly with those whose 
 
THE TRUE CROSS. 235 
 
 greater faithfulness has brought them under reproach. 
 Not deny the truth by this ? So far from it, we deny 
 the truth whenever we are ashamed to identify our- 
 selves with him, whoever he may be, in whom the 
 truth lives, acts, and suffers. 
 
 The cross is not to the Christian an object of 
 ignominy, but of glory. Its whole nature has become 
 changed because it has been borne by Christ ; he has 
 embalmed and sanctified it by his own sufferings. 
 From being a burden, it is now turned into a blessing ; 
 instead of being a weight, it now gives strength to all 
 who bear it ; no longer the dark emblem of death, it 
 is now converted into a ladder whereby to reach 
 eternal life, and on its top rests a crown. For these 
 reasons the true-hearted Christian embraces it lov- 
 ingly, and, like Simon the Cyrenian, bears it, when 
 laid upon him, not only submissively, but cheerfully. 
 
 There are two things, however, which the man 
 who would act at once as a wise and a faithful fol- 
 lower ^ Christ, must guard against ; and those are, 
 the bringing upon himself of needless endurances 
 through rashness, and the avoiding of crosses out of 
 mere self-consideration. We must not go one step out 
 of our way either to meet a cross, or to miss a cross ; 
 but take up willingly, and submit to bear patiently, 
 whatever comes upon us as a cross in the way of 
 duty to shrink from it in that case is to be ashamed 
 of Christ. And he who has not the resolution thus 
 to live as a Christian, gives evidence that he has not 
 the faith which would ever enable him to die a martyr. 
 
 Q 2 
 
236 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 IT has been asserted by one whose position gives 
 some weight to his authority, that the present age is 
 " wanting in faith!' To test the truth of this asser- 
 tion, it is necessary for us to ascertain what the 
 writer means by Faith, and whether it be entitled to 
 be considered, in any proper sense of the word, 
 Christian Faith. 
 
 Doubtless there is a dearth of Faith, if by Faith is 
 meant an implicit yielding up of one's conscience to 
 priestly keeping a blind following of those who may 
 happen to be, by office, spiritual guides ; or if, again, 
 it be unquestioning assent to dogmas which rest only 
 on uncertain traditions, or the misty pillars of super- 
 stitious imaginings such, for instance, as trust in 
 "the mighty powers of grace" ascribed by some to 
 the Church ; in the mystic virtues supposed to be im- 
 parted to sacramental elements to give soul-life to 
 the recipients ; in the efficacy of an objective symbolic 
 worship to spiritualise and elevate the character ; or, 
 further, if it be confidence in that kind of charity 
 which would seek to melt and amend an offender by 
 locking him up in the cold, damp shades of a prison. 
 This, however, is not Faith, but foolishness. Our 
 
THE POWER OP FAITH. 237 
 
 Lord has, indeed, assured us that true Faith, if it be 
 even as small as a grain of mustard-seed, should give 
 to us the power to remove mountains, but he never 
 made it one of the properties of Faith to create 
 mountains, and much less to swallow mountains. 
 
 Yet, confessedly, there is in the present day a want 
 of Faith, in the true and proper sense of the term. 
 There is wanting that Faith which acts, not from 
 sight, but from an overpowering moral persuasion 
 which has full confidence in the final triumph of 
 truth, trusts in it, and ventures boldly on it which 
 overleaps obstacles, conflicts unyielding with diffi- 
 culties, braves dangers which sets itself daringly 
 to the accomplishment of great objects, suffers not 
 itself to be fettered by selfish prudences, gathers 
 fresh energy from encountered opposition, is un- 
 wearied in pursuing, unconquerable in forgiving, in- 
 exhaustible in the welling forth of its own deep love, 
 and wins the victory at last by the meekness with 
 which it endures and the patience with which it 
 perseveres. 
 
 Of this kind of Faith there is a manifest and a 
 melancholy dearth marking the age in which we 
 live. We have become a feeble because we have 
 become a faithless generation. The men that will 
 dare and the men that can endure are alike wanting 
 among us. This is, undeniably, not the age of 
 Daniels or of Pauls. The men of this day are not 
 the men who would rebuke a monarch upon his 
 throne, or fearlessly face the rack or the dungeon 
 
238 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 rather than compromise in a duty. Should it be 
 said that if such men were required they would be 
 raised up, or that, if there were the stern trials of 
 bygone days to form them, they would soon be 
 formed, our reply would be " There are not the 
 trials because there are not the men to provoke 
 them." If we had men of the fearless faithfulness 
 of a John the Baptist, or of the undaunted boldness 
 of a Paul, the trials, we may be certain, would soon 
 come, just as when the wind blows roughly the 
 tumultuous waves quickly arise. 
 
 The great want of the present day, then, it must 
 be confessed with shame, is the want of moral 
 courage in men ; and this, undoubtedly, does arise 
 from the want of Faith of a vigorous, earnest, brave, 
 uncalculating Christian Faith. 
 
 But let us not so palpably contradict ourselves 
 as to maintain that the age of martyrs has altogether 
 passed away, when we see some ready to exhibit the 
 high heroic courage which is required to fight battles for 
 candles ; who would sooner suffer death in a tub of 
 melted wax than allow the light of their new law to 
 be extinguished ; who would even clothe themselves 
 in a sheet of livid flame rather than give up preach- 
 ing in a surplice, and .be placed in the fearful pillory 
 of scorching public opinion, by the engine of the 
 press worse than ten thousand of the tender mar- 
 tyrdoms of the good olden times before they would 
 break the seal of a child's confession, though de- 
 manded for the august ends of justice ! Truly our 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 239 
 
 day is not wanting in heroes of a certain stature. 
 And if the magnitude of moral courage is to be 
 measured by the minuteness of the objects for which 
 it contends (and is ready to undergo deaths oft), this 
 age supplies abundance of examples of towering 
 spirits that quite overtop Apostles. 
 
 But to drop irony, though sanctioned by sacred 
 examples, and to return to serious and sober reflec- 
 tion. It is indeed an evil sign and a sad, when Unity 
 can be broken, and churches rent, and Charity 
 wounded, and brother set against brother, and the 
 fire of angry tempers lighted up to settle down in 
 deadly animosities and alienations, Truth pushed 
 aside, and the reign of Peace retarded, all for such 
 wretched puerilities as vestments and postures, and 
 the other trifles about which the zealots for externals 
 are wont, with such disproportionate vigour, to con- 
 tend. And the mischief does not end here. It is a 
 fact in the philosophy of mind that the extension of 
 any power beyond its proper sphere ever tends to 
 weaken it within that sphere ; and, hence, this ex- 
 cessive zeal about the external forms of religion, 
 weakens the operation of zeal for religion itself: 
 thus, Faith grows feeble from the withdrawal of its 
 proper sustaining element, while Charity (which is 
 the best fruit of religion) gets swallowed up in the 
 whirling, turbid waters of party contentions. 
 
 Causes and consequences are closel5 T connected 
 together. One consequence of the want of Faith 
 which marks our age is, that men have lost that 
 
240 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 individuality of character which carries with it dis- 
 tinction, and leads to the accomplishment of things 
 truly noble and great. No one can impress upon his 
 works what is not to be found in himself. The glory 
 of originality, which men so strain after, is only in- 
 dividuality in minds of any power, and this is 
 destroyed by the slightest touch of affectation. If 
 they could but be content to be themselves they 
 would more often become men of mark. What was 
 it gave our Lord, as a man, that marked superiority 
 over other men which distinguished him that moral 
 dignity which could command attention, that moral 
 power which could wield control ? It was the in- 
 dividuality of his character, its perfect oneness, its 
 being always consistent and manifestly his own. 
 But this individuality was the result of an all- con- 
 trolling Faith in God, that never failed. This gave 
 him that singular elevation of conduct which was 
 above all human opinion and human censure, and 
 caused him to stand in our world at once as majestic 
 and as immovable as a mountain. 
 
 In St. Paul we see a similar individuality, one- 
 ness, and nobleness of character; and this also 
 sprang from the same cause the singleness and 
 strength of his Faith. But, in our times, we seldom 
 meet with anything like this in men. What has 
 been said of women may now, indeed, be said, and 
 with more truth, of men that most of them " have 
 no character of their own at all." They lose their 
 own individuality in their timid, self-mistrusting 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 241 
 
 dependence upon received opinions, and appear as 
 otter men by servilely adopting their style or modes 
 of action. They trust not themselves to think, speak, 
 or write, but under the fettering restraint of the 
 world's strait-waistcoat, forgetful that this was in- 
 tended for none but madmen or fools. They have 
 no confidence in their own powers, or, rather, in the 
 powers of truth, and righteousness, and simplicity, and 
 straightforwardness, and of steadfast standing by a 
 principle, to achieve triumphs. In a word, they 
 have no Faith in Faith. All their impulses to action 
 (or, rather, to inaction) are received from without, and 
 arise not from a deep spring of Faith within. Their 
 ruling inquiry is, " What judgment will the men of my 
 day pass upon such a course ? What is considered 
 right ? " It is the sanction of some high authority or 
 a venerated name which decides them : and, more often 
 still, the thought, " How will this line of procedure 
 affect my standing in the estimation of others what 
 will be the consequences of it to myself?" Thus, held 
 in oscillating uncertainty between the doubtings of 
 prudence and the conflictings of opposite interests, 
 vacillation, and halting, and irresolution, and want 
 of individual confidence and of concentrated energy, 
 marks their course. They eitheii never attempt any- 
 thing out of the ordinary way, or, if they attempt, they 
 fail to accomplish. What is commonly called prudence 
 is neither more nor less than mental paralysis. 
 
 Another ill effect arising from the want of a 
 vital Faith, is that weakness of love which fails to 
 
242 THE POWER OP FAITH. 
 
 bring a man up, when offended, to the magnanimity 
 to forgive. This is a sadly common characteristic of 
 Christians of the present age. In the power to for- 
 give offences, however oft repeated, the triumph of 
 Faith over nature is most signally manifested. But 
 how few, in , our day, have the courage to rebuke, 
 and, much less, the generosity to forgive, an offend- 
 ing brother. Indeed, it may be assumed as a certain 
 rule, that where there is not the courage to rebuke, 
 there will never be, found the generosity, the self- 
 mastery, to forgive. Strong for everything little, 
 men have no power to do that which is really great. 
 Their feelings being dissipated among a multitude of 
 toyish questions, and not gathered up and centred in 
 the unity of the one master feeling of Faith, they have 
 not the power over themselves which would make 
 them the masters of themselves. To perform a duty 
 is always easier to such creatures as we are, than 
 to forgive an injury. To resent requires only 
 weakness ; repeatedly to forgive requires great moral 
 strength. This moral strength is the gift of Faith, 
 whose reflex influence is manifested in all the acts of 
 brotherly love. * 
 
 Anger gives birth to prejudice, and prejudice 
 -darkens all the moral perceptions. Hence, to those 
 who live in the troubled element of perturbed passions, 
 objects which otherwise would look bright appear 
 dim ; truths which would stand out in bold relief, 
 like the mountain's broad bossy breasts, and rounded 
 shoulders, and deep mossy recesses, in a clear sky, 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 243 
 
 are lost sight of, or scarcely seen, as in a thick misty 
 haze ; and no search is made after new discoveries, 
 or lovelier manifestations, because Faith has become 
 confined in its range. Unless we believe in those 
 principles of Reason and of Conscience which are the 
 bases of our moral nature unless we have full Faith 
 in our own inward consciousness, as belonging to all 
 pf our kind unless we recognise those elements, or 
 rather, capabilities of goodness, which are to be 
 found in all who bear the " image divine" of the 
 human form, we make no efforts for human improve- 
 ment, and bring out none of those beautiful moral 
 results, as new as they were uncredited, which are 
 reserved to gladden and reward that " Faith which 
 worketh by love." To discover any new things we 
 must first believe them to be possible. 
 
 It seems to be too commonly assumed and taken 
 for a ruled point, that in Religion no new discoveries 
 can be made. Because its truths are determinate, 
 precise, dogmatic, the conclusion is at once come to that 
 they are confined. But, though determinate in their 
 nature, as are also the great laws of the material 
 universe, they are multiform in their modes of work- 
 ing, and in their effects. Here, then, is open a wide 
 field for investigation, into which we should enter if 
 we had more Faith. While Science is pushing its 
 researches into the most remote and obscure corners 
 of nature, and constantly surprising new truths in 
 their concealments, and bringing them forth to light, 
 
244 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 Theology is stationary, or makes but little advance on 
 the road to further discovery. 
 
 The reason, perhaps, of this is, that it has not 
 been sufficiently considered how closely Faith stands 
 related to Knowledge. Hence that other evidence of 
 our age being wanting in Faith is forced upon us 
 namely, that Faith has come to be discarded from 
 being a recognised principle of human advancement. 
 Yet we take it to be a fact, capable of the clearest 
 demonstration, that we have no power to know, to 
 endure, or to do anything extraordinary, anything at 
 all above the range of a mere animal life, without 
 Faith. 
 
 Having pointed out the defects of our age, we 
 shall, we conceive, best evince the marvellous power 
 of Faith if we investigate its relations to these three 
 things to our knowledge, to our patience to endure, 
 and our strength to do, great things. 
 
 First, then, let us look at it in relation to our 
 Knowledge. Now, we assert, what may appear to be 
 very paradoxical at first sight, that Faith is Knowledge 
 as truly as " Knowledge is Power" This will appear 
 paradoxical, because it is commonly assumed that 
 Faith and Knowledge stand in direct antithesis to each 
 other that there is a fixed contrariety between them ; 
 so much so that where there is the exercise of Faith 
 there can be none of Reason, and where there is 
 Reason there is no room left for the exercise of Faith. 
 Faith is thought not be needful to Reason, and 
 Reason, where it has any ground to go upon, is sup- 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 245 
 
 posed to set aside the necessity of Faith. So far, 
 however, is this from being the case, that Reason has 
 no materials to work with till they have been sup- 
 plied by Faith ; nor has it any power to put moral 
 agents like men in motion, unless it is vivified, and 
 energised, and prompted by Faith. This is a fact in 
 the philosophy of human nature which is not always 
 observed, but it will appear to be the fact upon a 
 little consideration. 
 
 Take, for example, the case of a child going 
 through the process of learning. How does he de- 
 rive his knowledge at first but through the exercise 
 of Faith ? If he will not believe what is told him by 
 his teacher, he can never acquire the very elements 
 of knowledge his ABC. Unless he will im- 
 plicitly regard these as the signs and representatives 
 of certain sounds, and these sounds, again, as the signs 
 and representatives, when combined, of certain objects, 
 he never can attain to any intelligent acquaintance 
 with the things around him, nor take his place among 
 the creatures of this world as a man. But this, on the 
 part of the child, is, in the first instance, an act, not 
 of Reason, but of Faith of Faith in his teacher rather 
 than of understanding of the thing taught. And as, 
 without this Faith, he never can learn the name of a 
 single thing, or the meaning of a single word, so, in 
 proportion to the strength of his Faith, or his implicit 
 confidence in the truth of all that is told him, is the 
 extent of his acquisition of the elements of science. 
 And this is a condition of things not confined to 
 
246 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 the child, but common to us all through all the 
 stages of our existence, and at every step of our 
 progress in knowledge. The only difference is, that 
 Reason, in maturer years, tries what has before been 
 received in Faith, and rejects what it finds to be false. 
 But none of that information out of which knowledge 
 is concocted, can we lay hold of, and bring into the 
 mind, without the actings of Faith. This is the law, 
 so to speak, of our intellectual life. We must believe 
 in order to know, and without believing there can be 
 no knowing. 
 
 In further proof of this, let us ask ourselves the 
 question upon what does all the historical know- 
 ledge we have rest in us ? We cannot deny that it 
 rests upon the basis of Faith. We receive it all 
 upon the testimony of others. We could know 
 absolutely nothing of the past if we had not the 
 power, and did not bring into operation, the principle 
 of Faith. Belief and history God has joined together, 
 never to be divorced. It is the one hook by which 
 we take hold of the chain of all past events, and 
 connect ourselves at once, through creation, with the 
 Creator. Hence, what the Apostle says in his llth 
 chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, respecting the 
 creation of the world, is literally true "Through 
 faith we understand that the worlds were framed by 
 the word of God, so that things which are seen were 
 not made of things which do appear." We under- 
 stand this, not merely because we give credit to it 
 as a certified fact, but because Faith strongly per- 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 247 
 
 sitades us of it, and Reason, exercising itself upon 
 the materials which Faith has supplied, confirms what 
 Faith has received. Without Faith, indeed, we never 
 could know this at all for Reason could never arrive 
 of itself at the conclusion that all things were made 
 out of nothing, though it ratifies that conclusion 
 when Faith has first assured us of the existence of a 
 God, who is Almighty and from everlasting. It is, 
 in truth (though this is not always remembered), by 
 Faith, rather than by Reason, we know there is a God ; 
 for we have never seen him, we have had no sensible 
 evidence of his existence, we cannot understand its 
 mode. Reason, with its flickering, uncertain light, 
 amidst the conflicting elements of nature, might 
 lead, as it has sometimes led, men to doubt of 
 the existence of any such Being ; but Faith, if we 
 will only give heed to its voice within us that voice 
 which, like the voice of nature in the infant, crying 
 after its mother before it knows her, precedes Rea- 
 son assures us beyond a question of the Divine 
 existence. From belief in the existence of a God 
 we proceed to all other true knowledge. This one 
 fact, received in Faith, solves the phenomena of all 
 other existences. It is the first great staple-link in 
 the chain of events which stretches through the view- 
 less region of Time and fastens on Eternity ; and upon 
 this all the succeeding links, so far as they have any 
 sure holding, depend. From this great fact, resting 
 on Faith, all real history dates its commencement. 
 Human history, however, has, in addition, human 
 
248 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 testimony. Yet, even here, Faith is required to 
 enable us to lay hold of its facts, so that they shall 
 become part and parcel of our knowledge. If we 
 discredit them we can make no use of them as 
 respects us, indeed, they are reduced into the nature 
 of nonentities. Thus knowledge has no foundation to 
 rest upon without Faith. Faith it is, as respects our- 
 selves, which supports, cements, binds, and holds toge- 
 ther the whole fabric of our knowledge. Let slip this, 
 let a universal mistrust of human testimony push aside 
 Faith, and the whole at once sinks, and is swallowed 
 up in the dark whirlpool of a bottomless scepticism. 
 
 We remember to have read of some persons, who 
 have carried their doubting to such a degree as to 
 disbelieve even in their own existence. It is, indeed, 
 a fact that we cannot know that we exist in our real 
 selves in our inner intellectual being, except by 
 Faith. For that body which is the object of our 
 senses is not our real selves, any more than the wheels 
 and springs of a steam-engine is the power by which 
 it is set in motion and kept going. We might in- 
 deed infer, and we naturally should, when we saw a 
 complicated piece of machinery in progress, and 
 moving regularly without any visible cause, that there 
 must le some powerful intelligent Agent within or 
 near it, to move and guide it; but we could not 
 know, so as to feel certain, that there was any such 
 agent except through Faith in the existence of man 
 as man that constructive man which we have never 
 looked upon with our eyes. And, moreover, we 
 
THE POWER OF FATTH. 249 
 
 <50uld not know that we exist even in our bodies, if 
 we had not Faith in our Senses, that they are not 
 deceiving us. 
 
 But it is our moral and intellectual powers or 
 faculties, as we have already remarked, which are more 
 especially the objects of Faith, for these never come in 
 any way within the ken of our Senses. These powers, 
 too, are the sources of our purest and most essential 
 elements of knowledge, through our Faith in their con- 
 victions. If, indeed, there were no higher principles 
 of knowledge in us, as some assert, than the percep- 
 tions of our Senses, which are the most fantastic of all 
 tilings, we must conclude that the sun is no bigger 
 than the circle of it which is imprinted upon the retina 
 of our eyes. In truth, without Faith in their ante- 
 cedent testimony, we could never know what it is to 
 know at all ; for the thing judging or assuring must 
 necessarily be antecedent to the thing judged of, and 
 without Faith in that we cannot advance, with any 
 feeling of certainty, a single step. Hence it follows 
 that we must believe our moral and intellectual 
 powers to exist in order to know them to exist, and 
 to act upon them as existing. If a man will be so 
 absurd as to doubt the testimony of his own con- 
 sciousness if he has no Faith in the reality and 
 certainty of the moral powers within him, which are 
 their own witnesses, as correlative to certain moral 
 objects without him, to which he owes duties you 
 can never convince him of their reality by reasoning, 
 as you could convince a man by means of Reason that 
 
 R 
 
250 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 any two sides of a triangle are greater than the 
 third. Just as a man must believe in the existence 
 of lines before you can argue anything with him 
 about the triangle, so a man must believe the moral 
 truths which his own conscience testifies to, before 
 you can reason with him, so as to influence him in 
 any matter of moral duty. When Faith has recog- 
 nised the existence of these, and not before, can 
 Reason go to work to evolve new truths, and, by its 
 chemical operation, combine the facts ascertained by 
 Faith into new forms of knowledge. 
 
 There is no opposition, then, between Faith and 
 Reason the real antithesis lies between Faith and 
 Sight, and not between Faith and Reason. The one is 
 the handmaid to the other, or rather, by a beautiful 
 interchange of offices, they render each other mutual 
 service. Faith brings material to Reason ; Reason 
 exercises and returns to Faith, as approved and to be 
 applied, all that is sound. They both have respect 
 to the same objects ; their difference lies in the way 
 in which they deal with those objects the one fore 
 and the other aft, so to speak. Faith is the tele- 
 scope in the hand of the astronomer} by which he 
 discovers new planets, and brings them within the 
 sphere of vision ; Reason is the mathematician that 
 ascertains their laws and fixes their periods. It is 
 not that the objects of Faith are things, as is com- 
 monly supposed, which necessarily lie beyond the 
 comprehension of Reason (though some of them do) ; 
 much less are they things which are contrary to 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 251 
 
 Reason, for then they must be rejected ; but only the 
 things which lie beyond the ken of Sight or Sense. 
 Reason supplies feet to Faith, in the daylight ; Faith, 
 eyes to Reason in the dark. In a word, Reason walks 
 the earth Faith flies through the air, and, by its keen, 
 long sight, discovers the distant and unknown. 
 
 It is a fact which, we believe, the history of 
 philosophy will fully confirm, that most of its grand 
 discoveries have been kenned by Faith long before 
 they have come within the field of vision, and been 
 laid hold of by the Reason. A persuasion has stolen 
 over the mind of the philosopher, through Faith in a 
 still small voice which has spoken within him, that 
 such and such things must be, and this has set him, 
 (still through Faith,) upon using means for their 
 detection. What sagacious guesses at now ascer- 
 tained philosophical facts did Lord Bacon make by 
 the power of Faith guesses which, like a distant 
 light amid thick surrounding darkness, have led the 
 way to the house where Truth was found to be 
 lodged. Columbus believed in the existence of a 
 new continent before he saw it or had heard of it, 
 and this belief of his led to its discovery. A shell, 
 when applied to the ear, is said to express by a pecu- 
 liar sound its sympathy for its native sea. 
 
 " E'en such a shell the universe itself 
 Is to the ear of Faith." WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Socrates, again, through Faith in his own moral 
 faculties, which testified to the necessity of it, had 
 
 K 2 
 
252 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 kenned the coming of the Son of God into our 
 world for man's restoration, some time before he 
 appeared. And spiritual truths, not a few, there are, 
 which have been regarded at first as inscrutable 
 mysteries, and have been set aside for a while as 
 contradictions to Reason, have at length been dis- 
 cerned to be in perfect harmony with the laws which 
 hold rule in the natural world ; and Reason, chastened 
 for its presumption, has been brought to bow with 
 covered face before the heaven-illumined shrine of 
 Faith. Some of Faith's discoveries, indeed, have 
 anticipated Reason by hundreds, and even by thou- 
 sands, of years. It seems as if Faith could not wait 
 for the slow steps of Reason. It mounts on wings, 
 and darts, eagle-eyed, to those truths which lie 
 beyond the ken of Reason, pounces upon them, brings 
 them forth to the light, and then Reason steps in 
 often with a proud strut that ill beseems her to 
 confirm them with her demonstrations ! 
 
 It would appear, then, that Faith is more clear- 
 sighted than Reason ; and so, indeed, she is. And not 
 only so ; but let Reason put herself under the tutor- 
 age of Faith, and look at objects through her crystals, 
 and at once there shall be laid open to her view 
 regions peopled with bright stars, where all looked 
 but a broad misty sea of blue ether, while the sun 
 of Reason alone shone in the heavens. If Reason 
 will but keep her proper place, Faith will pour upon 
 her her own brilliant discoveries ; but if, in over- 
 weening confidence in the power of Reason, any man 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 253 
 
 set himself up against God's own revelation, in him 
 shall be realised the condition described by the poet 
 
 " Blasted with excess of light, 
 He closed his eyes in endless night." 
 
 This explains the phenomenon, so often to be wit- 
 nessed, of infidelity in the proud scorner. 
 
 It is a law of our moral, as it is of our natural, 
 condition, that we shall see if we will see, and, if not, 
 be left in darkness; in other words, that we shall 
 see what we believe is to be seen, if it exists, and 
 shall not see what we will not believe can be seen, 
 though it exists. He who believes in the existence 
 of causes for things will discover causes he who 
 believes in ends will discover ends ; but he who does 
 not believe in them will never perceive them. Thus, 
 Faith must precede Knowledge, just as the medium 
 by which light is seen must precede the seeing of 
 the light. Yet Faith respects not fictions. Faith 
 must have Truth to rest upon, otherwise it is not 
 Faith, but Superstition. Reason will be found to 
 confirm whatever is of Faith ; it will reject only what 
 is of fancy. So necessary is Faith, that without it we 
 never can stand upon our feet, see afar of, or advance 
 a single step beyond the grovelling, earth-groping, 
 narrow- visioned condition of the mole. 
 
 The conclusion, then, to which this part of our 
 reflections brings us, is, that the sceptic, the man of a 
 doubting, disbelieving turn of mind, who extinguishes 
 all Faith in the close candle-light glare of Reason, in- 
 stead of making Reason stand as a watchful handmaid 
 to Faith, is a man who never can arrive at any clear, 
 
254 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 extended, or certain knowledge of Truth, since it is 
 Faith alone that has the power to pierce the dark path- 
 way to knowledge, and to lay it open for wisdom to 
 advance on and take possession. " To him that hath 
 shall be given." " Whoso believeth on me shall not 
 abide in darkness." " Because I said unto thee, I 
 saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou ? Thou 
 shalt see greater things than these." 
 
 It may be worthy of observation that, even in the 
 physical sciences, the belief of one thing leads the way 
 to the discovery of others. No one ever made any 
 great advances in Knowledge of any kind who had not 
 strong Faith. A man must believe in the reality of 
 Knowledge (a thing this not to be seen with his eyes), 
 and its desirableness for its own sake, before he can ever 
 vigorously pursue it. It is Faith that gives to it a 
 substantive existence in the mind's apprehensions, when 
 at a distance, and prompts those efforts by which it is 
 actually apprehended. 
 
 But there is yet another view in which the power 
 of Faith in relation to our Knowledge is to be regarded. 
 We have said that apart from Faith knowledge has no 
 power to influence moral agents. Reason can dissolve, 
 analyse, recompound the elements of knowledge ; but 
 Reason, with all its magic influence, can communicate 
 no control to them over man's life. Here Reason is 
 utterly impotent, and leaves the accumulated elements of 
 knowledge lying powerless in mere concreted masses 
 in man's brain underthe form of what we call "notions." 
 It is Faith alone that can give vitality to Knowledge, 
 bring it to bear upon the heart, endow it with living 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 255 
 
 energy, and convert it into real practical wisdom. 
 Without Faith, Knowledge congeals into so much 
 beautiful frostwork, ethics crumble into casuistry, 
 philosophy turns into the tournament of sophistry, 
 and piety into soulless ceremony. In a word, 
 it is Faith alone that can change Theology into Religion. 
 
 The practical power of Faith was the second 
 thing we proposed to investigate. Let us look at it 
 next, then, in relation to our patience to endure. 
 
 Now it is evident that, to endure from others, we 
 must have the mastery over ourselves, over our own 
 surgent resentments and revengeful instincts. But 
 this mastery over himself man through sin has lost. 
 His lower passions, having rebelled, have gained the 
 mastery over his higher. Hence, naturally, he is the 
 sport, when angered, of base and tumultuous feelings, 
 which get the control of him upon every slight 
 occasion in which he is moved, through the consenting 
 weakness of his Will. 
 
 It is the Will that in all cases governs the man. 
 The origin of all our weakness, whether for enduring 
 or for doing, is the want of strength in our Will. We 
 yield to evil feelings because we are willing to yield : 
 we act not out the good ones which reason dictates, 
 because we have no Will to act them out. The Will 
 itself, in the natural man, is corrupt, and in league 
 with sin. Now Religion begins its renewing work by 
 righting and giving strength to the Will ; and in 
 righting the Will, giving to it an added strength for what 
 is good, it rights all the feelings, causing us at once 
 to approve what is good, and to do what we approve. 
 
256 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 But in what way, through what means, does it bring 
 about this result ? By bringing the blessed truths of 
 , the Gospel to act powerfully, through Faith, upon the 
 affections, so that through the affections it shall get 
 power over and draw the Will. It is a recognised 
 fact that we act not so much as we think but as we 
 feel: in this, then, Religion operates upon us in a way 
 that is in accordance with, and not contrary to, the 
 laws of our nature. It first wins the Will over to the 
 right side, and in winning the Will, it wins the whole 
 man. Faith is to righteousness just what the prin- 
 ciple of attraction is to the planet. 
 
 Why was it the Apostles thought it so difficult 
 to forgive a brother trespassing seven times ? (Luke 
 xvii. 4, 5.) Because they had not sufficient Faith : 
 hence their instantly occurrent prayer, "Lord, increase 
 our faith." Faith, then, it is that gives us that 
 mastery over ourselves which enables us both to for- 
 bear and to forgive ; Faith, that is, in the great mercy 
 of God towards ourselves ; Faith in the witnessed 
 love of the Almighty in giving up his only begotten 
 Son to die for us ; Faith in the rightful suggestions of 
 reason ; Faith in the voice of conscience ; Faith in the 
 fact of our common brotherhood ; Faith in the power 
 of kindness to overcome ; Faith in the rewards pro- 
 mised to those who patiently endure ; Faith in the 
 more godlike nobleness there is in forgiving. If we 
 had but this true Christian Faith, it would give such 
 power to our better Will, that we should never become 
 the torn and tossed victims of passion and of vindic- 
 tive resentment; but, "believing all things," we 
 
THE POWER OF FAIT 
 
 should, as the Apostle forcibly expresses' 
 things, hope all things, endure all things." 
 
 The virtues of Faith are not sufficiently recog- 
 nised even by the professedly faithful. Christians are 
 in the habit of bestowing their highest praises upon 
 " enlightenment," " general benevolence," " a sense of 
 right," " natural piety," and the like. But what con- 
 trol do these exercise over the passion-tossed region 
 of the human bosom ? Just as much as the shining 
 down of the bright stars of heaven exerts upon the 
 agitations of the ocean. Take, first, intellectual en- 
 lightenment. Wonderful certainly is the power of 
 mind over the outward material world ; and also in 
 perceiving the abstract relations of right in morals. 
 But over the dim shadowy fantastic region of feeling 
 it has little or no power. The convictions of our 
 judgments, as we know by truthful experience, seldom 
 control our tempers. What, again, avails general 
 benevolence, so termed, or (for this is its true meaning) 
 an impersonal feeling of love as respects human kind at 
 large? or what even natural love towards particular 
 individuals? Without Faith, it is a mere vague, 
 dreamy feeling, an amiable animal impulse at best, 
 usually a selfish caprice only in our preferences, 
 which the slightest personal offence may turn into 
 hatred, which wounded pride may crush, vanity 
 blight, misfortune extinguish in a moment. There 
 is nothing but that Charity which springs from Faith 
 which can cause us to love under all circumstances, and 
 though oft offended, always to forgive. Take, next, a 
 sense of right. The ideas of justice, and truth, and 
 
258 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 mercy, and righteousness, are indeed set like stars in 
 the firmament of our conscience ; but, like the stars, 
 though bright they are cold, and can kindle none of 
 the warmth of a living love in man's heart. Without 
 Faith they are mere abstractions, and abstractions, 
 however true and beautiful, have no power. They 
 may excite admiration and win approval ; but they 
 never yet could restrain cupidity, or give birth to 
 patient kindness. Faith must make them bear upon 
 the feelings before they can impart to any man the 
 power of self-control. Reason convinces of what 
 is right ; faith only holds to what is right. 
 
 Equally powerless is whatistermed "natural piety. 1 ' 
 Veneration for a great Unseen Power is very different 
 from trust in that power. Our natural faculties are 
 equal to the enabling us to conceive of God as infinitely 
 great and glorious in the magnitude and the majesty 
 of his perfections; they can fill our minds with beautiful 
 ideas respecting God ; they can even impress us 
 with the conviction of our obligations to Him ; but 
 until Faith enshrine Him as a living, present Deity in 
 our hearts, invested with all the tendernesses of his 
 character, we shall never act towards our fellow-crea- 
 tures according to his own long-suffering nature. What 
 we want is, not the Faith merely which believes God 
 to be, but Faith in God as merciful to forgive, in 
 God as kind to defend, in God as tender to love, in 
 God as long-suffering to endure. 
 
 Enmity to God, and alienation, or a disposition to 
 be alienated, from our brother, is our natural disease. 
 For this disease the only remedy is Faith. For as Faith 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 259 
 
 alone can realise the relation of Fatherhood on God's 
 part to us, so it alone can give reality to that of bro- 
 therhood in us with all the great family of human kind, 
 causing us to walk, as the apostle exhorts us, " worthy 
 of the vocation wherewith we are called, with all low- 
 liness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing 
 one another in love, being kind one to another, tender 
 hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for 
 Christ's sake, hath forgiven us." 
 
 But great as is the virtue of Faith in enabling a 
 man to endure, its power is perhaps still more strongly 
 manifested in what it will enable a man to do. All 
 who are wanting in Faith live in the flat level of 
 ordinary humanity none but those who have strong 
 Faith ever rise above it, into the elevated region of 
 the extraordinary in action. To evince the active power 
 of Faith was to occupy the third portion of this Essay. 
 
 We have asserted that it is Faith alone that can 
 give us the power to do anything extraordinary any- 
 thing at all above the range of every-day achievement. 
 This we will now endeavour to show. 
 
 It will occur to the reader as a remark already made 
 by us, that it is the strong Will that makes the strong 
 character ; 'and that the Will depends for its strength 
 towards what is good upon Faith. If there be weakness 
 in the Will there will obviously be faltering in the pur- 
 pose. But if the^ Will towards the doing of a 
 particular thing be strong, the course will be decisive. 
 
 The common argument for inaction with men 
 who are wanting in Faith is, that there are so many 
 
260 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 difficulties in the way obstacles, they will say, that 
 are quite insuperable, or risks that would render the 
 attempt highly rash and imprudent ; and thus, under 
 the plea of prudence, they leave all the possibilities 
 of good unessayed. But they overlook the fact, that 
 this very feeling which leads them to hesitate, and 
 doubt, and listen to all the opposing suggestions of 
 duty and interest before they act, creates, in most 
 cases, the very difficulties before which they shrink 
 back, daunted. They involve themselves in per- 
 plexities of their own making. If men would but 
 resolutely proceed forward in whatever they know to 
 be right, they would generally find that obstacles 
 moved out of their way as they advanced : the Red 
 Sea divides as soon as the foot of Faith touches its 
 margin. Often the obstacles conceived of are only 
 imaginary, and even if real, they may, through Faith, 
 be overcome. But men in general suffer themselves 
 to be controlled in their course by circumstances, instead 
 of resolving to make circumstances yield to them. They 
 are carried along, passively, like straws upon a stream; 
 or a strong opposing current bears them whichever way 
 the stream flows, when they ought to stem it and 
 buffet manfully against it, till, by the strength of 
 Faith, they get the mastery. God has appointed that 
 every difficult enterprise, every lofty achievement, 
 should be an achievement of Faith ; and before Faith 
 every interposing circumstance of obstruction, how- 
 ever great, shall be made to sink and level down into 
 a plain. Nothing less than this can be that over- 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 261 
 
 coming of apparently insurmountable obstacles denoted 
 by our Lord's assurance that Faith removes mountains. 
 The principle upon which a believer in God should 
 act is, that whatever is right is possible. Whence is 
 it that Expediency is so frequently made the guiding 
 genius of public men in matters of government ? It 
 is from want of Faith. We never resort to Expediency 
 till we have lost all Faith in Principle. Knowing a 
 thing to be right, and believing it to be possible, the 
 man of Faith will attempt it attempt it, not with that 
 feebleness of resolve, that conflict of the powers one 
 with the other, which arises from a weak Will, and of 
 itself brings about failure; but with that unity and con- 
 centration of all the energies upon the one end which 
 of itself tends to ensure its accomplishment. He who 
 is strong to purpose will always, as a natural effect, 
 be strong to perform. And if, in addition to this Faith 
 in the feasibleness of the thing exciting him to 
 exertion, he believes himself to be the individual 
 destined of God for the doing of it, or has such an 
 overpowering sense of its rightfulness or necessity as 
 carries his whole judgment in that direction, he will 
 essay it with a resoluteness of will, a decision of pur- 
 pose, a vigour of effort, from which nothing can 
 divert him till the thing is done. Thus Faith in the 
 possibility (and the possibility is seen to be possible, 
 so to speak, because of the Will's strong determina- 
 tion) of accomplishing the conceived of object Faith 
 in the providence of God to favour Faith in the 
 strength of God to sustain Faith in the appointments 
 
262 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 of destiny that the thing is a thing that is to be, can 
 be, and shall be done, producing, as it naturally will, a 
 steadfast adherence to the purpose, and a reaching 
 forth after it with an arm that will not be turned 
 aside from its object, though that object be encom- 
 passed with bristling battlements of difficulty and 
 terror, or lie far off, and be altogether unseen, ensures, 
 as by necessary consequence, the final achievement of 
 the end. 
 
 Of thiskind of all-conquering Faith we have anum- 
 ber of illustrious examples set before us by the Apos- 
 tle in the llth chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, 
 taken from among the saints of the Old Testament. 
 Nor have later times been wanting in similar in- 
 stances of the triumphs of Faith. Not to mention the 
 case of the Apostle Paul himself (a bright example 
 before which every other pales its lustre), what gave 
 to Luther the courage to denounce the doctrine of 
 Indulgences, when the whole world was in favour of 
 them, and to set the Pope, and all his powers to 
 crush him, at defiance ? It was the like Faith. Look 
 at our English martyr Rogers. What enabled 
 him so to overcome his own natural feelings, that 
 when the Papists brought his wife and children to 
 meet him on his way to the stake, and assailed him 
 through the channel of his tenderest affections, offer- 
 ing him life then and there, if he would recant, he 
 marched on with a brave unshaken heart, and bathed 
 his hands in the flames that were lighted to burn him, 
 in token of his resolve to die rather than deny Christ ? 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 263 
 
 It was the same Faith. Look again at Ridley and 
 old Latimer when in the fire. What nerved the 
 latter to cheer up the former with the immortal senti- 
 ment : " Brother Ridley, we shall light a candle in 
 England this day which shall never be put out ?" It 
 was his far-seeing Faith. What, to come to times 
 nearer our own, gave such stability to Simeon that he 
 lived out a life of opposition in the same place ? and 
 such self-sacrificing endurance to Henry Martyn in 
 missionary enterprise ? and such persevering benevo- 
 lence to Wilberforce and Clarkson in regard to the 
 abolition of the slave trade, that nothing could draw, 
 daunt, or divert them from their noble objects ? It 
 was the energy of a practical Faith. The Reformation 
 was effected not by such cold and cautious, though 
 acute and refined creatures as Erasmus, but rather 
 by the rough and sturdy determination of a Luther. 
 
 All history, indeed, bears witness to the fact, 
 which every one's own observation must have con- 
 firmed, that the men who have exercised great influence 
 over the age in which they lived, and wrought great 
 things, have been in most cases men of strong deter- 
 mined Wills, which was the effect of strong Faith. 
 
 Among the great and masterful things declared of 
 Faith in the word of God, is this, that " it overcometh 
 the world." This is what can be predicated of no 
 other principle. Every other principle of action- 
 whether it be self-respect the abstract excellence of 
 virtue the temporal rewards of well-doing the good 
 of society natural sense of right social duty 
 
264 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 general benevolence philosophy or the fear of law, 
 instead of overcoming the world, is overcome by the 
 world, and that continually. The power that is in 
 these principles to ensure stedfastness in well-doing 
 is always found to be weak before temptation. It 
 cannot resist the blandishments of pleasure the 
 bribes of wealth the glare of the world's fame nor 
 the terrors of its frown. Faith, where it is in exercise, 
 never yields ; but, though all of these principles 
 should meet and combine in one and the same indi- 
 vidual, as his theoretic code of moral influences, by 
 which he was to be governed, and kept stedfast in the 
 path of rectitude, they would all bend and yield be- 
 fore the world's more insidious or terrific assailments ; 
 they make themselves subservient to the world, in- 
 deed, every day ; and, therefore, beautiful as they 
 look in theory, they become actually but as bright 
 headed nails in the wheel of the world, whirled round 
 with it as it goes rolling and thundering along, crush- 
 ing all in its course who will not lay their souls as the 
 stones of the street for it to go over. Faith, then, in 
 God, and that alone, gives a man such superiority to 
 the world, that he can and will do what is right, 
 though every individual living should set himself in 
 opposition to him ; like Luther, who, when told that, 
 in attempting the reformation of religion, " the whole 
 world is against you," calmly and nobly replied, " then 
 I am against the whole world ; " and went with a 
 stout heart straight on to his object. 
 
 " To be" or "not to be" is the question at every step 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 265 
 
 with the man who acts on the principles of the world ; 
 to do or not to do, is the only question with the man who 
 acts on the principle of Faith. Fearing God, he learns 
 to fear none beside, but sets himself to the doing of 
 what he believes to be the will of God with a resolute- 
 ness which nothing can daunt, a steadiness which 
 nothing can divert, a patience which nothing can 
 weary. His language at every fresh onset of trial 
 is, " Fear not ; through God shall we do great acts, 
 therefore shall we tread down our enemies." " We 
 can do all things through Christ who strength- 
 eneth us." 
 
 But now, what is the nature of that Faith by which 
 such great things are effected. Is it that mere objec- 
 tive Faith which has respect only to architectural 
 symbols, and creeds, and sacraments, and those other 
 parts of religion, which are altogether external ? or 
 is it that subjective Faith which has its seat and action 
 chiefly in the man's own consciousness and feelings ? 
 From the very nature of the case it is the latter. An 
 objective Faith rests passively in the contemplation 
 of its object. Hence, consistently enough with the 
 Romish conception of it, on the ducal palace at 
 Venice, Faith is represented as laying her hand on 
 her breast as she beholds the cross ; but living 
 Christian Faith we should rather represent with wings 
 to her feet, her eyes upon the crown, and the gifts 
 of charity dropping from her hands among a mul- 
 titude of famished folks. That which is termed 
 an " objective Faith" lives by being acted upon 
 
 s 
 
266 THE POWER OF FAITH. 
 
 rather than by acting ; but a subjective Faith (which 
 is the now much abused faith of Protestants) 
 lives by its own action, and from the inner man 
 works itself out to the outer in all those deeds of self- 
 sacrificing devotedness which evidence it to be a thing 
 of life. 
 
 This Faith, too, has its object ; but that object 
 is a living object, one and undivided it is Christ. 
 Trust in a person, not belief of a fact , is true Christian 
 Faith. It was this Faith which gave such world-con- 
 quering energy of power to the Old Testament saints : 
 they looked for a Saviour who is Christ the Lord, and 
 in him they trusted : and this is the Faith which we 
 must have, if we would do great things Faith in 
 the blood of Christ as sufficient to atone (" they over- 
 came him," "the accuser of the brethren," "through 
 the blood of the Lamb") ; Faith in the righteousness of 
 Christ as sufficient to justify ; Faith in the grace of 
 Christ as sufficient to strengthen ; Faith in the power 
 of Christ as mighty to save. 
 
 Only let a man possess this kind of Faith, 
 and he need not trouble himself with any nice 
 disputes about the necessity of works to salvation, 
 or in showing the consistency of the doctrine of justifi- 
 cation by faith alone with the parallel, but apparently 
 contradictory, doctrine, that "by works a man is justi- 
 fied, and not by faith only." Good works will as 
 necessarily follow Faith as good fruit springs from a 
 good tree. Works are not co-ordinate with Faith ; 
 neither are they co- temporary with Faith (except 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 267 
 
 as the tree may be said to be contained in the seed 
 at the time it is planted), in the act of justification ; 
 but they are consequent upon Faith, naturally, and 
 necessarily, where the Faith has life, or is real. The 
 tree must be planted before the fruit can be produced. 
 But when the tree is planted, the fruit, if the tree 
 has any goodness in it, will follow of itself. As Lu- 
 ther himself acutely remarks, " We do not say that 
 the sun ought to shine a good tree ought to produce 
 good fruit. The sun shines by its own proper nature 
 without being bidden to da so ; in the same manner 
 the good tree yields its good fruit." In other words, 
 good works are not co-efficients with Faith in the matter 
 of our justification, but they are the resulting effects 
 of Faith ; so that, as our twelfth article expresses it, 
 " they do spring out necessarily of a true and lively 
 faith." True Christian Faith gives life, and with it 
 power for true Christian deeds. Energised with new 
 life by this Faith, which has Christ alone for its 
 author and Christ for its object, men are enabled to 
 tear off those parasitical passions of sin which have 
 hitherto cleaved to them the fetters of their fears are 
 snapped those moral obligations which before held 
 them in a distressing bondage become new springs of 
 action : thus captivity is led captive ; and they realise 
 in their own blessed experience the truth of the pro- 
 phet's statement, " in quietness and in confidence shall 
 be your strength." 
 
268 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 " WHAT a dreadful evil is Controversy !" Such is 
 the common exclamation both of those who con- 
 sciously hold errors which they wish not to have 
 controverted, and of those who love peace better than 
 they love truth. 
 
 Are there no evils, then, connected with Contro- 
 versy ? it will be asked. We are far from asserting that. 
 There are, it cannot be denied, many evils incident 
 to Controversy. It usually stirs up fierce contentions, 
 which draw out men's worst passions; it provokes 
 anger ; it embitters the feelings ; it breaks the peace 
 of families; it separates friend from friend, and 
 brother from brother ; it has a tendency to engender 
 an intolerant spirit; it gives a sharp edge often to 
 social intercourse ; it not unfrequently throws whole 
 kingdoms into confusion. But what then? These 
 are evils that attach to Christianity itself. Did not 
 the great Author of the Christian system caution his 
 disciples against mistaking the resultant effect of 
 his religion, by saying : " Think not that I am come 
 to send peace on the earth: I came not to send 
 peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at 
 variance against his father, and the daughter against 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 269 
 
 her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her 
 mother-in-law." According to a recognised principle 
 of Scripture phraseology, by which a person is often 
 spoken of as directly doing that of which he is only 
 the involuntary occasion, the meaning of this is, 
 not that he came with the design of sending a sword 
 among men, but that this would be the incidental, 
 and, as men are constituted, the inevitable consequence 
 of his coming. So far from his coming with the 
 design of exciting strifes and animosities, and setting 
 men at variance against each other, he came, as it 
 was prophesied he should come, to be "the Prince 
 of peace ;" and, " peace on earth, good will towards 
 men," were the angel -sung words that announced his 
 advent. So far, too, from there being anything in the 
 nature or tendency of his religion to stir up wars, 
 and wranglings, and discussions, it is fitted rather, by 
 its establishing certainty in theologic truth, to put an 
 end to all doubts and differences, and to unite as one, 
 through the plastic power of the charity which per- 
 vades it, all the families which make up this earth's 
 varied and widely scattered population. As, then, it 
 would be unjust (though there are some who would 
 do this) to charge upon Christianity all the discords 
 and differences, the contentions and clashing of 
 parties, of which it has been, through human per- 
 verseness, .the innocent and undesigning occasion ; 
 so is it unjust to charge upon Controversy all the 
 evils of which, through mismanagement, or men's 
 wrathful passions, it has been indirectly the cause. 
 
270 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 The design of Controversy, when conducted as it 
 ought to be, is to settle disputes, and not to excite 
 them. 
 
 It is a melancholy fact, which we must candidly 
 admit, that Controversy has often been greatly mis- 
 conducted. Men have allowed their own evil tempers 
 to mix with their arguments, and have contended for 
 victory rather than for truth. In their unholy zeal, 
 they have too frequently resorted to the weapons 
 which were fitted to humble and irritate rather than 
 to convince. Passion on the one side has kindled 
 provocation on the other; pride being excited, the 
 parties have only erected themselves into loftier and 
 more determined defiance, each being resolved not to 
 give in without the selfish gratification of being the 
 victor ; and in the angry affray Truth has been trodden 
 under foot to secure a paltry personal triumph. In this 
 way Truth, undoubtedly, has often suffered serious 
 damage. But this was the fault, be it observed, of the 
 contenders, and not of the Truth for which they have 
 contended. 
 
 Nor are the spectators of scenes of theological 
 gladiatorship always without blame for these attendant 
 consequences. They are too apt to cheer it on in 
 the spirit of party; to allow their own wrathful 
 feelings to become excited ; and to care more that their 
 own favourite may conquer, than that Truth (on which- 
 ever side it lies) should prevail. Hence it has come 
 to pass sometimes, that the peace of a parish, or of a 
 country, has been disturbed ; family strifes have been 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 271 
 
 engendered ; fierce animosities and contentions have 
 sprung up between friends arid neighbours, to be fol- 
 lowed not unfrequently by life-long alienations. But 
 these unhappy results, as we have said before, can by 
 no fair inference be imputed to Controversy itself, or 
 its object, Truth. They arise from, and are to be 
 traced to, men's sinful passions and selfish prefer- 
 ences, and to them alone ; and if Truth is not to be 
 defended lest these should be awakened, it will 
 evidently come to this, that Truth, with all its in- 
 estimable blessings, will be basely sacrificed to secure 
 a hollow peace. Given the postulates that there are 
 Truth and Error in the world, that these are directly 
 antagonistic, and that he who is not wholly for the 
 one is with the other, it necessarily follows that 
 where there is no Controversy there must be compro- 
 mise. Nor, though it be tacit, is this the less actual, 
 or the less treacherous. 
 
 It will be understood that the kind of Controversy 
 in favour of which we here argue, is that which has 
 respect to Religious Truth, or the Truth in religion ; 
 nevertheless, our arguments will apply, in a degree, 
 to every kind of Controversy, which has for its object 
 the ascertainment of truth, whether it be truth in 
 science, truth in political economy, truth in theories 
 for social improvement, truth in systems of govern- 
 ment, or in whatever other relation truth is worth 
 searching for and contending for, as of more value 
 than error. But if there be any case in which, more 
 than another, Controversy seems justified by the impor- 
 
272 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 tance of the issue, it undoubtedly is when it is 
 marshalled in the defence of Religious Truth. 
 
 It may be worth observing, that Controversy is the 
 necessity and the law of our condition in this world. 
 In the physical world we see a contention of elements ; 
 in the political world, a contention of powers, so in 
 the religious world there must be a contention of 
 principles. So long as there is error in the world 
 to be conflicted with, so long there must be Con- 
 troversy. 
 
 There cannot rest the shadow of a doubt, we 
 should suppose, upon the mind of any man who 
 reads his Bible, with an honest, earnest desire to 
 ascertain what it requires from every one who would 
 act faithfully towards his Lord and Master, that the 
 Truth must be contended for, and that to defend it 
 against all assailants, is every man's, and especially 
 every minister's, imperative duty. " Contend ye earn- 
 estly for the faith which was once delivered unto the 
 saints," is the general exhortation of St. Jude : * 
 the Philippians are commended by St. Paul for 
 " striving together for the faith of the Gospel ;"f 
 while the same Apostle makes it one of the qualifica- 
 tions of a bishop (or "elder"), that he should be 
 able by sound doctrine both to exhort (that is, the 
 obediently disposed) and to convince (that is, by 
 argument) " the gainsay ers."J By his own example, 
 also, he gave sanction to the same course ; for we 
 
 * Jude 2. f Phil- i- 27. J Titus i. 9. 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 read that " lie disputed in the synagogue with the 
 Jews and with the devout persons, and in the market 
 daily with them that met with him" (at Athens). 
 Again, at Corinth " he spake boldly for the space of 
 three months, disputing and persuading the things 
 concerning the kingdom of God." With the sticklers 
 for circumcision also, at Antioch, he " had no small 
 dissension and disputation ;" while at the same place 
 he withstood even the Apostle Peter to the face, in a 
 matter of ceremonial conformity which involved the 
 compromise of a fundamental principle. 
 
 The duty, then, of engaging in Controversy for the 
 defence of the Truth is clear, if we take Scripture for 
 our guide; the only question that can be raised is, as to 
 the manner, or spirit, in which this should be conducted. 
 St. Jude says, " contend earnestly." Now a man 
 may, undoubtedly, contend earnestly without con- 
 tending passionately, though the one is very liable to 
 be mistaken for the other. Where there is vehe- 
 mence, it is thought there must be anger. But there 
 may surely be all the vehemence of strongly excited 
 feeling, when there is none of the vehemence of 
 irritated temper. Strong feeling will naturally 
 exhibit itself in strong expressions. He who can be 
 wholly unimpassioned when contending for the Truth 
 must have a very shallow sense of its importance. 
 But the passion which springs from strong sentiment 
 is very different from the passion which springs from 
 personal anger. And it is only when the vehemence 
 of the advocate takes the form of personal resent- 
 
274 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 irient that Controversy can fail of beneficial effect. 
 Then indeed it provokes resistance ; and so far from 
 ending in conviction, it only rivets on error the 
 faster by bringing out all the perversity of human 
 wilfulness to the support of the adopted false 
 principle. It is not the heretic, but the heresy, which 
 a sincere lover of his kind will seek to assail, and if 
 possible to overthrow. His object will be, not to 
 provoke, but to argue with, in order to convince. 
 And there certainly must be a way in which it is 
 possible (or the Apostle would not have enjoined it as 
 a duty) to be strenuous and even uncompromising on 
 the side of Truth, without violating any of the gentle 
 precepts of Christian chanty. 
 
 When zeal is tempered with charity, Controversy 
 can never be followed by any seriously mischievous 
 results, but must, by the very conditions of necessity 
 out of which it arises, be effective of more good than 
 evil. Truth can never suffer ultimately by its claims 
 being agitated. There must always be better argu- 
 ments to be adduced in its favour, from its own 
 intrinsic excellences, than any that can be advanced 
 against it ; it would be unfair, therefore, towards the 
 Truth not to give it all the advantage of its own self- 
 supplied defences. If fairly set forth in its own 
 towering majesty, breasted around with all those 
 buttresses of reason and argument which are its 
 native supports, it must stand. Let its claims be 
 called in question, and Controversy, coming to its 
 defence, must, if rightly managed, secure it a triumph 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 275 
 
 against every rival theory, however specious. The 
 sophistry in which error tries to hide itself will be 
 hereby exploded ; the false colours in which wit and 
 rhetoric may have clothed it will be stripped off; its 
 nakedness will be exposed, and Truth, standing out 
 by the contrast in all its solidity, and grandeur, and 
 beauty, will win a way for itself to every candid 
 man's acceptance. Truth, like honesty, needs only 
 to be clearly established, in order to prove its own 
 passport, 
 
 There is another way in which Controversy is of 
 advantage ; it serves, not only to ascertain Truth, but 
 to keep it pure. Corruptions are ever ready to graft 
 themselves upon the Truth, as moss upon the tree, if 
 it be not exposed to the sun, and kept in healthful 
 action by the wind ; or, to change the figure, as 
 stagnant waters soon get covered with duck-weed, 
 and become unwholesome, so religious truth, if too 
 long quiescent, gets overspread with the noxious 
 miasma of errors. It is the stirring of the waters 
 that keeps them healthful. 
 
 Whence is it that in different ages of the Church, 
 though it had the same infallible Word to appeal to 
 that we have now, errors in doctrine and corruptions 
 in practice have crept in and overrun Christianity ; 
 but that Christian men, having grown to be greater 
 lovers of their own ease than zealous for the sacred 
 integrities of Truth, have become (as under such a 
 principle they ever do become) averse to the rough 
 conflicts of Controversy, and have passively yielded to 
 
276 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 that which they ought stoutly to have resisted. Upon 
 this point it may not be out of place to quote the 
 words of one of the most reflective writers of the 
 present day : * " Alas the infirmity," he exclaims, 
 " of human nature ! How has truth suffered in the 
 world, from age to age, from the want of moral 
 courage, even among the most conscientious and en- 
 lightened of men ! In fact, it is these who, by their 
 timidity, just when and where they should have 
 feared none but God it is these who have betrayed 
 Christianity, and have sent it down to their successors 
 laden with corruptions : it was these who, although 
 it was but a slender service they could render it by 
 endorsing it with their bright names, have inflicted 
 upon it a deep and lasting injury by sustaining in 
 this manner the credit of those spurious systems with 
 which themselves stood connected." 
 
 In their extreme anxiety for peace there are 
 some persons who, though lovers of Truth, will exert 
 little or no care to secure the purity of Truth. " Let 
 us have no Controversy," is their cry. So strong, 
 indeed, is their dislike to it that they will sometimes 
 go so far as to assert that where Controversy is in- 
 dulged in there can be no Christianity. We wonder 
 it never occurs to such persons that, in deprecating all 
 Controversy, they are playing into the hands of the 
 enemy, and helping on their mischievous devices. It 
 is the corrupters of the Faith only who have any 
 
 * Isaac Taylor " Life of Loyola," p. 329. 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 277 
 
 reason to fear the result of Controversy. Truth 
 courts discussion ; and by discussion its superior 
 claims are asserted. The enemies of the Truth most 
 characteristically would put an arrest upon all con- 
 troversial discussions muzzle the mouth, and padlock 
 the press. In Romish countries, to this day, all Con- 
 troversy on religious questions is strictly prohibited. 
 Is this the order of things which any reasonable man 
 would wish to see restored in our own ? 
 
 It is amazing that any men who read the Scrip- 
 tures, and profess to regard the examples of inspired 
 men as equivalent to a divine sanction, can denounce 
 Controversy as unchristian. The Bible is essentially a 
 controversial book. It contains God's great contro- 
 versy with man. It is a history of the controversies 
 that have been carried on from age to age by his 
 faithful servants with an apostate and revolted world. 
 Noah had a controversy with the antediluvians 
 Moses entered into an acted controversy with the 
 Egyptian magicians Samuel had a controversy with 
 the Israelites the Prophets were continually, one 
 after another, challenging to a direct controversy the 
 corrupters of the faith in their several days. Our 
 blessed Lord was incessantly engaged in controversy 
 with the Jews. The Apostles, and especially that 
 greatest of all dialecticians, St. Paul, took up the 
 same line of attack, and boldly challenged the im- 
 pugners of Truth to an open disputation respecting the 
 claims of Christianity; and by Controversy it was 
 they succeeded in overthrowing both the strongholds 
 
278 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 of Judaism and the gigantic pile of gorgeous super- 
 stition which heathen fancy had erected. 
 
 To what, too, is it that we, in this country, owe 
 our pure system of religious belief, those sound evan- 
 gelical doctrines which are at once our blessing and our 
 boast, but to Controversy ? Our forefathers contended 
 for them even unto death, and rescued Truth not only 
 from under a crushing mass of degrading superstitions, 
 but, as it were, out of the very fires, that it might 
 shine as a lamp to distant generations. If they had 
 been men of weak and timid spirits, if they had 
 yielded to worldly compromise for the sake of personal 
 security, or if they had loved their own quiet more 
 than they loved the Truth, we should have been left to 
 grope in Popish darkness, amid pitfalls and fancied 
 purgatories, to the present day. But they saw the 
 Gospel overlaid and dishonoured by gross corruptions 
 and idolatries ; they saw men in danger of being mis- 
 led and betrayed to their own everlasting destruction; 
 and they loved both too well not to make a struggle 
 for their rescue, though it was to the perilling of their 
 own lives. Their charity consisted not in soft words, 
 but in self-sacrificing acts. These brave-hearted men 
 fell in the contest, but Truth triumphed, arid lives in 
 their works. They brought argument to bear in the 
 defence of Truth, and by argument the Truth prevailed. 
 To enshrine itself in the cut and polished stone-work 
 of argument is the glory of Christianity. 
 
 To go on the forlorn hope of Truth is always a 
 hazardous adventure, for which few will be found to 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 279 
 
 volunteer. Yet the Truth must be fought for, if it is 
 to be won and kept. And it is probably one great 
 part of our moral trial, in this our probationary state, 
 that we should be placed in the midst of contentions 
 and antagonistic influences, both in order that our 
 own virtue may be put to that test by which it may be 
 be strengthened, and that it may be seen whether we 
 will prove ourselves honest and faithful. Grant that 
 Controversy is encompassed with many sharp and 
 painful points from which nature shrinks grant that 
 it may lay a man open to much misrepresentation, 
 and bring upon him many hard blows, is a Christian 
 to shrink from his duty because it is encompassed 
 with circumstances of difficulty ? It tends to embitter 
 the temper and to make inroads upon a man's own 
 peace, undoubtedly; but because it is not easy to 
 carry it on in a right spirit and without injury to him- 
 self, is he to leave it wholly unattempted when called 
 for ? Ought he not rather, while guarding himself, 
 like a man rescuing others out of fire-damp, as care- 
 fully as he can against noxious exterior influences, to go 
 courageously forward in the pursuit of his object, till 
 he can return in triumph, with Truth for his prize, to 
 be re -en throned, like an exiled but restored Prince? 
 
 The dread which some men have of Controversy 
 is so quick and sensitive, and full of imaginary terrors, 
 that it amounts positively to a disease. They regard 
 it as the most pernicious of all evils as a pure, un- 
 mixed mischief. As their idea of it rests altogether 
 upon a morbid fancy, it would be as useless to reason 
 
280 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 with them as it would be to reason with a man who, 
 in the midst of broad daylight, was persuaded he saw 
 the air filled with dancing demons. 
 
 In an ease-loving and luxurious age like the 
 present, few indeed can be expected to feel favour- 
 able to the rough storms of Controversy. Various 
 are the pleas and self-satisfying reasons, according to 
 the various temperaments and fancies and cherished 
 notions of the individuals, by which this person and 
 that would .put an extinguisher upon all controversial 
 disquisitions. One will assert that Controversy, or 
 the argumentative discussion of the doctrines of 
 religion, does, in all cases, more harm than good; 
 another will say (what is very true) that argument 
 by itself will never convert souls ; a third will main- 
 tain that no man is ever convinced by argument 
 that what every one wishes to believe that he will 
 believe, address what reasons you may against it to 
 his judgment ; while a fourth, more absurd still, will 
 hold that to bring a strong force against the fort of 
 Error is only the way to fortify the adopter of a mis- 
 taken creed the more strongly within the battlements 
 of his own erroneous belief. It is certainly the fact 
 that there are some individuals whom it would be 
 vain to argue with in opposition to any of their re- 
 ceived theories crotchety individuals, whose heads are 
 possessed with some peculiar notions about races, or 
 the shape of skulls and noses, out of which all the 
 seven wise men of the world, united, could not argue 
 them individuals these who are deeply affected with 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 281 
 
 the disease commonly described by the word idiosyn- 
 crasy. But to adopt their theories as true in the 
 general would be to deny and overthrow the dis- 
 tinctive principle of human nature its rationality. 
 It may be that most persons are more easily in- 
 fluenced when their feelings are appealed to rather 
 than their reason ; but reason they have, and if they 
 are capable of weighing arguments addressed to 
 their reason, then by those arguments, if good ones, 
 they must be capable of being convinced. 
 
 When, however, the question relates to religious 
 conviction, when the point raised is whether this can 
 ever be brought about by argument, or through the 
 medium of controversy, the only alternative is to 
 appeal to Scripture to ask " what is written;" and 
 Scripture, as we have already shown, answers de- 
 cisively in the affirmative. 
 
 The necessity of a continued resort, from time to 
 time, to Controversy, rests upon two things the 
 obscurity that hangs over all moral questions, and 
 the ever-changing phases of religious opinion. 
 
 It is a painful fact, of which we have continual 
 evidence, that truth and error are so intermixed in 
 our world, and often so artfully disguised, that it is 
 difficult to distinguish the one from the other. They 
 are directly antagonistic in their nature, but they 
 cannot always be brought to close conflict. They 
 fight off, so to speak, from each other; the one 
 through fear of having its hollo wness exposed, and 
 the other through the personal timidity, or doubts, 
 
282 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 of its defenders. If they can be brought to meet in 
 a fair struggle (and this can be done only through 
 Controversy), Truth, having the superior claims, must 
 come off the victor. 
 
 It is a sadly truthful observation made by a great 
 living writer,* that " it has become a point of polite- 
 ness not to inquire too deeply into our neighbour's 
 religious opinions. The fact is, we distrust each 
 other and ourselves so much, that we dare not press 
 this matter; we know that if, on any occasion of 
 general intercourse, we turn to our neighbour and put 
 to him a searching or testing question, we shall, in 
 nine cases out of ten, discover him to be only a 
 Christian in his own way, and as far as he thinks 
 proper, and that he doubts of many things which we 
 ourselves do not believe strongly enough to hear 
 doubted without danger, What is in reality cowardice 
 and faithlessness we call charity, and consider it the 
 part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's evil 
 practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and some- 
 times to forgive their confessed heresy, for the sake 
 of their admirable practice.'* 
 
 New forms of error, new opponents to " the 
 truth as it is in Jesus," will ever be springing up to 
 demand the replies of sound argument to repulse or 
 explode. Religious opinion in the world, chameleon 
 like, is habitually changing colour it never continues 
 long the same old fallacies are revived, and errors 
 
 * John Ruskin. It is such truthful observations as these, con- 
 tinually dropped, which make his writings so well worth reading-. 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 283 
 
 which have lain buried for ages are reproduced in all 
 the vigour of a new life. Truth alone remains un- 
 changed ; and Truth being a sword with two edges, 
 may, if handled skilfully, be made to flash through 
 and disperse the darkness of Error in one direction, 
 while, by the brightness of its blade, it displays 
 Righteousness in the other. This is a weapon powerful 
 at once to convince and to convert. 
 
 It is not systems only that need to be repelled by 
 argument, but individuals have to be rescued from 
 error. Opposed as Truth is on all sides, and having 
 such mighty forces of prejudice and passion to con- 
 tend against, it can never make way in the world, or 
 even keep its ground, except by the strenuous exer- 
 tions of its defenders. God has revealed his Truth to 
 Prophets and Apostles ; he has caused the letter of it 
 to be written in his imperishable word ; but he has 
 committed the keeping of it, as a living, energetic 
 reality, to his church or faithful people. Now how, 
 we would ask, can that Truth be upheld, if it is never 
 to be defended ; or how can it be kept in its intact 
 integrity, if its assailants are not to be withstood ; or 
 how can it make progress among men, by the con- 
 viction of the gainsayer, and the conversion of the 
 sinner, if it is never to be brought into direct per- 
 sonal collision with their false principles and pre- 
 judices ? 
 
 The philosophy, so to term it, of Truth seems 
 indeed to be little understood. Men get possessed 
 with the romantic and delusive idea that Truth is of 
 
 T 2 
 
284 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 itself omnipotent. " Great is the Truth, and it will " 
 (not shall) " prevail," is their favourite maxim. In the 
 approval of this sentiment they passively rest, expect- 
 ing the Truth to effect everything by itself. Now it is 
 well worthy of observation that Truth is wholly inert 
 and inoperative in the abstract : it has no power till it 
 is applied. This admits of a simple illustration. A 
 lever, while it lies on the ground, strong as it may be 
 in itself, can effect nothing ; just so Truth, while it lies 
 unapplied, tinder mere human cognisance or approval, 
 is powerless. It must have a fulcrum to turn upon 
 that fulcrum it finds in our common nature ; it must 
 have a hand to press it down that hand is Faith ; and 
 it is only when brought into direct contact with error 
 in some way of Controversy, that it is effective to up^ 
 heave and overthrow its massive fabrications. 
 
 But, "Truth is not a mechanical power, to be 
 mechanically applied," we can imagine some keen- 
 witted objector will answer. " Truth is like light, 
 which disperses darkness by its own inherent power." 
 Granted ; but surely the light must be let in upon the 
 darkness for this effect to be produced. You have 
 taken nothing, then, by your objection, except it be a 
 condemnation of your own indifference. But further, 
 we may illustrate and confirm our position by a 
 parallel example. "Righteousness," we are told, 
 " exalte th a nation ; " but it is not Righteousness in 
 the abstract, or in bare approval, that exalteth a 
 nation, but Righteousness as embodied in just laws, 
 righteously applied to the punishment of offenders, 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 285 
 
 and as acted upon in its principles by the general 
 population. 
 
 "Great is the Truth, and it will prevail," mutters the 
 cold, contemplative philosopher in his study. " Great 
 is the Truth, and it will prevail," shouts the theoretic, 
 unpractical politician in the senate. Both quote this 
 maxim, be it observed, not as a reason for their trust- 
 fully acting upon the believed potency, and defending 
 the just rights of Truth, but as an excuse for leaving 
 the Truth to take care of itself. Hence it is not un- 
 common to hear them argue, that to use any direct 
 means to secure the established prevalence of Truth 
 in religion, that to allow it to come in any way into 
 collision with Error, or to fortify and enforce it by 
 creeds and statutes, is altogether to distrust the power 
 of Truth. most inconsistent reasoners ! how pal- 
 pably do they stand self-condemned ! For, would they 
 argue thus with regard to their own social rights, the 
 sacredness of their character, or the security of their 
 property ? Would they say, " Great is the power of 
 Justice," and then leave it to the ideality of Justice to 
 vindicate them from all wrongs ? They never act upon 
 this Gallio -principle in regard to anything in which 
 they feel a real interest. Their faith, then, in the power 
 of Truth is evidently only that dead faith which is 
 without works. 
 
 The ideality of justice is, doubtless, a great help 
 towards bringing a jury to the conviction on which 
 side the right lies, but then there must be the appeal. 
 The man who really believes that there is a mighty 
 
286 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 power in Truth will set himself to make that Truth 
 bear, in some direct way, upon a fitting fulcrum for 
 the upturning of Error. 
 
 But here we must be careful to distinguish be^ 
 tween the duty to wield the sword of Truth for the 
 vindication of the rights of Truth, and what might 
 seem, at first sight, a duty of parallel obligation 
 which is, to apply force for the extermination of 
 Falsehood. This latter is the persecutor's principle. 
 But the one duty is not truly or logically parallel with 
 the other, and seems parallel only by running straight 
 in the opposite direction. It would, indeed, be a 
 want of faith in the inherent majesty of Truth to 
 resort to sucli an unspiritual expedient for its tri- 
 umph. Heresy can never be effectually extin- 
 guished except by its refutation. Every attempt to 
 put it down by persecution has failed, and ever 
 must fail, because it fails to convince. Truth is 
 always sufficient of itself to carry conviction to the 
 mind, and to incline the judgment on the right side, 
 if it be rightly, skilfully, and faithfully applied. 
 
 Of those who have taken up the weapons of Con- 
 troversy, most have thought rather of handling them, 
 as they would say, "judiciously" than of handling 
 them effectively. Careful to offend no party, they 
 have won for themselves what, perhaps, they most 
 wished, the title of "moderate men," "prudent 
 men," or, higher still, of "judicious men." But what 
 has been the result to others ? They have convinced 
 few who were not already of their own opinion. 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 287 
 
 They have balanced the claims of Truth and Error so 
 nicely, and with such a constant interchange of the 
 weights from the one side to the other, that no one 
 has known on which side the Truth finally lay. They 
 have adopted such ambiguous, mediating, Janus- 
 faced phraseology, that it may be interpreted in 
 either of two opposite senses. This is too much the 
 case even with the (in some respects) justly styled 
 "judicious Hooker;" so that parties the most 
 directly opposed to each other can, and do, equally 
 defend themselves out of his armoury. 
 
 To evince the justness of these observations, we 
 may be permitted to remind the reader of this 
 physical fact (its moral application he will see him- 
 self) that if any one takes hold of a lever so 
 exactly in the middle that it will turn either way, 
 he deprives it of all power. 
 
 The ineffectiveness of most of the sermons of 
 the present age may, we believe, be traced to the 
 same mistake. They are too ambiguous and inde- 
 cisive in their statements. There is not in them 
 that direct confronting of Truth to Error, nor that 
 simple, broad enunciation of religious doctrines, 
 nor that fearless grappling with the individual con- 
 science, of which we find example in the Scriptures. 
 What are many of them, in fact, but a string of 
 pointless sentences, nicely measured, it may be, but 
 without much meaning ; a series of flat, square 
 walls, plastered with common-place truisms, where 
 nothing strikes ; rooms lighted up with candle-light 
 
288 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 sense ; discourses, in short, such as any one was 
 competent to preach, and no one cares to hear or to 
 remember, or could remember if he cared ? What 
 wonder, then, that sermons in the present day excite 
 so little interest and produce so little effect. Truth 
 in vague generality is no more instruction than wind 
 is music. Truth, too, when not gathered into force 
 and applied to a direct purpose, can make no im- 
 pression. To be felt and apprehended, its object 
 must be seen. Unless the Truth be made to take 
 a particular bearing it can have no productive power ; 
 just as the wind must be made to pass through pipes, 
 and be modulated by a skilful hand, or it cannot issue 
 forth in the distinctive sounds of music. " If the 
 trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare 
 himself for the battle?" 
 
 There is a question of some difficulty, and of still 
 greater delicacy to determine, connected with this part 
 -of our argument, which is, How far is it consistent with 
 Christianity to be what is termed personal ; to point de- 
 scriptively at individuals ; to designate heresies by the 
 names of their authors ; or to use, in any way, severe 
 condemnatory language in reference to the opposers 
 and corrupters of the Faith ? The spirit of the age 
 strongly inclines every one to the opinion that it is 
 wholly inconsistent with Christian charity to speak 
 harshly or pointedly of any persons, whatever may 
 be their conduct. The fashion is to deal only in 
 generals. Instead of yielding at once to this opinion 
 because it is in the fashion, it will be far more honest 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 289 
 
 in us to endeavour to ascertain first, whether this 
 mode, or the opposite, is most in accordance with 
 Scripture example. 
 
 Now the Prophets were often, beyond question, 
 very personal ; they directly, and by name, assail 
 the enemies of God's truth. But we will pass over 
 them, as it might, perhaps, be pleaded that they 
 had a special mission, a peculiar authority, or were 
 led thus to act by the spirit of prophecy. Let us 
 look, rather, to see how Christ and his Apostles 
 acted. Now, if we examine the epistles of the great 
 Apostle St. Paul, we meet with numerous instances 
 in which he points out individuals by name as faith- 
 less, or offenders against the Truth. Thus we find 
 him mentioning Hymeneus and Alexander* Phy- 
 gellus and Hermogenes^ Hymeneus and Philetus^ 
 as persons of this kind. But what is more remark- 
 able still, we find the gentle, the beloved disciple 
 John denouncing a certain Diotrephes by name, in 
 terms of the harshest censure, imputing to him pride 
 the highest, and malice of the deepest dye. It may, 
 however, be worthy of being noted, that these in- 
 stances all occur in epistles addressed to indivi- 
 duals, in letters, therefore, which may be considered 
 to have been of a somewhat private nature, though 
 afterwards to be read in public assemblies. In none 
 of the larger general epistles of the Apostles, addressed 
 to churches or collective bodies, have we discovered 
 
 * 1 Tim. i. 20. f 2 TIm - * 15 - I 2 Tim - " 17 ' 
 
 3 John 9. 
 
290 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 a similar mention of persons by name, except it be 
 for commendation, or, at the most, gentle admonition. 
 The line, therefore, which it seems we must draw, 
 the distinction we must make, is, that names may be 
 mentioned by individual to individual, in Christian let- 
 ters to be read privately, to put them on their guard 
 against deceivers and traitors, but the offenders must 
 not be placed on the gibbet before public assemblies. 
 There is nothing, however, in apostolic example to for- 
 bid such a graphic portraying of persons, such marked 
 and bold sketching of individual character or action, 
 that whosoever reads may detect the original, when such 
 public mischiefs as the perverters and corrupters of 
 true doctrine need to be unmistakably designated. 
 Instances of irony the most mocking, of sarcasm the 
 most severe, of denunciation the most withering, we 
 find, times without number, in the writings of the 
 Apostles, and more especially of St. Paul. His 
 object in all these cases is to lay open the hollowness 
 of the pretensions, to weaken the influence of the 
 false teachers, and not to indulge private pique. 
 The use of such language, then, we may regard as 
 justified when it has a worthy end ; or, to be more 
 precise, it is lawful to be objectively, but not sub- 
 jectively, personal, personal in the application of our 
 descriptions, but not in the spirit which dictates 
 them when, and only when, to be so will subserve 
 the ends of Truth and Righteousness. 
 
 On this point we shall probably find ourselves at 
 issue with many good men ; but we have, we think, 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 291 
 
 the better warrant. How, indeed, those gentle, good- 
 natured souls who, because they adopt terms of equal 
 moderation, whether they are speaking of persons of 
 the loftiest virtue, or of the subtlest craftiness, arrogate 
 to themselves the sole possession both of charity and 
 humility, can reconcile with their view of what is right 
 the words of Christ in relation to Herod, " Go and 
 tell that/oa; that to-day and to-morrow I do miracles, 
 and the third day I shall be perfected," we must 
 confess ourselves at a loss to understand. But, with 
 such examples before us, furnished both by Christ 
 and his Apostles (we might adduce many similar 
 ones from the writings of the Prophets, the mockery 
 of Elijah at the Prophets of Baal will occur to every 
 one's memory), we leave it to the candid reader to 
 decide whether the practice of good old Bishop Lati- 
 mer, and others of the Reformers, of speaking point- 
 edly and strongly, and by name, of those who 
 opposed the truth of God, was not much more in 
 accordance with Scripture pattern than the more soft 
 and meaningless generalities of modern times. There 
 is much reason to fear, indeed, that the servants of 
 God in this latter age have too much compromised 
 matters with the world, that they have come to a 
 sort of mutual understanding, the conditions of which 
 might be not unaptly expressed by the words, " Speak 
 gently of me, and I will speak gently of you." For 
 what do we find to be the fact ? Why, that many now 
 hold it to be wrong even to denominate or to denounce 
 a heresy by the name of its author, though we find 
 
292 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 the glorified Saviour himself doing this very thing 
 from his throne in heaven, addressing the Ephesian 
 Church in these words, "But this thou hast, that 
 thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I 
 also hate,"* arid repeating it again in the same chapter 
 " the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate."f 
 
 It may be worth while to repeat here what we 
 have noticed in a former chapter, that Truth and Error 
 cannot be separated practically from persons, to 
 illustrate it afresh, any more than gravitation can be 
 separated from solid bodies ; and as we can deal with 
 gravitation only, as it acts upon or through matter, 
 so we can deal with moral principles only as they are 
 found embodied in persons. Apart from them, Truth 
 and Error are airy abstractions, to fight with which is 
 only to aim blows at shadows. What we have to 
 deal with, actually, is principles, either as embodied 
 in men, or in their bearings upon men their interests 
 and their hopes. Here we must necessarily resort to 
 Controversy, though it be only to stay the false direc- 
 tion of Controversy. 
 
 What are the proper limits or questions for Con- 
 troversy ? is the point to which we will next direct 
 our inquiries. In respect to this we believe it will be 
 found that many do grievously transgress. 
 
 Upon examining the epistles of St. Paul to Timothy 
 
 and Titus, in which more particularly he lays down the 
 
 duties of those whose office it is to defend the Faith, we 
 
 meet with various remarks which evince most clearly 
 
 * Rev. ii. 6. f R ev. ii. 15. 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 293 
 
 that all Controversy, or contention, ought to be restricted 
 to questions of fundamental doctrine to those great 
 cardinal truths, in short, upon the preserved integrity of 
 which hangs the salvation of men. He prohibits, in the 
 strongest terms, all disputes about doubtful or indif- 
 ferent matters, all questions of mere words, all private 
 fancies and fabulous stories, all that fosters a profane 
 and curious spirit, all that tends to engender strife 
 without forwarding truth or individual edification. 
 And yet, with these apostolic rules before them, there 
 are some who will argue as earnestly, nay even more 
 earnestly, for that kind of genealogy which they de- 
 signate by the phrase "apostolic succession," for forms 
 of church government, for theologic technicalities, for 
 their own profane fancies and baseless theories, for pos- 
 tures and compass points in divine worship, yea, for the 
 shape of a surplice sleeve and the trimmings of 
 an altar cloth, than for " the weightier matters 
 of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith." All who 
 square not exactly with their notions in these matters, 
 they unhesitatingly condemn as hardly being Chris- 
 tians. Now this is fatuity and not only fatuity, it 
 is impiety, and that of the most offending kind. It 
 is utterly at variance with that lofty indifference to 
 minute distinctions, that wide-hearted charity which 
 the Apostle inculcates in the fourteenth chapter to the 
 Romans, and elsewhere. It is palpable, from the 
 most superficial glance at the principles which he lays 
 down there, and the reiterated remarks which he 
 makes in his epistles to Timothy and Titus, that for 
 
294 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 no minor, or doubtful, or trifling points, ought we ever 
 to take up the sharp-edged weapons of Controversy. 
 Christian casuistry is not of a minute but of an en- 
 larged compass ; over all microscopic differences it 
 throws the covering mantle of a considerate charity. 
 "One man belie veth that he may eat all things; 
 another, that is weak, eateth herbs." Well, let each 
 eat what he believes to be lawful, and not attempt to 
 force his private opinion or scruples upon others. 
 " Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died." 
 But now, if we set over against these prohibitory 
 remonstrances the many passages in which the 
 Apostle enjoins the Evangelists, in every variety of 
 phrase, and in words of the utmost force, to contend 
 for the essential verities of the faith, such as, " war a 
 good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience ;" 
 " take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine ; con- 
 tinue in them ;" " keep that which is committed to 
 thy trust ;" "hold fast the form of sound words in faith 
 and love, which is in Christ Jesus ;" and more deci- 
 sively still, in reference to our present subject, 
 "Holding fast the faithful word, according to my 
 teaching, that he may be able both to exhort by sound 
 doctrine, and to convince the gainsayers," adding, 
 "For there are many unruly and vain talkers and 
 deceivers, specially they of the circumcision, whose 
 mouths must be stopped" (not, it is evident, by the 
 mere force of authority, but by argument), "who sub- 
 vert whole houses, teaching things which they ought 
 not, for filthy lucre's sake." " Wherefore, convince 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 295 
 
 them" (by cutting away all their false grounds), " that 
 they may be sound in the faith ; not giving heed to 
 Jewish fables, and commandments of men that turn 
 from the truth," we must come to the conclusion 
 that there are points, and these the great fundamental 
 doctrines of the Christian system such as the divi- 
 nity of the Saviour ; the personality of the Holy Ghost; 
 the integrity and sufficiency of the Scriptures, apart 
 from any traditions, to teach all that is necessary 
 to salvation ; their divine inspiration ; the total cor- 
 ruption and helplessness of human nature ; the 
 necessity of repentance and the new birth ; the free- 
 ness of justification through faith, without the works 
 of the law ; the spirituality of Christian worship, as 
 opposed both to ritual observances and to Romish 
 idolatries ; the doctrine of one Mediator ; of the two 
 Sacraments, and of their benefits when accompanied 
 with faith in the recipients; of good works, not as co- 
 ordinate with, but as necessarily consequent upon faith 
 in the justified; of charity as the end of the command- 
 ment; of the resurrection from the dead; and of 
 eternal judgment which must be insisted upon, and 
 if assailed, vindicated by the Christian teacher, in the 
 close engagement of actual Controversy. When a 
 victory has to be won, there must be the clashing of 
 the arms of the combatants. 
 
 The general object of Controversy may be defined 
 to be, to ascertain, to defend, and to settle truth upon 
 an immovable basis. This, however, is the abstract 
 view of it. In relation to persons, its object, as we 
 
296 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 have seen, and where rightly managed, its effect will 
 be to convince. It will be observed that we have all 
 along gone upon the assumption that with Controversy, 
 or argumentative disputation in defence of the truth, 
 is to be united charity. If this be not the spirit of it, 
 it can be no matter of surprise if it fails (whatever 
 else it may effect) to convince. It is indeed a truth 
 never to be forgotten, that " the wrath of man work- 
 eth not the righteousness of God." If Controversy 
 take the form of angry altercation, or of fierce and 
 fiery contention and insult, it may wound, but it will 
 never heal. The sword of Truth cannot be too sharp, 
 but it must be oiled to enter smoothly. If it irritates 
 it will only kindle the burning fever of resentment, 
 and this will issue in stubborn opposition. Men, ex- 
 cept indeed those who are monomaniacs, will submit 
 to be calmly reasoned out of a false opinion, but they 
 will not be rudely driven out of it. To attempt to 
 force conviction, looks too much like the spirit of 
 persecution ever to succeed. This has been the ill- 
 judged mistake too often made by the Church, and 
 never was any mistake more disastrous in its conse- 
 quences. It has manufactured martyrs out of obsti- 
 nacy, and transferred all the honours of moral heroism 
 from the right to the wrong side of the question ; 
 while it has gathered numbers of fresh converts to 
 superstition and falsehood from the ranks of the 
 sympathetic and the kind-hearted, who ought to have 
 been enlisted (and would have been enlisted under 
 right generalship) under the banners of Truth. It is 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 297 
 
 not, then, to Controversy under its offensive form of 
 personal or party contention, we can ascribe the 
 power to convince ; but Controversy when carried on 
 in the pure love of Truth, and under the presidentship 
 of Charity. The materials of the temple in which the 
 image of Truth stands enshrined may be built of the 
 hard-pointed stones of argument ; but the face of the 
 image itself must beam with the smiles of genuine 
 kindness, in order for it to win and assert for Truth 
 her rightful dominion over mankind. 
 
 Viewed, however, even in its most forbidding fea- 
 tures of deformity, it cannot be denied that Controversy 
 wields a mighty power for the accomplishment of 
 what we have defined to be its general ends. It has 
 put to flight, and cleared away, thousands of baseless 
 theories and false opinions, which once brooded over 
 and darkened the regions of humanity. No truth, 
 indeed, of any importance, such is the dimness of 
 our moral condition, has ever been ascertained and 
 established without much conflict and Controversy; 
 and even then it has often taken ages to arrive at 
 such certainty about it as to place it beyond all 
 dispute. As storms and hurricanes clear the atmo- 
 sphere, so the sun of Truth gets clear shining through 
 the dissipating power of Controversy. Truth is 
 elicited by the collision of opinions, as fire from the 
 striking together of flints. In every subject, in 
 politics, in ethics, in law, in medicine, and in phy- 
 sical science, quite as much as in theology, Contro- 
 versy it is that eliminates and establishes Truth. 
 
 u 
 
298 THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 
 
 Christianity itself was planted, and has grown up, 
 amidst storms. Controversial discussion has ever 
 been favourable to it ; so much so, that it has never 
 retained its purity, nor made any solid advances, but 
 where that has been allowed. To that, beyond a 
 doubt, it owes its chief, its brightest conquests. 
 
 To be satisfied of the force of Controversy, we 
 have only to call to mind what it has achieved. It 
 has exploded the false systems which once held rule 
 both in Philosophy and Religion ; it has dissipated the 
 moral darkness which for ages hung over the whole 
 of Christendom ; it has laid open the wide universe 
 to the free explorings of Science; it has banished 
 deformities from the gallery of Art ; it has broken off 
 the chain of Popery and Tyranny, and won for us our 
 glorious Magna Charta of civil and religious freedom; 
 it has shivered to atoms the pretensions of despotic 
 power ; it has burnt up persecution, so to speak, in 
 its own fire ; it has wrenched off the manacles of 
 man-degrading bondage from the slave ; it has vin- 
 dicated equal justice for all classes; it has secured 
 protection for the weakest, provision for the poorest 
 of our country's population ; it has inscribed upon the 
 doors of all our institutions of charity the magic word 
 Liberty ; it has changed a land once ill -cultivated, and 
 covered with morasses and dark monastic shades, 
 into a lovely and lightsome scene of good order and 
 beauty ; it has cradled, by its rough rocking, our 
 national energies into manly strength ; it has raised 
 us into the erect position of independence; it has 
 
THE FORCE OF CONTROVERSY. 299 
 
 forced Law to enrobe itself in the pure ermine of its 
 equity; above all, it has rescued Truth from the 
 down-treading of Error, and enthroned Her in Her 
 own bright, serene, rightful majesty, as the only 
 guide to man, the Pharos tower to all the nations of 
 the earth, the great saviour of the lost ; in fine, it is 
 to Controversy may be traced the whole of Truth's 
 Triumphs. 
 
 END OF THE ESSAYS. 
 
 U 2 
 
terlusion. 
 
 THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 AGAIN the night-shades had gathered, and the 
 hour for " tired Nature's sweet restorer," to shed his 
 balmy influence afresh, returned. Wearied by the 
 long contest which he had waged with the great 
 seven-headed serpent, our Dreamer lay himself down 
 again to rest not now upon a pillow where Subtilty 
 slumbered unsuspected, but where Security reposed in 
 quiet confidence. Soon he fell into a sound sleep ; 
 and soundly did he continue to sleep till near the 
 dawn of the returning day. What time the morning 
 began to break over the distant mountains in deepen- 
 ing flushes of reddening light, and to pierce up into 
 the sky in rays of arrowy brightness, the heavy va- 
 pours of sleep cleared gradually away from his re- 
 freshed spirit, like mists before the rising sun ; and 
 while in that dreamy state, half waking, half sleeping, 
 his mind was anon at work frisking through the 
 regions of fancy, wrought upon now not by the un- 
 wholesome warmth of an artificial excitement, but by 
 returning sober consciousness, presenting images of 
 the real. Another vision visits him. Gentle reader, 
 mark its form, and learn its moral. 
 
THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 301' 
 
 As waking dreams usually turn upon objects with 
 which the thoughts have recently been familiar, he 
 fancies, naturally enough, that he sees the temple, 
 into which he had lately entered, uprising again 
 before him. It looks outwardly very much as when 
 last it broke upon his view. He imagines he again 
 enters it, when, lo, such is the alteration which 
 it has undergone within, that he exclaims aloud 
 in his sleep, " Oh, how changed ! " He is now struck, 
 not by its mystic bewildering variety of objects, but 
 at its pure ungarnished simplicity. The numberless 
 images and pictures of saints and angels peering out 
 from niche and wall, from boss and corbel, which, 
 when he last trod its aisles, acted with such confusing, 
 awe-awaking power upon his animal senses, had all 
 disappeared from the noble edifice. No magic many- 
 coloured lights now streamed, and waved, and danced 
 upon its pavement, to distract his thoughts. The 
 windows have been so changed as to let in the pure 
 light of heaven, slightly shaded only to soften it down 
 to suit man's feeble eyesight. No flitting shadows, 
 nor ghost-lfce shapes, of men or things of unearthly 
 aspect, cross his vision to disturb his mental compo- 
 sure. Self-possessed, he now surveys the place. The 
 architectural ornaments of the building (for it still 
 has some ornaments) are all of that flowery unde- 
 fined kind, taken from the pattern of Nature, which 
 are at once pure, simple, unimposing. The whole 
 interior, he observes, is thrown perfectly open. The 
 view is everywhere unobstructed. This gives it an 
 
302 THE RjsvEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 appearance more vast and truly magnificent than be- 
 fore. There was, indeed, a sort of pure sublimity 
 about it, which, seemed to say, as far as anything sen- 
 sible can say, " The Being who is worshipped here is 
 a Spirit ; who dwells in that vast temple of the uni- 
 verse, whose only visible walls are light." The effect 
 produced upon his mind now was not of an oppressive 
 but of an expanding character. With lightened step 
 and uplifted heart he moves towards the part where, 
 he remembers, the congregation was gathered. The 
 sound of singing again breaks upon his ear. But the 
 harmony now, he notes, is not that of the pealing 
 organ and varied anthem, but only that of simple 
 voices ; yet is it so spiritually sweet, that his truth- 
 enlightened soul at once mounts with it, not in the 
 sensuous raptures of excited feeling, but in the pure 
 elevation of the spirit direct towards that great in- 
 visible Being who dwelleth not in temples made with 
 hands, but in the high and holy place of eternity. 
 Scarcely conscious of the advance of his own foot- 
 steps, so completely is his soul, rapt away from the 
 body, he finds himself immediately in the^nidst of the 
 worshippers, and joining in their praises. The sing- 
 ing ended, the scene changes. He sees a preacher 
 ascend the pulpit as before, but he is not the same. 
 With the change which the aspect of the interior has 
 undergone, a change has taken place in the character 
 of the minister. There stands before him now a " man 
 of God : " " the best of books was in his hand, the 
 law of truth was written upon his lips, the world was 
 
THE RKVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 303 
 
 behind his back," a vast multitude of people of both 
 sexes, and of all ages, was before his face, and he 
 looked like one who pleaded with men concerning 
 matters of life and death. His manner was earnest, 
 but unstudied his countenance serious, but uncon- 
 strained. Whenever he used action, it was evidently 
 from the impulse of feeling at the moment. His 
 whole bearing, indeed, might be described in that one 
 word, " naturalness." Having first offered up a short 
 prayer with great spiritual fervour, he gave out for 
 his text this passage from the writings of St. Paul, 
 upon which, as our Dreamer heard it, he delivered the 
 following discourse : 
 
 " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all ac- 
 ceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
 sinners.' 9 - I Timothy i. 15. 
 
 "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" was the 
 agitated question of the awakened jailor at Philippi, 
 when startled out of his slumbers by an earthquake. 
 This is the most important question which any living 
 man can possibly ask. It is the question upon which 
 hinges an eternity of happiness or of misery. But 
 where can we find an answer to this question ? No- 
 where but in that blessed book which announces the 
 message of Heaven's mercy to man, and unfolds to us 
 the counsels, and purposes, and accomplished acts of 
 the Most High. In the inspired Scriptures, and in 
 the inspired Scriptures alone, find we that clear, 
 authentic, and duly accredited information on this 
 
304 
 
 THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 point (and on all other points touching the means 
 and method of our salvation) upon which we can, 
 with any feeling of certainty, rely. 
 
 To learn that we are sinful creatures, we have 
 only to look inwardly upon what goes on in our own 
 hearts, as compared with the law of God. That 
 guilt is felt to attach to all men is evidenced by the 
 universal prevalence of the offering of sacrifice, under 
 some form or other, to atone for it : which yet, in 
 the absence of Revelation, can bring no assured peace 
 to the troubled mind. We have but to glance over 
 the pages of our own past history to discover that we 
 have ourselves been actual transgressors. If we ask 
 Conscience what awaits us, Conscience replies, " Thou 
 hast sinned, and must die." But no man living or 
 dead, no book, nor school, nor teacher, nor mere 
 human authority of any kind, can tell us how we 
 may be saved. We have had sayings of philosophers, 
 but they have deceived us. We have had traditions 
 of our fathers, but they have misled us. We have 
 had the admired systems of moralists, but they have 
 broken' down under us. We have had theories, and 
 reasonings, and guesses of the wise, and writings of the 
 learned, and sage maxims, and methods various and 
 of the most skilful device, for rectifying the evils of 
 our fallen condition ; but none of them have borne 
 the seal of infallible truth ; none of them have given 
 us solid hope ; none of them have scattered our dark- 
 ness, and lightened our eyes with the light of life. 
 
 If, perplexed with the obscure and contradictory 
 
THE RKYEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 305 
 
 opinions of men, we have turned to " Great Nature," 
 what has Nature answered ? When we have looked 
 up inquiringly at the Heavens, as they have seemed 
 to look down thoughtfully upon us at night with 
 their myriad starry eyes, they have answered us only 
 by a dread unbroken silence. When we have asked 
 of the Earth, the Earth has responded only in a deep- 
 heaved groan. When we have said hopefully to the 
 Sea, as it lay smooth and smiling in the calm, " Is 
 there peace to be obtained in any way for guilty man 
 with his God ? " the Sea has replied only by cresting 
 itself into the terrific shape of the storm. When we 
 have looked mutely at the living creatures around us, 
 they have met our mute looks only by fleeing from 
 our presence. When we have knocked lastly at the 
 door of Death, Death has echoed no answer. Thus 
 silence deep, awful, mysterious silence, has reigned 
 through all nature, and over all men, upon the point 
 most important of all for man to know How may a 
 lost sinner be saved ? 
 
 But can it be for a moment supposed, is it at all 
 likely that our Maker would leave us for ever in this 
 distressing uncertainty ? Is it not reasonable to 
 expect that he would in some intelligible way reveal 
 his will to those of his creatures whom he has made 
 capable of understanding it, and who are the subjects 
 of such a truly godly concern ? Is it not natural to 
 assume that, as he has given to man the power of 
 communicating his thoughts by articulate sounds to 
 his fellow man, so he would, in the same mode, express 
 
306 
 
 THE RKVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 his own, to be conveyed, as all other knowledge is, 
 from one generation to another, in a written form ? 
 He that made the tongue, shall he not speak ? He 
 that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he make 
 known ? Yes, verily, God hath spoken : let all the 
 earth hear. He has broken the silence, in itself so 
 frightful, of the universe, to satisfy the anxious in- 
 quirings of his creatures ; and not only has he spoken, 
 but, that his words might remain to be a sure guide 
 to all ages, he has caused them to be written in a 
 book, by inspired men ; and among all these words 
 there is none more suited to the felt necessities of 
 our condition, there is none more deserving of our 
 thorough confidence, there is none more pregnant with 
 universal consolation than those of our text, " This is 
 a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 
 
 Now it is to this statement of Holy Scripture, 
 which bespeaks its own truth and title to world -wide 
 acceptance, and in which, in the simplest form of 
 words, we have the whole Gospel brought before us 
 in an epitome, who Christ was, for what end he 
 came into our world, our own implied character, 
 and the glorious result of his coming to them who 
 receive him, I would now draw your attention. 
 
 There are in the text two main points worthy of our 
 special nbtice : I. The fact stated, that " Christ 
 Jesus came into the world to save sinners;" and II. 
 What the Apostle asserts in regard to this statement, 
 namely, that " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of 
 all acceptation." 
 
THE RE VEIL, OR BREAM DISPERSED. 307 
 
 I. Notice the fact stated, that Christ Jesus came 
 into the world to save sinners. In this statement it 
 is obviously assumed that he existed before he came 
 and sojourned on this earth among men. If we were 
 told that some new planet or star had just made its 
 appearance among the stars of our system, our na- 
 tural assumption from this would be, not that it was 
 then first created when it first appeared, but only that 
 it then came for the first time within that part of 
 space which is visible to us. But, in the case before 
 us, the ground for such an assumption is still stronger ; 
 for here Christ is spoken of as having come into our 
 world for a specific, determined purpose, namely, 
 " to save sinners ;" and therefore he must have existed 
 in distinct personal consciousness before to have 
 formed that purpose. If we heard it said of any 
 particular man that he came into England, we should 
 know beyond question that he dwelt in some other 
 region before Se came here. This is not the way in 
 which we usually describe a mere birth ; and besides, 
 in birth, the person is altogether passive ; whereas, in 
 the text, Christ's coming is spoken of as an act of his 
 own. It is clear, then, that he existed before in some 
 other region, if not under some other form. " He 
 that should come" was, too, you will remember, one 
 of the modes of description used by the Jews when 
 speaking of Him. His coming had been long ex- 
 pected, as a thing from the first foretold. It was 
 darkly hinted in that promise to our offending and 
 sorrowing parents, " The seed of the woman shall 
 
308 THE RE VEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED; 
 
 bruise the serpent's head." Prophet after prophet 
 predicted it ; the sacrifices and religious ceremonies 
 of the Jews prefigured it ; holy men of faith waited 
 for it ; the angels of heaven. announced it when it had 
 taken place. " In the fulness of the time," as the 
 Apostle elsewhere says, " God sent forth his Son, 
 made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem 
 them that were under the law, that we might receive 
 the adoption of sons." From this passage of Scrip- 
 ture a clear, full light is thrown upon our text, arid 
 we learn who Christ was before he came into our 
 world. He was God's Son. This is implied, also, in 
 his name Jesus, which means God the Saviour. Thus 
 we gather his true and proper divinity. He was 
 indeed the everlasting Son of the Father, equal with 
 him in majesty, as he was equal with him in eternity. 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
 with God, and the Word was God. The same was 
 in the beginning with God ; and the Word was made 
 flesh, and dwelt among us." " I come forth from the 
 Father," is his own declaration, " and am come into 
 the world." 
 
 2. Notice next, To what place he came. " He 
 came into the world" From whence he came, you 
 need not be told. As the Son of God, he must have 
 come from heaven. Now to leave heaven, and to come 
 into such a world as this a world of sin and of sinners 
 (for that is what is usually meant by the " world " 
 in Scripture) involves such amazing love, and con- 
 descension, and self-sacrifice on his part, as almost 
 
THE REVE1L, OK DREAM DISPERSED. 309 
 
 baffles belief; and yet are we assured, upon an au- 
 thority that cannot be doubted, that it is even true. 
 Christ so loved our fallen race that, to save us, he 
 humbled himself, and stooped to our condition. In so 
 doing, he left a world of majesty, in which he had 
 heretofore dwelt, for one of meanness ; a world of 
 blessedness for one of suffering ; a world of purity for 
 one of pollution. In his transit he made an exchange 
 of the ineffable glory of Deity, and the society of holy 
 angels, and the praises of cherubim and seraphim, and 
 the splendours of heaven's eternal palaces, for the 
 damp and distant regions of banishment, and the 
 company of the ungodly, and the curses and contra- 
 dictions of sinners against himself, and the outcast 
 condition of the despised and rejected of men, who 
 had not even where to lay his head. Here was indeed 
 a new thing and a wondrous, that he who was " the 
 brightness of the Father's glory, and the express 
 image of his person," dwelling with him in light and 
 bliss unutterable, should leave the bright precincts of 
 heaven's golden mansions, to come and tabernacle 
 for a time in this world of darkness, and dreariness, 
 and degradation. We run to view if some new star 
 has appeared ; we hasten to gaze if some distinguished 
 individual has arrived from a distant country among 
 us. 0, surely here is an event worthy to attract the 
 attention of all, that the Son of God came into 
 our world to dwell among us as one of our race, and, 
 in our nature to suffer and die, that we might be 
 saved. " In this the love of God was manifested, 
 
310 
 
 THE REVEIL, Oil DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 that he sent his only begotten Son into the world, 
 that we might live through him." 
 
 3. Notice, thirdly, the end for which he came, 
 " to save sinners.' 1 This was the direct design of his 
 coming ; this was the prime end to be accomplished 
 by it. It was not merely to set us an example, as a 
 Teacher, according to the Socinians' theory, but it 
 was to suffer for us as a Saviour. He had the name 
 Jesus given to him, as the Evangelist informs us, for 
 this very reason ; " for he shall save his people from 
 their sins." Example alone would not save. To 
 show a man how to swim is not the same thing as to 
 rescue him when sinking. It is astonishing how 
 any, with this declaration of their Bibles before them, 
 can rest in the idea that Christ came only to teach ; 
 and to leave us an example. This, indeed, was one 
 end for which he came, but it was not the main end. 
 He had a nobler, because a more compassionate 
 object in view. He saw that we were perishing, and 
 he fled to our relief. Had he brought into our world, 
 indeed, only that luminous wisdom with which he 
 enlightened it; had he left behind him only the 
 footsteps of his own pure and spotless example, he 
 would have been a great benefactor : but this would 
 not have met the deep necessities of our fallen condi- 
 tion, which, doubtless, he knew. This alone, so far 
 from lifting us up out of our lost estate, and inspiring 
 us with confidence and hope, would only have plunged 
 us into deeper despair in revealing to us by contrast 
 our own vileness and utter helplessness, while, by the 
 
THE RKVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 311 
 
 heavier condemnation it would have laid upon our 
 guilty consciences, it would have enshrouded our 
 future in a denser gloom. What we .chiefly wanted to 
 know was, how we might be freed from guilt, washed, 
 and made clean from the pollution of sin. This his 
 own expiatory death, as our substitute, made clear. 
 " He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." " He 
 who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might 
 be made the righteousness of God in him." Being 
 God as well as man, his Deity gave an infinite value 
 to his sacrifice, while his humanity rendered him 
 capable of suffering in our place. To accomplish our 
 redemption was the chief end for which he died. If 
 he performed, as he did, wondrous miracles, it was 
 only to prove himself to be the promised Messiah ; 
 if he enforced the law of God, both by precept and 
 example, to the very strictest degree, it was only the 
 more effectually to convince us of our sin ; if he ful- 
 filled all righteousness in his own person, it was only 
 to work out a righteousness for us commensurate 
 with all the demands of the Law, that thereby we 
 might be justified ; if he suffered even to the death of 
 the cross, it was solely for this purpose, that we 
 might be delivered from death. " He gave himself a 
 ransom for all, to be testified in due time." In a 
 word, the one grand end for which he came into the 
 world was, as stated in our text, " to save sinners." 
 
 Now, herein we see strongly implied, what is our 
 own character and moral condition. We are sinners ; 
 and not only so, but lost sinners ; for if we were not 
 
312 
 
 THE REVE1L, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 lost, we could not need to be saved. Every man 
 who breathes the breath of this world, or ever has 
 breathed it, is a sinner. " All we, like sheep, have 
 gone astray; we have turned every one to his own 
 way." " There is none righteous ; no, not one." 
 "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of 
 God." Now, what is involved in this fact? To be 
 a sinner, is to be under a sentence of condemnation ; 
 and not only so, but to be morally disabled from 
 restoring himself to righteousness. 
 
 Such being our condition, a Saviour, a super- 
 human Saviour, was absolutely needed ; and such a 
 Saviour, we have already shewn, was sent. From 
 the greatness of the remedy provided, we might, 
 indeed, infer the greatness of our misery, our own 
 utterly lost and helpless estate. The costly machinery 
 of the Gospel would never have been constructed (for 
 the Almighty never wastefully expends his power), had 
 it not been necessary for the working out of our resto- 
 ration. The Son of God, we may be sure, would 
 never have left the heights of celestial bliss and 
 glory to come into our world, had not our rescue 
 from ruin demanded it. There were creatures more 
 nearly allied to us, who would have been ready and 
 willing to help us, had it been in their power. The 
 holy angels, those spirits of fire, burning with love, 
 would have flown to our aid unbidden. Our fellow- 
 men would succour us, if aught they can do would 
 save. Which of us would not rush, at any moment, 
 to snatch a person from the flames, or to rescue a 
 
THE II ri VEIL, OR DREA.M DISPERSED. 313 
 
 drowning man from a watery grave ? But our ruin 
 through sin was beyond all creature recovery. " No 
 man could redeem his brother, so that he must let 
 that alone for ever." " I looked," says the Almighty 
 by the prophet, " and there was none to help, and I 
 wondered that there was no intercessor ; therefore my 
 own arm brought salvation." 
 
 In this, further, we see implied the exceeding 
 great value of the human soul. Our souls, though 
 little appreciated by ourselves, are precious in God's 
 sight. Think not, brethren, that the eternal Son of 
 God would have exchanged the pure regions of 
 heaven for this polluted earth to sojourn and suffer 
 among us for any trifling object for anything which 
 he did not esteem of surpassing preciousness. We 
 love our own, and will even risk our own lives to save 
 them. Shall God be less loving to those who are 
 emphatically his offspring ? He best knows the value 
 of human souls, for he made them. The whole 
 world is not to be compared with one single soul in 
 worth, for it is one of Christ's own deep-thoughted 
 remarks, " What shall it profit a man, though he gain 
 the whole world, if he lose his own soul ; or what 
 shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'* When 
 he came, then, into our world, he came not for such 
 comparatively insignificant, because temporary objects, 
 as the establishment of empires, and the ruling of 
 states ; he came not, as the Jews vainly fancied he 
 would come, to revive national power and grandeur ; 
 nor did he come merely to advance the knowledge 
 
314 THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 and science which elevate and adorn human society 
 (objects which we are apt to think of the highest 
 interest) ; but he came for a far more benevolent and 
 enduring purpose he came " to bring life and immor- 
 tality to light" he came to save the lost. 
 
 And now let me explain somewhat more fully 
 what Christ has done to save us, and how his salva- 
 tion is to be made ours. 
 
 " Christ died for our sins, according to the 
 Scriptures." Such is the statement of the Apostle. 
 It was necessary, it seems, that an atonement should 
 be made for man's sins before he could be restored to 
 the Divine favour. " Die He or Justice must." The 
 law of God, whose sentence was, "the soul that 
 sinneth shall die," had been violated ; its penalty had 
 been incurred by man. The truth of God, and the 
 justice of God, were pledged to carry into execution 
 this sentence, unless in some way satisfaction could be 
 made to the righteous demands of the law, and a 
 channel opened for the safe exercise of mercy. If sin 
 were allowed to go altogether unpunished, or pardoned 
 without the payment of any penalty, the honour of 
 God's moral government would have been endangered, 
 the equities of Heaven laid open to question. Some 
 one in man's nature, therefore, must suffer to satisfy 
 for man's sin. He must be some one, too, of infinite 
 dignity, or he could not satisfy for the sins of all, and 
 make reparation for offences against Heaven's infinite 
 Majesty, or establish a title, through his own merits, 
 to eternal glory. To meet these exigencies of our 
 
THE RrfVEIL, OR DREAil DISPERSED. 15 
 
 condition it was, that the Son of God himself took 
 upon him our nature, wrought out a perfect righteous- 
 ness, and at last died as a sacrifice, in compliance- 
 with the requirements of the law of his Father. 
 Thus satisfaction was made for the sins of the whole 
 world. Thus, too, the law of God was magnified and 
 made honourable, his justice was awfully vindicated, 
 his mercy magnificently displayed, and pardon and 
 righteousness are proffered through Christ to the 
 sinner. " Him hath God set forth to be a propitiation, 
 through faith in his blood." And now, whoever 
 believes with the heart and confesses with the mouth 
 the Lord Jesus, whoever casts himself penitently and 
 trustfully upon his divine sacrifice for sin, is "justified 
 from all things from which he could not be justified 
 by the law of Moses" " being justified freely by God's 
 grace, through the redemption that is in Christ 
 Jesus." Being delivered, in short, from condemnation, 
 he is made an adopted child of God, and has a title 
 given him, which constitutes him an heir of glory. 
 
 Moreover, by this same act of his, in dying for us, 
 and thereby atoning for our sins, Christ purchased for 
 us the gift or restoration of the Divine Spirit, to renew 
 us again unto holiness, in order that we might be 
 qualified for happiness. Sin had not only closed the 
 door against, but it had disqualified us for the pure 
 delights of Paradise. We required to be delivered 
 not only from deserved condemnation, but from inborn 
 pollution from the power of sin as well as its guilt. 
 The heart needed to be washed, sanctified, renewed, 
 
316 
 
 THE RKVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 before there could be any meetness or capability in 
 man for the service or enjoyment of God. Heaven, 
 though purchased, would be no heaven to a mind that 
 was not first made heavenly. By nature we are all 
 carnal, sold under sin. The whole inner man, then, 
 requires to be changed. To effect this, Christ, who 
 came to save us, sends his Holy Spirit into the hearts 
 of men, first to convince them of sin ; then to teach 
 them true wisdom, by revealing to them Christ as a 
 Saviour suitable to them and every way sufficient 
 (" He shall take of mine and show it unto you") ; and 
 then, finally, to lead them to Christ as " exalted to be 
 both a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance," or 
 a change of mind, " and forgiveness of sins." The faith 
 of Christ purifies the heart from the guilt of past 
 sin ; and the Holy Spirit, being in the heart of the 
 believer, what Christ promised, as a well of water, 
 ever welling forth its pure streams, carries on the 
 process of purifying till it sanctifies the man wholly, 
 and he becomes meet for the inheritance of the saints 
 in light, to which he is at length exalted by his Divine 
 Redeemer, " being delivered from the bondage of 
 corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of 
 God." Thus, then, is verified to the full the Apostle's 
 statement, that Christ is "of God made unto us 
 wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and re- 
 demption." 
 
 You see then, brethren, now fully what Christ has 
 done to save you, and also how his salvation is to be 
 made yours. It is by faith in the Saviour : ^ Believe 
 
THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 317 
 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 
 It is by submitting yourselves to his righteousness, 
 and being made partakers of his Spirit. A change of 
 heart must be wrought in you, through the power of 
 the Holy Ghost. " Except a man be born again, he 
 cannot see the kingdom of God." " If any man have 
 not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Here we 
 have set forth the true agencies that are efficient of 
 man's salvation. 
 
 But it is nowhere said in the Scriptures (and mark 
 this well), Believe in the Church, and thou shalt be 
 saved make confession to the priest, and thou shalt 
 be pardoned -go through a course of severe self- 
 torturing services, and thou shalt become righteous 
 receive the sacraments only, and thou shalt be sanc- 
 tified. No, rather it is, Believe in Christ; repent; 
 obey the Gospel. The Church, and the sacraments, 
 and even the preaching of the word, are only instru- 
 mental means of salvation moral, and not physical 
 agencies efficient of themselves ; and to look directly 
 to them, or to rest in them, is to come short of the 
 salvation that is in Christ Jesus. They are useful as 
 helps in the way to life ; most dangerous when made 
 objects of trust. " Behold, I Paul say unto you, that 
 if ye be circumcised" (that is, expecting through that, 
 and by parity of reason through any other external 
 ordinance, to be saved), " Christ shall profit you 
 nothing. Christ is become of no effect unto you, 
 whosoever of you are justified by the law ; ye are 
 fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for 
 
318 THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 the hope of righteousness by faith." It is the principle 
 here opposed that we have to guard against, and not 
 compliance with any particular ordinance. This prin- 
 ciple may creep in under the Christian, even as it did 
 under the Legal dispensation. On this point let us 
 strive to get a clear understanding. 
 
 The Church was instituted, not to be the giver of 
 grace to you, but only to gather you into one com- 
 munion ; the clergy are appointed to minister to you, 
 not to mediate for you ; sacraments are ordained to 
 be the signs and seals of God's grace and good will 
 towards you and means whereby, through faith, you 
 may receive it, and be assured of it ; but salvation it- 
 self is to be obtained neither through the Church, nor 
 through the priest, nor through sacraments, nor 
 through any moralities or observances of our own, but 
 through each man's direct personal faith in the 
 Saviour that true faith which apprehends Christ as 
 " the end of the law for righteousness to every one 
 that belie veth " which " works by love " which 
 " overcomes the world," and brings forth in the life 
 those " fruits of righteousness, which are by J.esus 
 Christ unto the praise and glory of God." 
 
 The mistake which men commonly make in this 
 matter is, to suppose that they must perform certain 
 works of obedience in order to be worthy to be saved. 
 The enlightened believer obeys because he is saved not 
 obeys in order to be saved. Good works are the fruits 
 of faith, and not the causes meritorious of the bestow- 
 ment of grace. They are neither co-ordinate with 
 
THE RE VEIL, OK DREAM DISPERSED. 319 
 
 faith, nor are they co-efficients with faith, in the 
 matter of our salvation, but only the consequents and 
 resultant effects of faith. Even the good centurion 
 Cornelius, who, we are told, " gave much alms to the 
 people, and prayed to God alway," knew of the 
 preaching of peace by Jesus Christ,* and was in heart 
 a believer, though he knew not, till Peter was sent to 
 inform him, of his full privileges as a believing 
 Christian. His prayers and alms went up for a 
 " memorial" only, not for a merit before God. Jesus 
 is both the author and finisher of our faith. No other 
 righteousness but his is required, or can be accepted, 
 for our justification. No other agent but his own 
 Holy Spirit can be efficient to our sanctification : and 
 true religion is that which emanates from his opera- 
 tion within, not that which is produced by the action 
 of anything from without it is subjective and spiritual 
 not objective, merely, and emotional. In its essence 
 it consists of two things love to God, and love to 
 man and it shows itself chiefly in acts of affiance in 
 the one, and of unconquerable kindness towards the 
 other. When these effects have been produced in a 
 man, then may it be safely affirmed of him that he 
 has so believed in Christ as to be saved. 
 
 Ask yourselves then, brethren, here, each one the 
 question Have I thus believed in Christ? Am I 
 thus saved ? Salvation is a thing not merely to be 
 looked for in the future, but realised now. "To us 
 who are saved," says the Apostle, " the preaching of 
 
 * See Acts x. 37. 
 
320 THE RKVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 the cross is the power of God." Again, " Who hath 
 saved us, and called us with a holy calling ;" "not 
 by works of righteousness which we have done, 
 but according to his mercy he saved us, by the 
 washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost." Now has this been realised by you ? 
 Have you been brought to perceive that you are 
 condemned by the law that your own righteous- 
 nesses are all but as filthy rags that you have 
 no power to do anything spiritually good of your- 
 self in a word, that your natural condition is that 
 of one who is fallen, ruined, lost ? If this be the 
 case with you, then we bid you to look believingly 
 unto Jesus : " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
 away the sin of the world," and gather comfort. Go 
 at once to Him who is mighty to save, penitent yet 
 believing ; appeal in his name directly to the Father ; 
 ask him to give you life through, and for the sake of his 
 dear Son ; and your sins shall be forgiven you ; your 
 heart shall be turned, and the kingdom of God, which is 
 " righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost," shall 
 be established in you ; you shall "dwell in God and God 
 in you;" and when death comes to strike off your mortal 
 fetters, you shall be rapt away to the presence of him 
 " whom, having not seen, you have loved," to prove, by 
 your own glorified experience, the truth of the statement 
 that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 
 But perhaps some of you will reply, " I have been 
 too great a sinner ever to be saved." Then there is 
 something immediately connected with our text that 
 
THE RriVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 321 
 
 closes at once the door against this, your despairing 
 conclusion. St. Paul had been, as he tells us, and 
 as we know from his recorded actions, of sinners the 
 chief : and yet Christ saved him. He mentions this 
 very fact as a proof the strongest possible proof 
 of what he states, that " Christ Jesus came into the 
 world to save sinners" Why, then, should you de- 
 spair ? Why should you write " there is no hope " 
 against your own name ? Grant that you have been 
 a great offender; grant that your sins are of the 
 deepest dye ; grant that you have brought yourself 
 into such a state of moral helplessness that you are 
 in yourself wholly lost ; then is Christ's great salva- 
 tion exactly suited to your condition. " He," it is 
 written, " is able to save to the uttermost all who come 
 unto God by him." Every sincere penitent thinks 
 himself to be " of sinners the chief." It is not our 
 feeling ourselves to have been great sinners that 
 should keep any of us back from coming to Christ. 
 If we were not sinners we should not stand in that 
 predicament in which his interposition was required. 
 If we felt not, and were not ready to confess ourselves 
 sinners, he would not deign to save us. " I came," 
 he says, "not to call the righteous" those who think 
 themselves so " but sinners to repentance." Again, 
 " The Son of man is come to seek and to save that 
 which was lost." Be your moral state, then, what it 
 may ; however aggravated your guilt ; however long- 
 standing your alienations from God ; however provok- 
 ing your past acts ; however deeply sinful your con- 
 
322 
 
 THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 tracted habits ; still this is the glorious announcement 
 
 that we are authorised to make to you oh, hear ye it 
 
 and believe that " Christ Jesus came into the world 
 to save sinners." 
 
 II. The second special point which we proposed 
 to notice was, what the Apostle asserts in regard to 
 this statement, namely, that " This is a faithful saying, 
 and worthy of all acceptation. 1 ' 
 
 First, then, this is a "faithful saying" a saying 
 that is every way worthy of belief, worthy of belief 
 for its truth; worthy of belief for the strong confirma- 
 tions that have been given of it ; worthy of belief for 
 the rich assurance and comfort which it brings to 
 the mind. Of few other sayings can this be asserted. 
 Many things which are said cannot be relied on : 
 there is no truth in them ; but this is truth itself. The 
 world is full of lies, of false reports, false systems, 
 false religions. But the very existence of so many 
 counterfeits is itself evidence that there exists some- 
 where genuine coin. If Christianity be not true, we 
 might boldly demand, what system of religion is ? 
 But Christianity we know is true. God has invested 
 it with evidences of every kind. Christ was pointed 
 out by prophecy ages before he came into our world ; 
 when he appeared he was seen exactly to correspond 
 with the types which foreshadowed him ; he wrought 
 the most stupendous miracles in proof of his divine 
 mission ; his life was so pure and perfect that none 
 could gainsay his heavenly character ; his death was 
 marked by such marvels as to force a confession, that 
 
THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 323 
 
 he was indeed the Son of God, even from his enemies ; 
 by his resurrection from the grave on the third day 
 he set the seal of immortality to the truth of his pre- 
 tensions ; by his visible ascension into heaven he 
 placed his headship over all beyond doubt or 
 question ; and by the descent of the Holy Ghost, 
 according to his promise, to give effect to his word, 
 he convinced his stoutest opposers ; while, by the 
 rapid spread of Christianity, without the aid of human 
 power, its triumph over the gigantic systems of Hea- 
 thenism, and its continuance to this day, we have 
 standing evidence of the strongest kind to its divine 
 origin. Verily may we say that if men believe not 
 upon these evidences, neither would they believe 
 though one rose from the dead. Nor is this all. A 
 vast variety of other evidences crowd in upon us 
 from every side. From the Gospel narrative itself, 
 from the multitude of undesigned coincidences to be 
 found in the different parts of the word, and from 
 the testimonies of collateral history, it is proved to 
 the certainty of a moral demonstration that Jesus 
 Christ is " the faithful and true Witness," that the 
 Bible is the very truth of God. In fine, there is no 
 truth of a historical nature, or which rests upon 
 moral evidence alone, which offers more solid ground- 
 work than this for our faith. 
 
 But there is yet another kind of evidence stronger 
 even than this, at least to individuals, the evidence of 
 experience. This was what St. Paul had. The Gospel 
 had proved itself to be to him the " power of God unto 
 
324 THE RE" VEIL, OR DREA.M DISPERSED. 
 
 salvation." It had subdued his proud heart, which 
 nothing else could subdue ; it had emptied his self- 
 righteous heart, which nothing else could empty ; it 
 had softened his hard injurious heart, which nothing 
 else could soften ; it had silenced his blaspheming 
 tongue, and stayed his persecuting hand ; it had 
 opened his blind eyes, and poured the balm of con- 
 solation into his terror-stricken spirit ; it had changed 
 him into an humble, and transformed him into a 
 holy, and constrained him to become an unselfish, 
 devoted, Christ-loving man, and thus he had self- 
 evidencing proof of the truth of the Gospel. He had 
 what St. John calls " the witness in himself." He 
 speaks in the text, you will observe, as one who 
 knew, and was personally persuaded of the truth of 
 what he stated. " I am sure," he seems to say, " that 
 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, 
 because he has saved me" 
 
 Now this is evidence which all may have, the 
 poorest and most illiterate as well as the wisest and 
 most learned. And this is evidence which, when 
 possessed, brings infinitely stronger conviction to the 
 mind than any other a conviction which all the 
 sophistry of sceptics can never shake or overthrow. 
 All the arguments in the world will not be able to 
 convince that man, that the sun does not shine, 
 who is basking in its beams, and feels its warmth. 
 Similar is the force of the evidence of experience 
 to the Gospel's sanctifying and consoling power. 
 This evidence has sustained thousands, when passing 
 
THE RKVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 325 
 
 through the terrific ordeal of dissolution, enabling 
 them to say with Job : " I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth, and shall stand at the latter day upon the earth ; 
 and though after my skin worms destroy this body, 
 yet in my flesh shall I see God;" or with the 
 Apostle, " I know in whom I have believed, and am 
 persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have 
 committed unto him against that day.'* And this 
 being so, it follows that the saying " that Christ Jesus 
 came into the world to save sinners," is "a faithful 
 saying''' 
 
 2. Further, the Apostle asserts that this saying 
 is " worthy of ail acceptation ;" that is, as our Church 
 renders it, " worthy to be received of all men." This 
 again can be affirmed of very few sayings. Most 
 of the things that we hear said, are not worth a 
 moment's attention from any one. Some of them 
 are essentially bad, and had better not be heard at 
 all ; some are trifling, and a waste of time to listen 
 to ; some are of a limited interest, and concern but 
 a few. But this is universally important this con- 
 cerns all men young or old, rich or poor, learned 
 or unlearned, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. 
 It concerns you, brethren, it concerns me ; it con- 
 cerns your children, it concerns mine; it concerns 
 our fellow-countrymen, it concerns the world; it 
 concerns every man living without exception, and 
 why ? because all are sinners, and because " there is 
 no other name under heaven given among men 
 whereby we can be saved, but the name of Jesus 
 
326 THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 Christ.'* Through faith in him, the most guilty of 
 us may be saved: without faith in him, the least 
 guilty must perish. How infinitely important, then, 
 is it that we should all give a cordial, believing 
 acceptance to this saying ! 
 
 But is it not the fact, that most of us let other 
 things interest us far more. It matters not how 
 worthless or trifling things may be, they are caught 
 at because they serve to fill up the void places of a 
 craving restless mind. How much more eagerly, for 
 example, will men listen to the news of the day, or 
 the tattle of the town, or the occurrences in a far 
 off country (things in which they have no more 
 direct interest than the inhabitants of some distant 
 planet), while to the Gospel, though it involves their 
 eternal interests, and touches the very life of their 
 souls, they give only the most languid attention. 
 " Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the 
 arm of the Lord revealed ?" 
 
 And yet the Gospel commends itself to, and 
 therefore ought to win the acceptance of, every one 
 of us. It is a remedy exactly suited to our malady ; 
 it meets our one great universal necessity; it provides 
 salvation for the lost. " Christ crucified" this is " the 
 grand catholicon," this is the balm of Gilead 
 which will heal every one's wound, this is the 
 universal specific for curing men's souls, and restoring 
 them to immortal health. Without this, received 
 and applied by faith, we must die eternally. But 
 only receive this into the heart trustfully and lovingly, 
 embrace the truth, that " Christ Jesus came into the 
 
THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 327 
 
 world to save sinners," with the full acceptance both 
 of your understandings and your affections, and at once 
 you pass from death unto life, to be eternally saved ; 
 this, therefore, is a saying " worthy of all acceptation" 
 " I endure all things for the elect's sake," says the 
 devoted Apostle, " that they may obtain the salvation 
 which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory." Eter- 
 nal glory! what a magnificent prospect does this 
 expression open up before us ! While we meditate 
 upon it, we seem to see looming upon us in the dis- 
 tant heavens, like the tops of sunlit mountains in the 
 morning, the pinnacles of the celestial city, whose 
 walls are of jasper and of gold; glittering hosts 
 appear to be marching to and fro in triumphal pro- 
 cession; symphonies of more than mortal music 
 float in softened cadence on our ear ; as we draw near 
 to behold, brighter and brighter scenes break upon 
 our view ; palace rising above palace, throne above 
 throne, each surpassing the other in splendour ; while 
 diadems of the most dazzling jewellery hang sus- 
 pended aloft, ready prepared for those that shall be 
 saved. Fellow immortals! arise, and grasp the 
 Gospel's eternal glories. This, this, is the estate 
 which shall which shall shall what ? be yours ? * 
 
 Startled out of his sleep by the suddenness and 
 rising emphasis of this question, our Dreamer awakes, 
 
 : The discourse must be supposed to have pro- 
 ceeded as follows : " That is the very question which 
 we wish you to press for an answer to at the door of 
 
328 THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 springs up, and, behold, it is day.* The sun has 
 already mounted above the horizon, and is darting 
 
 your own hearts. Witt it ever be yours? Most 
 assuredly not, unless you yield the most thorough, 
 hearty, grateful acceptance to this saying that 
 6 Christ Jesus came into the world to save s inners.' 
 
 " Finally, then, brethren, let me urge upon you 
 the inquiry, Have you thus accepted the Apostle's 
 assurance ? Have you yielded your full affiance to the 
 testimony of Scripture ? Have you ever gone to Christ 
 as a sinner, and received him as a Saviour? If 
 you have not, fearful is your condition : for, ' He that 
 belie veth on the Son hath everlasting life : and he 
 that believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the 
 wrath of God abideth on him.' Reject the offered 
 salvation of the Gospel, and you die in your sins; 
 accept it, and you are for ever saved for this is the 
 blessed testimony of our text, that ' Christ Jesus came 
 into the world to save sinners.' 
 
 " Let each and all, then, give acceptance to this 
 saying; treasure it up in your hearts as a golden 
 treasure; carry it in your bosoms as a locket of 
 Heaven's love ; keep it ever in your minds as your 
 own beloved Saviour's legacy of hope to the lost." 
 
 * We may note here, what it would have broken the thread of 
 our narrative to have noted before, that during the delivery of this 
 discourse, he had been moved to tears in his sleep had poured out 
 the confessions of penitence had been gladdened into the joys of a 
 lively faith had realised the sense of reconciliation with God, and 
 arose up a new man. The phantasies of superstition, and the terrors of 
 dread, were alike dispersed by what he had heard, and he walked 
 forth a freeman in Heaven's own light. 
 
THE REVEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 329 
 
 the bright pure light of the morning over the whole 
 face of the surrounding scenery. He looks forth 
 from his window, and when he looks forth, lo ! he 
 beholds the Happy Valley, just as it had appeared to 
 him in his former vision ere the withering change 
 before described had passed over it ; and he sees it 
 now, not as he saw it then, in a dream, but actually 
 lying under his eyes, a splendid reality. In front, a 
 boundless prospect of beauty spread itself out, and 
 stretched away beyond his utmost view, to excite his 
 admiring gaze. On the right and the left could just 
 be kenned the long range of protective mountains, 
 cloud-crowned, which walled in the valley ; the rivers 
 winding through it glistened like streams of silver in 
 the glowing sun. On the upland steeps trees waved, 
 and flowers bloomed. The scene which greeted his 
 eyes was indeed one of the richest loveliness ; fertility 
 and verdure clothed and adorned the whole land- 
 scape ; flocks and herds were feeding in the pastures ; 
 the birds were chanting their matin song ; many a 
 village spire towered up above all other objects, 
 calmly up-pointing to heaven ; the neat-looking houses 
 were here and there detected, nestling among the 
 trees, by the light, thin, wavy curls of smoke which 
 ascended from them and floated in the air; the 
 cheerful inhabitants were seen just going forth to 
 their daily toil, here Order reigned visible, Industry 
 ploughed, and Plenty smiled. 
 
 This Happy Valley is henceforth to be our 
 Dreamer's own favoured dwelling-place, so long as he 
 
 w 
 
330 THE RE VEIL, OR DREAM DISPERSED. 
 
 shall have to sojourn here below. This he knows, 
 because Providence has here cast his lot; while 
 taught by the word of God to look for a better 
 country, even a heavenly, he regards himself only 
 as a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth. This 
 transitory life he feels to be but the floating bridge 
 which is bearing him, in common with all his race, 
 over from the shores of time to the everlasting 
 resting-places of eternity. Feeling this, he lives 
 rather for the future than the present. Sensible that 
 his condition is as highly privileged as any he can 
 expect to find on earth, he exclaims with thankful- 
 ness, " The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places ; 
 yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord 
 who hath given me counsel." No restless risings of 
 discontent, or fantastic notions of possible transcen- 
 dental virtue to be attained by urisanctioned modes of 
 life, disquiet his mind, or disturb the even tenor of his 
 way. He looks around but to learn what is his duty, 
 and, finding himself a member of so richly-blessed a 
 community, his conscience tells him that as he is a 
 partaker of its common privileges, he ought to con- 
 tribute his share to its common weal. Energised by 
 the soul -awakening religion of the Gospel as with 
 new powers, like a man awaked from a sleep, or a 
 giant refreshed with wine, behold ! he goes forth at 
 Duty's call to pursue his appointed work (gentle reader, 
 maystthou be he!), with Providence for his protector, 
 the Word of God for his guide, and Heaven for his 
 end. 
 
NOTE A. ON HIEROGLYPHICS. 
 
 MR. RUSKIN says that "one important consequence 
 of our feeling the soul's pre-eminence will be our 
 understanding the soul's language chiefly that great 
 symbolic language of past ages which has now so 
 long been unspoken." But why unspoken, but because 
 it has ceased to be a recognised method of commu- 
 nication. And why again is this, but that with the 
 advance of the human mind there is a correspond- 
 ing improvement in the method of conveying ideas. 
 Men have become more intellectual : they are less de- 
 pendent now than formerly upon sensible symbols to 
 express abstract ideas. Mr. Ruskin refers in particu- 
 lar to the magnificent system of symbolism adopted 
 by the ancient Assyrians, and embodied in the gigantic 
 compound figures which have lately been discovered in 
 the ruins of ancient Nineveh. He thinks that when we 
 come to understand this we shall no longer regard the 
 Greeks and Romans as superior to the Assyrians and 
 Egyptians. But he seems to us to overlook the fact, that 
 in the inadequacy of language, under its then imper- 
 fections, men were obliged, as it were, to resort to less 
 abstract methods of imaging forth the ideal concep- 
 tions of the mind than they are now. The different 
 
 w 2 
 
332 APPENDIX. 
 
 methods resorted to at different periods of the world's 
 history, are well explained in the following passage out 
 of the writings of the distinguished Dr. Young : 
 
 " In the infancy of art and civilisation, mankind 
 appear to have employed mimetic images, or portraits, 
 to represent individual objects, and give notice of 
 events to those at a distance. Thus the Mexicans 
 denoted the arrival of the Spaniards by a rude delinea- 
 tion of a ship, and of a man distinguished by the 
 peculiarities of an European dress. This is what 
 may be called picture writing, or the natural repre- 
 sentation of objects or actions. But these mimetic 
 images, which could convey no idea of time, nor indi- 
 cate any abstract quality or attribute, were totally in- 
 sufficient for the purposes of communicating informa- 
 tion and recording events. Hence conventional signs, 
 sometimes kuriological, and sometimes tropical, were 
 chosen to serve as symbols both of things and thoughts, 
 
 of objects in nature and ideas of the mind 
 
 Thus the classifications which take place in all lan- 
 guages, but more especially the tropes and figures which 
 abound in all dialects spoken by nations not yet refined 
 by the highest pitch of civilisation, must have greatly 
 facilitated both the invention and the comprehension 
 of hieroglyphics. In the progress of improvement, 
 then, we have two stages clearly defined : first, picture 
 writing, which consists in the mere representation of 
 events^ or of objects in a state of action with one 
 another ; and, secondly, hieroglyphics, or symbolical 
 writing, which is sometimes kuriological and some- 
 
ON HIEROGLYPHICS. 333 
 
 times tropical. Encyc. Brit., Art. Hieroglyphics, 
 Sec. 1. 
 
 It is thus shown that the modes of conveying 
 thought have come under the laws of a progressive 
 science. Are we, then, to go backwards by way of 
 advance, and return to picture -teaching by way of 
 improvement ? 
 
 But we shall be reminded, perhaps, that all lan- 
 guage is, in point of fact, pictorial. Very true ; but 
 then pictures of thought speak direct to the mind, and 
 not through the dull medium* of the body; they are, 
 therefore, more purely spiritual. Though articulate 
 language is an original gift of God to man, yet it was 
 not formed in its fulness, we must remember, at once. 
 Though the power was of God, its improvement and 
 application was to be of man. And the leap was so 
 great from mere spoken language to written ideas, 
 that men at first employed objective images, as sensi- 
 ble expressions for their thoughts. Of this we have 
 exhumed examples in those gigantic and grotesque 
 monsters, before alluded to, which have lately been 
 brought to light by the indefatigable Dr. Layard, out of 
 the long-buried remains of one of the largest of ancient 
 cities. Here the peculiarities of different animals are 
 combined as the representatives of thought, and are 
 made use of to body forth to the sight the mind's con- 
 ceptions even in regard to the attributes of Divinity. 
 
 " I used to contemplate for hours," he says, 
 "these mysterious emblems, and muse over their 
 intent and history. What more noble forms could 
 
334 APPENDIX. 
 
 have ushered the people into the temple of their gods? 
 What more sublime images could have been borrowed 
 from nature, by men who sought, unaided by the 
 light of revealed religion, to embody their conception 
 of the wisdom, power, and ubiquity of a Supreme 
 Being ! They could find no better type of intellect 
 and knowledge, than the head of the man; of strength, 
 than the body of the lion ; of rapidity of motion, than 
 the wings of the bird. These winged human-headed 
 lions were not idle creatures, the offspring of mere 
 fancy ; their meaning was written upon them. They 
 had awed and instructed races which had flourished 
 three thousand years ago. Through the portals 
 which they guarded, kings, priests, and warriors had 
 borne sacrifices to their altars, long before the wisdom 
 of the East had penetrated to Greece, and had fur- 
 nished its mythology with symbols long recognised by 
 the Assyrian votaries." Layar&s Nineveh and its 
 Remains, vol. i. 
 
 But admitting all that this author here says, in 
 proof of the massive genius of those who conceived 
 these wondrous combinations of the animal to body 
 forth the spiritual again we ask, Are we to return 
 back to these gross and sensuous methods of express- 
 ing ideas, or to content ourselves with the more feeble 
 resurrections of mediaeval piety, in the place of those 
 intellectual or rather purely spiritual methods of 
 conceiving of and worshipping the Deity, of which 
 Christ, by revealing him in character and action, has 
 rendered us capable ? The great disease of the moral 
 
ON HIEROGLYPHICS. 335 
 
 world ever has been the morbism of the mind has 
 ever manifested itself chiefly in a strong tendency to 
 perceive and worship only the outward and visible. 
 And is it to be supposed that this disease is to be 
 cured by a system of religion which should consist 
 only, or chiefly, in symbolic figures and sensible 
 images? Our Lord taught us a different lesson, when 
 he said to the woman of Samaria, " Believe me, the 
 hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, 
 nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye wor- 
 ship ye know not what... But the hour cometh, and 
 now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the 
 Father in spirit and in truth ; for the Father seeketh 
 such to worship him. God is a spirit ; and they that 
 worship him must worship him in spirit and in 
 truth." 
 
 The natural man, if left to himself, never would 
 have conceived of the glory of God as manifesting 
 itself in " the still small voice " within. What he 
 wants and delights in, is something grand, splendid, 
 pompous, awful huge temples, cathedrals, long drawn 
 aisles, with mystic symbols, solemn sacrifices, thrilling 
 chaunts things that strike only the eye and the ear. 
 He was humoured in this for a time, while he was, as 
 it were, in the childhood of human existence ; but 
 being supposed now to have come to manhood, these 
 childish things are done away. To revive them, in 
 the feeble imitations of mediaeval fancy, is only 
 to combine the dreams of youth with the dotage 
 of old age. 
 
336 APPENDIX. 
 
 Before, however, leaving this subject of ancient 
 symbolism, or hieroglyphic teaching, we may just 
 observe that no one need suffer himself to be 
 aesthetically disquieted, because he finds that a similar 
 system was adopted, with divine sanction, under the 
 old law; or because he meets with similar incongruous 
 combinations of animal being, as the one above 
 alluded to, to body forth spiritual ideas, in the 
 prophet Ezekiel, and in others of the divine writers. 
 What is enigma to us, was instruction to them.* 
 These strange signs were then well understood, by 
 means of established laws of intellectual interpretation, 
 but now they would speak in an unknown tongue, 
 and would require an interpreter. 
 
 A slight glance over the New Testament (except- 
 ing only the book of Revelation, which is necessarily a 
 symbolic book, having reference to the future and 
 unknown) will suffice to convince us that the method 
 of teaching by enigma is done away, and that we are 
 now to be instructed by true doctrine clearly enun- 
 ciated, and that religion is to consist, not in mystic 
 signs, but in energetic principles. In a word, 
 morality, not mystery, is to be the 0pij<ri the high 
 ceremonial and service of the Christian religion. 
 James i. 26, 27. 
 
 * This point is clearly brought out in a Lexicon on Hieroglyphics, 
 by that man of master mind, the Rev. Joseph Sortain, of Brighton, to 
 whom vre are indebted for some of the foregoing observations. 
 

 ON ANALOGY. 337 
 
 NOTE B. ON ANALOGY. 
 
 WE have raised the question whether the analogy 
 which our fancy so fondly traces between things 
 natural and things spiritual be an " existing fact, or 
 merely an illusive creation of the mind within itself," 
 not because we doubt its existence ourselves, but 
 because it is a question which has crossed deeper 
 minds than our own, to wit, the truly original John 
 Foster's. Yet no man was fonder, or had a happier 
 gift of tracing the numerous analogies of Nature 
 with moral truths than he ; and we can hardly 
 believe he doubted its veritable existence as a feature 
 originally impressed upon the works of creation, 
 whereby " the things of earth are copies of things in 
 heaven." There is certainly a strong presumption in 
 favour of its reality on several grounds : first, because 
 the works of nature are the works of God, as much 
 as the works of grace ; secondly, because the Scrip- 
 tures are full of these traced analogies in symbolic 
 illustrations derived from the works of nature; 
 thirdly, because this concord of correspondence is 
 " unconsciously," as Trench, in his Notes on the Para- 
 bles observes, " felt by all, and by deeper minds con- 
 tinually recognised and plainly perceived between the 
 natural and spiritual worlds." 
 
 On these grounds we can easily subscribe our- 
 selves to the sentiment 
 
338 APPENDIX. 
 
 " But when the Spirit on the mass new-born 
 Of nature brooded, then, with rustic seal, 
 All nature for thy glory was impressed 
 With types peculiar, with expressive laws ; 
 Thy Church to show, thy symbols to expound, 
 And thus preach Gospel to our very sense, 
 Till nature acts the orator for grace, 
 And all creation's one gigantic type, 
 For Christ and Christianity arranged." 
 
 But it is a totally different tiling when you come to the 
 symbolism of Art : here, all is human and fanciful, 
 except so far as the symbols adopted are such as God 
 has ordained, to wit, the rainbow, the two Sacra- 
 ments, &c. ; but the works of nature have all some- 
 thing of divinity in them, and bespeak at once not 
 the power of man but the power of God. Viewed, 
 too, as the works of God, enclosing a hidden mean- 
 ing, they speak directly to the soul, or moral intelli- 
 gence within, and not to the mere outer senses. It 
 may be said, indeed, that art is " a following of the 
 process of nature," not only in its imitations, but by 
 embodying an element of spiritual teaching with its 
 material designs, so that " the finite creative power 
 which is in Art is an image of the infinite creating 
 power which works in Nature." But, in answer to 
 this, we may remark, in the first place, that there is 
 nothing " creatiW," strictly speaking, in Art it is at 
 best only an inanimate imitation of things created; 
 and, in the next place, its symbolism must, by the 
 very conditions of its human invention, be arbitrary 
 and fanciful and of dubious import as to its applica- 
 tion, there being in this case no " innate harmony 
 
ON ANALOGY. 339 
 
 existing between the symbol and the thing sym- 
 bolised," as there is presumptively between the works 
 of nature without, and the moral world within man. 
 
 A striking example of the latter kind, in which 
 scarcely any one, however obtuse his intellectual per- 
 ceptions, would fail to see the correspondence, is that 
 declaration of God, in the 55th of Isaiah : "For as 
 the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and 
 returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and 
 maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed 
 to the sower, and bread to the eater : so shall my word 
 be that goeth forth out of my mouth : it shall not 
 return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that 
 which I please, and prosper in the thing whereto I 
 sent it." Here the analogy both in origin and in 
 effect between the word of God, and the rain and 
 snow, the one acting upon the heart of man, and the 
 other upon the earth, is so obvious, that even the 
 ploughman whose head was almost as dull as the 
 clods upon which he trod, would perceive it, and gather 
 instruction from it. Many equally palpable corre- 
 spondences between the works of nature, and the 
 operations of grace, might be given out of the Bible. 
 And it is this circumstance, that the analogy, in these 
 cases, strikes the ignorant quite as much as the 
 educated, which proves that the recognised resem- 
 blance is no mere fiction of the fancy, but that it 
 arises out of, and is grounded upon, an existent corre- 
 spondence between the things themselves. This 
 analogy, then, or correspondence of relations between 
 
340 APPENDIX. 
 
 the visible and the invisible worlds, may be assumed 
 to be a moral fact, and to rest upon solid, though 
 unseen foundations. The power of perceiving it, too, 
 may be regarded as connatural to man. It seems, 
 indeed, to be an original instinct of the mind an 
 innate aptitude with which it is endowed of understand- 
 ing God's word from his works. We have no manner 
 of doubt ourselves, that it has its basis in the original 
 conformation of the human mind by its Divine Author 
 to the constitution of external nature its being made 
 as a mirror to reflect its every image so that what is 
 beheld in the world around, in which man is placed, 
 shall, if his heart be not utterly darkened by sin, 
 excite in his soul the ideas of correspondent spiritual 
 existences or effects. And the fact, that the analogy 
 is generally observed, or rather strikes nearly every 
 mind, proves almost to a demonstration that external 
 nature is conversely adapted to the moral and intel- 
 lectual constitution of man, so as to have been 
 intended to be what, with the word of God to inter- 
 pret it, it is found to be, oracular to him of the truths 
 of divinity. This is confirmed, too, by what the Apos- 
 tle states (Romans i. 20), "For the invisible things 
 of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
 being understood by the things which are made, even 
 his eternal power and Godhead." 
 
 It was indeed to be concluded a priori, that if the 
 same God who ' had made man, and this world as 
 his dwelling-place, were also to give him a written 
 revelation of his character and will (a thing to be 
 
ON ANALOGY. 341 
 
 expected, seeing that he had given him speech, and 
 that man, through the darkening influence of sin, had 
 lost the clear true knowledge of God), he would im- 
 press upon both such a common stamp of similarity 
 as should make the one prove and illustrate the other. 
 When, then, we find that they do thus correspond to 
 each other, it convinces us almost beyond a doubt, 
 that the Author of nature is also the Author of 
 Christianity. 
 
 So striking is the analogy between God's works 
 in nature and the spiritual truths of his word, that we 
 cannot conceive it to be possible for any one to survey, 
 with a devout and reflective mind, the processes of 
 the Divine Providence in the natural world, without 
 observing and perceiving things constantly opening to 
 him which shall appear as pages of Scripture legibly 
 written in the fields and the waters, in the times 
 and the seasons in the sunshine prospects and 
 lowering aspects of nature in the verdure and 
 bloom of summer, ay, and even in the frosts and 
 snows of winter. Thus fire, heat, snow, vapours, 
 mountains and hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, in 
 a certain sense fulfil his word. And it is thus, by 
 comparing the works of God in nature and in grace, 
 we see that what the wise man declares is true, that 
 God hath set the one " over against," or in a reflec- 
 tive position to the other, so that nature throws an 
 illustrative light upon the Bible supplies a sort of 
 emblematic commentary upon it a commentary that 
 possesses this peculiar advantage that it speaks the 
 
342 APPENDIX. 
 
 same language in every clime, and can be read and 
 understood alike by every nation, kindred, and tongue. 
 In whatever part of the world we may be, and what- 
 ever may be the season of the year, we may always 
 observe something in the objects and aspects of things 
 around us, which seems to illustrate, or body forth to 
 our conceptions, the spiritual truths of Scripture ; 
 so that nature presents itself before us as the mirror to 
 revelation : for just as the blue firmament of heaven 
 and its bright inlay of stars are reflected in the clear 
 waters of our earth, so the spiritual world and its 
 mysteries, as through a glass, are reflected in the 
 visible objects of the natural world by which we are 
 here surrounded. And it is worthy of particular 
 remark, as confirmatory of the point to which we 
 wish to apply our argument, that the Bible draws its 
 images almost exclusively from God's own works, and 
 not from man's. 
 
 No one can assert that there is such an obvious 
 similitude or correspondence between the octagonal 
 form of the font and regeneration ; or the griffin and 
 Christ, or the pelican and fish as other emblems of him ; 
 or heaven and the segment of a circle ; or the Holy 
 Trinity and the " extension of the thumb, fore and 
 middle fingers of our Saviour's hand, as held up in 
 giving the benediction;" or the church militant 
 and a " female figure standing with her hands raised 
 in prayer;" or the sacrament of the Lord's supper 
 and " ears of corn, or loaves, and grapes, or vases of 
 wine;" or the faithful and "doves or other birds, 
 
ON ANALOGY. 343 
 
 either eating grapes or ears of corn," or "holding 
 branches of olive in their beaks, and reposing upon 
 the cross ; " or " stags drinking at a well," and the 
 said faithful ; or little children or genii sporting among 
 vine leaves and plucking fruit, and after death, flying 
 about as butterflies ; or sanctity and the nimbus or 
 circlet of glory put around the head ; or the resur- 
 rection and the peacock, &c. &c. no one, we say, 
 can assert that there is such an obvious similitude 
 or correspondence between these and their several 
 supposed prototypes, that any ordinary minds could 
 gather spiritual instruction from them ; or that any 
 persons indeed would intuitively perceive their analogy. 
 Besides, the very serious question remains, Who ever 
 appointed these to be used as symbols of divine 
 things ? Was there ever any pattern shown for them 
 " in the mount?" 
 
 The distinction which it appears to us we ought 
 to draw, the line of separation which we ought 
 rigidly to keep up in religious symbolism, is, that 
 nothing of this kind should be adopted which is not 
 expressly ordained of God. While this boundary is 
 not transgressed in our churches, we see no cause for 
 objection ; for we fully admit 
 
 " That rites are reason when by God approved." 
 
 If it be only just considered it will be seen, that 
 man cannot impart a spiritual element to his own 
 works ; for he cannot impart that which is not in 
 himself. Gothic architecture, indeed, it has been 
 
344 APPENDIX. 
 
 said, is the special type and representative of Spirit 
 that it differs from sculpture and painting in that it is 
 " suggestive and not positive " that it is the "expres- 
 sion of abstract ideas," and by its symbolism " gives 
 them utterance." All this is very fine in theory, and 
 no doubt, in the excited mind of the enthusiastic 
 artist, it has an imaginative reality. But where is its 
 basis when submitted to the examination of reason, 
 or to the infallible experimenta crucis of fact ? We 
 readily admit that Gothic architecture, as compared 
 with Grecian, deserves to have applied to it the term 
 spirited that it has an aspiring tendency in its form ; 
 but that " every stone that is laid in its solemn walls 
 raises some human heart a step nearer heaven " we 
 very much doubt. Human hearts are not so easily 
 raised to heaven. This effect, in the nature of things, 
 cannot be produced by the dead, cold material of 
 Gothic architecture. Thus much, however, we can 
 grant, that it produces " a mystical abstraction or 
 ecstacy " which " loathes -all verbal or particular ex- 
 pression" (Lord Lindsay). But this is only the 
 effect which we have ascribed to it ; and this, we 
 need hardly observe, is an essentially different thing 
 from pure spiritual devotion, or that worshipping of 
 God with the understanding as well as with the spirit, 
 upon which the Apostle insists. (1 Cor. xiv.) 
 
 The secret of that delight which mankind take in 
 symbolism, we can easily believe, is that " thrill of 
 mixed doubt, fear, and curiosity " which it excites, 
 which is a pleasurable pain very near akin to that 
 
ON ANALOGY. 345 
 
 excited by the half revealed but half hidden incidents 
 of terror and of unknown methods of escape, which 
 open page after page upon the reader of a well-con- 
 structed novel. But what spiritual profit there can 
 be in this remains to be proved. The most that can 
 be said in favour of architectural symbolism is that it 
 is suggestive ; but it can be suggestive of truth only so 
 far as it has a divine significancy impressed upon it by 
 the sanction of the divine word all beyond this must 
 be fancy. But Christian Faith cannot feed and live 
 upon fictions, any more than a man can eat and be 
 nourished by pictured fruit. With the Apostle, then, 
 we say, " Yet in the church I had rather speak five 
 words with my understanding, that I might teach 
 others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown 
 tongue." 
 
346 APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE C.-ON IDOLATRY. 
 
 IN Mr. Ruskin's second volume of the Stones of 
 Venice, there is a note on this word as full of danger 
 as Idolatry itself, because it very plausibly perverts 
 the sense of the term to excuse the worst part of the 
 Romanist worship. While admitting that the Church 
 of Rome does " distinctively violate the second com- 
 mandment, the true force and weight of the sin 
 of Idolatry/' this author says, " are in the violation 
 
 of the first." " Idolatry is both literally and 
 
 verily not the mere bowing before sculptures, but the 
 serving or becoming the slave of any images or 
 imaginations what stand between us and God." 
 We must confess, we were greatly surprised when 
 we read this note, because it betrays an ignorance 
 which we should hardly expect to find in a Sunday- 
 school scholar. For what child capable of under- 
 standing the most ordinary distinctions, would not be 
 able to tell us that the first commandment related to 
 the true object of worship, and the second to the 
 manner of worshipping Him : the first forbidding 
 Polytheism, or the having more gods than one ; and 
 the second (as the terms in which the commandment 
 is expressed plainly show), what is properly denoted 
 to be the word Idolatry, or the worshipping of the true 
 
ON IDOLATRY. 347 
 
 God, through the medium of some visible creature 
 likeness. For, indeed, what is the true origin of the 
 word? Is it not eiSu\ov, from w, denoting some- 
 thing that can be seen with the eyes, as a sculptured 
 figure or picture ? Idolatry, then, is not " distinctively 
 the violation of the first commandment," as Mr. 
 Ruskin states it, but " literally and verily " of the 
 second, by the worship of the true God under the 
 form or shape, or through the medium of some visible 
 object bowed down to, and used as an aid to devotion. 
 No special pleading, then, can clear the Romanist 
 worship from the charge of Idolatry, according to 
 the express prohibitions of the second commandment. 
 To tamper with that commandment, or, indeed, 
 with any of the commandments of God, must be a 
 perilous thing. There cannot be a worse species of 
 tampering, than to seek excuses for that of which 
 God is specially jealous, and which he declares he 
 will visit with punishment to the third and fourth 
 generation. This being the case, we were amazed, 
 and greatly pained to find so honest-minded and pious 
 a man as Mr. Ruskin, after having explained away 
 the proper intent of the second commandment, 
 actually pleading the words of Naaman " When I 
 bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord 
 pardon thy servant in this thing " as a divine in- 
 dulgence granted for its violation. We make bold to 
 say, that this is a total misconception of the fact an 
 utter perversion of the circumstances to an end 
 never contemplated. Naaman did not ask to be ex- 
 
348 APPENDIX. 
 
 cused for worshiping the idol, for he had just declared 
 that he would henceforth worship no other god but 
 the Lord ; but what he asked to be excused in was 
 the act (open to misconstruction, as he seems to have 
 felt) of his bowing forward, as he necessarily must, 
 when his royal master, leaning on his hand, bowed 
 in his worship before the idol. He does not say, let it 
 be observed, when / go into the house of Rimmon 
 to worship there ; but " when my master goeth into 
 the house of Rimmon to worship there ; " "and I bow 
 myself in the house of Rimmon, when he leans on 
 my hand " not bow myself to the image of Rimmon. 
 His bowing was a necessary act to accommodate 
 himself to his master's bodily motion an act of civil 
 service which he was obliged to perform, or he must 
 give up his office as the king's chamberlain. This 
 was his difficulty ; the propriety of his doing this, 
 with his half-enlightened but tender conscience, he 
 naturally doubted, so far at least, that he begged to be 
 pardoned in this thing. And the answer of the pro- 
 phet, if it shows anything, shows this, that it would 
 not be in him any longer an act of religious 
 worship : Naamau need not let his conscience be 
 troubled upon the point. A very different answer, 
 we may rest assured, would he have received 
 from this stern denouncer of idolatry, had the Syrian 
 captain's bowing been a violation of one of God's com- 
 mandments. It was no more this than is the bow of a 
 sailor to the quarter-deck ; it was not even so much ; 
 for he intended no homage, as he expressly states, to the 
 
ON IDOLATRY. 349 
 
 image, nor to the god whom it was supposed to re- 
 present, but only to comply with a civil requirement 
 attaching to his office. This is a distinction which 
 Mr. Ruskin has failed to observe (indeed he has not 
 quoted the whole passage) ; and hence he has turned 
 an indifferent act permitted into a " literal violation'* 
 of an express commandment. 
 
 This is only one instance, however, of the way in 
 which Mr. Ruskin not unfrequently jumps to con- 
 clusions without having sufficiently ascertained the 
 soundness of his premises. We believe him to be 
 a far safer authority on subjects connected with 
 architecture, than he is in questions of divinity, or 
 we should read his works with great misgivings. 
 
 To continue our own remarks. Not content with 
 the false interpretation to which we have referred, 
 he actually goes so far as to pronounce that a " guilt- 
 less ignorance," which God so specifically and positively 
 forbids, under the most terrific threatenings. It is 
 matter of unmingled regret to us that Mr. Ruskin 
 should have fallen into so disastrous a mistake as to 
 make himself the apologist for Idolatry. For great 
 authorities lead a multitude of little minds. It is 
 quite beside the mark to put the question, " Which of 
 us shall say that there may not be a spiritual worship 
 in their apparent idolatry, or that there is not a 
 spiritual idolatry in our apparent worship ?" That is 
 not the point. The point is, whether the Romish 
 practice of bowing down before images, and worship- 
 ping God through them, be not in all cases a literal 
 
350 APPENDIX. 
 
 and actual violation of the second commandment. 
 With the feelings which actuate the worshippers we 
 have nothing to do, except that we know the feeling 
 cannot be right where the act is so grossly wrong. 
 If we may admit of subtle distinctions between those 
 who use the image for a supposed lawful end, and 
 those who convert it to the purpose of "definite 
 idolatry" since we are no judges of men's inward 
 feelings it will be impossible to bar out Idolatry at 
 all. It must be either no image, or every kind of 
 image. The Commandment says explicitly : " Thou 
 shalt not make to thyself any graven image," i.e., to 
 be used in the worship of God. If the image may 
 be used "to render conception more vivid, and 
 feeling more intense" which is what Mr. Ruskin 
 urges on behalf of many of the Romanist worship- 
 pers then the door is obviously open for idolatry in 
 all its grosser forms, and the bar of the divine com- 
 mandment is effectually done away. It may sound 
 well, as an antithesis, to say, that " the errors of 
 affection are better than the accuracies of apathy," 
 but we must not let antithesis pass for truth. Such 
 statements as this will not stand before the double- 
 edged sword of God's word, which flashes through 
 them with its stern " Thou shalt not" and scatters the 
 one and the other alike to the winds. 
 
 " How comes it to pass," some may perhaps ask, 
 " that so thorough a Protestant in principle, as Mr. 
 Ruskin undoubtedly is, should thus step out of 
 his way to excuse certain ceremonies of Romish 
 
ON IDOLATRY. 351 
 
 worship." We answer by a query : May not this 
 be one of the effects of his residing so much in Roman 
 Catholic cities amidst idolatrous associations? We 
 all know how familiarity softens down the most offen- 
 sive objects and acts, till at length we become insen- 
 sible to their odiousness or wrong. Mr. Ruskin's 
 earliest volumes on Architecture were marked by the 
 features of a sturdy Protestantism, which it strength- 
 ened one's own principles to read ; and it speaks not 
 well, we think, for the influences under which he has 
 so long Been living, that in his last work he should 
 put himself forward as an apologist both for Austrian 
 tyranny and Romish idolatry. 
 
 Flimsy and false as are his arguments upon this 
 point, his observations, being independent of sup- 
 posed professional prejudices, will, no doubt, have 
 more weight with some, unless their fallacy be ex- 
 posed, than if they came from a professed divine. It 
 is the more necessary, therefore, that we should not 
 let them pass unnoticed. Nor can it be said that we 
 are stepping out of our province, when we under- 
 take to correct his unguarded statements on a point 
 of theology. Mr. Ruskin, we know, will be the 
 first to commend us for speaking plainly, and saying 
 with the Apostle : " Let God be true and every man 
 a liar, that he may be justified in his sayings, and 
 clear when he judges." 
 
 FETTER AND GAWIN, PLAYHOUSE YARD, ADJOINING THK "TIMES" OFFICE. 
 
JLJJUUA. v* ff \/_l-VJL.XA^ J V^JLJJ.! JLUJLlU.Jl.-l_J J-J-L JL JLUXl/XX-L VJ -LljLJ 
 
 FUBLISHKD BY 
 
 Messrs. LONGMAN, BBOWN, OEEEN, LONGMANS, and EOBEETJ 
 
 39 PATEENOSTEB ROW, LONDON. 
 
 CLASSIFIED INDEX. 
 
 Agriculture and Rural 
 Affairs. 
 
 Bavlilon on Valuing Rents, &c. 4 
 Cecil's Stud Farm - 6 
 Hoskyns's Talpa - - - 1) 
 London's Agriculture - - IS 
 Low's Elements of Agriculture IS 
 Morton on Landed Property 16 
 
 Arts, Manufactures, and 
 Architecture. 
 
 Bourne on the Screw Propeller - 4 
 Brjinde's Dictionary of Science, &C. 
 " Organic Chemistry- 
 Cherreul on Colour - 
 Cresy'g Civil Engineering 
 Fairbairn's Informa. for Engineer* ' 
 Gwilt's Encyclo. of Architecture - 8 
 Harford's Plates Irom M. Angelo - 8 
 Humphreys's Parable* Illuminated 10 
 Jameson's Sacred &Legeiidary Art 1! 
 " Commonplace-Book - 11 
 Konig's Pictoual Life of Luther - 8 
 Loudon's Rurul Architecture - 13 
 MacDougall's Campaigns of Han- 
 nibal 13 
 " Theory of War - 13 
 Moseley's Engineering - 16 
 Piesse's Art of Perfumery - - 17 
 Richardson's Art of Horsemanship 18 
 Scoffern on Projectiles, &c. - - 19 
 Scrivenor on the Iron Trade - - 19 
 
 Maunder's Scientific Treasury - 14 
 " Treasury of History - 14 
 " Natural History - - 14 
 Piesse's Art of Perfumery - - 17 
 Pocket and the Stud - - - 8 
 Pycroffs English Reading - - 18 
 Reece'* Medical Guide - - - 18 
 Rich's Comp. to Latin Dictionary U 
 Richardson's Art of Horsemanship 18 
 Riddle's Latin Dictionaries - - 18 
 Roget's English Th.esa.uius - - 19 
 Rowton'a Debater - - - - 19 
 
 Normanby's Year of Revolution - 
 Perry's Franks - 
 Raikes's Journal - 
 Ranke's Ferdinand & Maximilian 
 Riddle's Latin Lexicon 
 Rogers's Essays from Edinb. Reri 
 Roget's English Thesaurus - 
 Schmiti's History of Greece 
 Southey's Doctor - ... 
 Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 
 *' Lectures on French History 
 Sydney Smith's Works - 
 " Select Works 
 Lectures 
 " Memoirs - 
 Taylor'i Loyola - ... 
 Wesley .... 
 Thirlwall's History of Greece 
 Thomas's Historical Notes - 
 Townsend's State Trials 
 Turkey and Christendom 
 Turner's Anglo-Saxons 
 " Middle Ages - 
 " Sacred Hist, of the World 
 Uwins's Memoirs - 
 Vehse's Austrian Court - 
 Wade's England's Greatness 
 Young's Christ of History - 
 
 Geography and Atlases. 
 
 Brewer'* Historical Atlas - 
 Butler's Geography and Atlases - 
 Cabinet Gazetteer .... 
 Cornwall: IU Mines, &c. - 
 Durrieu's Morocco ... 
 Hughes's Australian Colonies 
 Johnston's General Gazetteer 
 M'Culloch'8 Geographical Dictionarj 
 " Russia and Turkey - 
 Maunder's Treasury of Geography 
 Mayne's Arctic Discoveries - 
 Murray's Encyclo. of Geography - 
 Sharp's British Gazetteer - - 
 
 Juvenile Books, 
 
 Thomson's Interest Tables - - 23 
 Webster's Domestic Economy - 24 
 West on Children's Diseases - - 24 
 Willich's Popular Tables - - 24 
 Wilmofs Blackstone - - - 24 
 
 Botany and Gardening. 
 
 Hassan's British Freshwater Algse 9 
 Hooker's British Flora - 9 
 " Guide to Kew Gardens - 9 
 " Kew Museum - 9 
 Lindley's Introduction to Botany 13 
 " Theory of Horticulture - 12 
 Lou .Ion's Hortus Britannicus - 1 
 " Amateur Gardener - IS 
 Trees and Shrubs - - 12 
 " Gardening - 15 
 Plants - - - - IS 
 Pereira's Materia Medica - - 17 
 Rivera's Rose-Amateur's Guide - 19 
 Wilson's British Mosses - - 24 
 
 Chronology. 
 
 Blair's Chronological Tables - 4 
 Brewer's Historical Atlas - 4 
 Bunsen's Ancient Egypt - . 5 
 Calendars of English State Papers i 
 Haydn's Beitson's Index - 9 
 Jaquemet's Chronology - - 11 
 " Abridged Chronology - 11 
 Nicolas's Chronology of History - 12 
 
 Commerce and Mercantile 
 Affairs. 
 
 Gilbart's Treatise on Banking - 8 
 Lorimer's Young Master Mariner 12 
 Macleod's Banking - 14 
 M'Culloch'sCommeree& Navigation 14 
 Murray on French Finance - - If 
 Scrivenor on Iron Trade - - 19 
 Thomson's Interest Tables - - 23 
 Tooke's History of Pi ices - - 23 
 
 Criticism, History, and 
 Memoirs. 
 
 Blair's Chron. and Histor. Tables - 
 Brewer's Historical Atlas - - - 
 Bunsen's Ancient Egypt 
 " Hippolytus - 
 Calendars of EnglUh State Papers 
 Chapman's G ustavus Adolphus - 
 Chronicles & Memorials of England 
 Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul 
 Connolly 's Sapper* and Miners - 6 
 Crowe's History of France - - 7 
 Gleig's Ess.ivs - - - - 8 
 " Leipsic Campaign - - 22 
 Gurney's Historical Sketches - 8 
 Hayward's Essays - - - - 1 
 Herschel's Essavs and Addresses - 9 
 Jeffrey's (Lord) Contributions - 11 
 Kemble's Anglo-Saxons - - 11 
 Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia - 12 
 MacAulay's Crit. and Hist. Essays 13 
 " History of England - 13 
 " Speeches - - - 13 
 Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works 14 
 " History of England - 14 
 M'Culloch'sGeographicalDictionary 15 
 Maunder's Treasury of History - 14 
 Memoir of the Duke of Wellington 22 
 Merivale's History of Rome - - 15 
 " Roman Republic - - 15 
 Milner's Church History 
 Moore's (Thomas) Memoirs, &c. - la 
 Mure's Greek Literature - - 16 
 
 Steam-Engine, by the Artisan Club 4 
 Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &c. - 23 
 
 Biography. 
 
 Arago's Autobiography - -22 
 Lives of Scientific Men - 3 
 Bodenstedt and Wagner's Schamyl 22 
 Brialmonf. Wellington - - 4 
 Bunsen's Hippolytus 6 
 Capgrave's Henries - - - 6 
 Cockayne's Marshal Turenne - 22 
 Crosse's( Andrew) Memorials - 7 
 Forster's De Foe and Churchill - 22 
 Green's Princesses of England - 8 
 Harford's Life of Michael Angelo - 8 
 Hayward's < 'hesterfield and Selwyn 22 
 Holcroft's Memoirs - 22 
 Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia - 12 
 Maunder's Biographical Treasury- 14 
 Memoir of the Duke of Wellington 22 
 Mountain's (Col.) Memoirs - - 16 
 Parry's (Admiral) Memoirs - - 17 
 Rogers's Life and Genius of Fuller 22 
 Russell's Memoirs of Moore - - 15 
 " (Dr.) Mezzofanti - - 19 
 SchimmelPenninck's (Mrs.) Life - 19 
 Southey 's Life of Wesley - - 21 
 " Life and Correspondence 21 
 Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 21 
 Strickland's Queens of England - 21 
 Sydney Smith's Memoirs - - 20 
 Symond's (Admiral) Memoirs - 21 
 
 
 Earl's Daughter (The) ... 
 Experience of Life - 
 Gertrude - 
 Hewitt's Boy's Country Book 
 " (Mary) Children's Year - 
 Ivors ------ 
 Katharine Ahton ... 
 Laneton Parsonage - 
 Margaret Perciral - 
 Pycroffs Collegian's Guide - 
 Ursula -,-_-- 
 
 Medicine, Surgery, &c. 
 
 Brodie's Psychological Inquiries - 
 Bull's Hints to Mothers - 
 " Managementof Children - 
 Copland's Dictionary of Medicine - 
 Cust's Invalid's Own Book - 
 Holland's Mental Physiology 
 " Medical Notes -*nd Reflect. 
 How to Nurse Sick Children - 
 Kesteven's Domestic Medicine - 
 Pereira's Materia Medica - 
 Reece's Medical Guide - 
 Richardson's Cold- Water Cure - 
 Spencer's Psychology - - - 
 West on Diseases of Infancy - 
 
 Miscellaneous andGeneri 
 Literature. 
 
 Bacon's (Lord) Works - 
 Carlisle's Lectures and Addresses 
 Defence o f Eclipse of Faith - 
 Eclipse of Faith - 
 Fischer's Bacon and Realistic Ph 
 losophy - 
 Greathed's Letters from Delhi 
 Greyson's Select Correspondence 
 Gurney's Evening Recreations 
 HassaU's Adulterations Detected,* . 
 Haydn's Book of Dignities - 
 Holland's Mental Physiology 
 Hooker's Kew Guides - 
 
 ' Wesley - - - - 21 
 Uwin*'s Memoirs - - - - 2:t 
 Waterton's Autobiography & Essays 24 
 
 Books of General Utility. 
 
 Acton's Bread-Book ~ ~ ~ \ 
 
 Black's Treatise on Brewing- - 4 
 
 " Lawyer s 
 Gust's Invalid's Own Book - - 7 
 Gilbart's Logic for the Million - 8 
 Hints on Etiquette - - . S 
 How to Nurse Sick Children- - 10 
 Hudson's Executor's Guide - If 
 on Making Wills - - 10 
 Kosteven's Domestic Medicine - 11 
 Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia - 12 
 Loudon's Lady's Country Compa- 
 nion ------ 13 
 Maunder's Treasury of K nowledge 1 4 
 Biographical Treasury 14 
 " Geographical Treasury 1 
 
2 
 
 CLASSIFIED INDEX. 
 
 
 Hewitt's Rural Life of England - 10 
 " VisitstoRemarkablePlaceslO 
 
 ySS^oSA^SS"^ It ! 
 
 Rural Sports. 
 
 Jameson's Commonplace-Book - 11 
 Last of the Old Squires - - li 
 
 MQner's Church of Christ - - 15 
 Moore on the Use of the Body - 15 
 
 Baker's Rifle and Hound in Ceylon 
 Elaine's Dictionary of Sports 
 
 Letters of a Betrothed - - - 11 
 
 " " Soul and Body - 15 
 
 Cecil's Stable Practice - 
 
 Macaulay's Speeches - - - 13 
 
 " 's Man and his Motives - 15 
 
 " Stud Farm - - - - 
 
 Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works 14 
 
 Morn-ionism ----- 22 
 
 Davy'sFishing Excursions, 2 Series 
 
 Memoirs of a Maitre-d'Armes - 22 
 Martineau's Miscellanies - - 14 
 
 Morning; Clouds - If 
 Neale's Closing Scene - - - 17 
 
 Ephemera on Angling - 
 " 's Book of the Salmon - 
 
 Printing: Its Origin, &c. - - 22 
 Pycroft's English Reading - r W 
 
 Pattison's Earth and Word - - 17 
 Powell's Christianity without Ju- 
 
 Hawker's Young Sportsman - 
 The Hunting-Field 
 
 Raikes on Indian Revolt - - * 
 Rees's Sieee of Lucknow - - lc 
 
 Ranke's Ferdinand & Maximilian 22 
 
 Idle's Hints on Shooting 
 Pocket and the Stud - 
 
 Rich's Comp. to Latin Dictionary If 
 Riddle's Latin Dictionaries - r IB 
 Rowton's Debater - - - 1. 
 Seaward 's Narrative of his Shipwieckl9 
 Sir Roger De Coverley - 20 
 Southey's Doctor, &c. - - - 41 
 Souvestre's Attic Philosopher - 22 
 Confessions of a Working Man 22 
 Spencer's Essays - * 
 Stow's Training System - - *i 
 Thomson's Laws of Thought - 23 
 
 Readings for Lent - 20 
 " Confirmation - - 20 
 Riddle's Household Prayers - - 18 
 Robinson's Lexicon to the Greek 
 Testament 1! 
 Saints our Example - - - 19 
 Sermon in the Mount - - 19 
 Sinclair's Journev of Life - - 20 
 Smith's (Svdney)"Moral Philosophy 21 
 " (G'.V.)AssyrianProphecies 20 
 " (G.) Wesleyan Methodism 20 
 
 Practical Horsemanship 
 Pycroft's Cricket- Field - - - 
 Rarey's Horse Taming - 
 Richardson's Horsemanship - 
 Ronalds' Fly-Fisher's Entomology 
 Stable Talk and Table Talk - 
 Stonehenge on the Dog - 
 " on the Greyhound 
 Thacker's Courser's Guide 
 The Stud, for Practical Purposes - 
 
 Tighe and Daris's Windsor - - g 
 Townsend's State Trials - - 23 
 Willich's Popular Tables - - 24 
 Yonee's English-Greek Lexicon - 24 
 " Latin Gradus - - 24 
 
 " (J.) St. Paul's Shipwreck - 20 
 Southev's Life of Wesley - - 20 
 Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 21 
 Taylor's Loyola - 21 
 " Wesley - - - - 21 
 
 Veterinary Medicine, &c 
 
 Cecil's Stable Practice 
 
 Zumpt's Latin Grammar - - 24 
 
 Theologia Germanica - - - 5 
 Thumb Bible (The) - - 21 
 
 Hunting-Field (The) - - - 
 
 Natural History in general. 
 
 Callow's Popular Conchology - 6 
 Ephemera's Book of the Salmon - 7 
 
 Turner's Sacred History- - - 23 
 Ursula - - - - - - 20 
 Young's Christ of History - - 24 
 " Mystery - 24 
 
 " on the Horse's Foot 
 Pocket and the Stud - 
 Practical Horsemanship 
 Rarej's Horse-Taming - 
 
 Garratt's Marvels of Instinct - 6 
 
 
 Richardson's Horsemanship 
 
 Gosse's Natural History of Jamaica 8 
 Kemp's Natural History of Creation 22 
 Kirby and Spence's Entomology - 11 
 Lee's Elements of Natural History 1 1 
 Maunder's Natural History - - 14 
 
 Poetry and the Drama. 
 
 Aikin's (Dr.) British Poets - - 3 
 Arnold's Merope _ - - - - i 
 
 Stable Talk and Table Talk - 
 Stonehenge on the Dog - 
 Stud (The) - - 
 Youatt's The Dog - - - - 
 " The Horse - 
 
 Quatrefages' Naturalist's Rambles 18 
 
 Baillie's (Joanna) Poetical Works 3 
 
 
 Stonehenge on the Dog - - 21 
 Turton'sShells oftheBritishlslands 23 
 
 Goldsmith's Poems, illustrated - 8 
 L. E. L.'s Poetical Works - 11 
 
 
 Van derHoeven's Zoology - - 23 
 Von Tschudi's Sketches in the Alps 22 
 
 Linwood's Anthologia Oxoniensis - 12 
 
 Voyages and Travels. 
 
 Waterton's Essay son Natural Hist. 24 
 
 Macaulav's Lays of Ancient Rome 13 
 
 Auldjo's Ascent of Mont Blanc 
 
 Youatt's The Dog - - - - 24 
 
 Mac Donald's Within and Without 13 
 
 Baines's Vaudois of Piedmont 
 
 " The Horse - 24 
 
 " Poems - 13 
 
 Baker's Wanderings in Ceylon - 
 
 1-Volume Encyclopaedias 
 and Dictionaries. 
 
 Montgomery's Poetical Works - 15 
 Moore's Poetical Works - - 15 
 " Selections (illustrated) - 15 
 " Lalla Rookh - - - 16 
 
 Barrow's Continental Tour - 
 Earth's African Travels 
 Burton's East Africa - 
 " Medina and Mecca - 
 
 Elaine's Rural Sports - 4 
 
 " Irish Melodies - - - 16 
 
 Davies's Algiers - ... 
 
 Brande's Science, Literature, and Art 4 
 Copland's Dictionary of Medicine - 6 
 Cresy's Civil Engineering 6 
 
 " National Melodies - - 16 
 " Sacred Songs (with Music) 16 
 " Songs and Ballads - - 15 
 
 De Custine's Russia 
 Domenech's Texas - 
 Eothen ------ 
 
 GwilVs Architecture - 8 
 Johnston's Geographical Dictionary 11 
 London's Asnricnlture - 12 
 " Rural Architecture - 13 
 " Gardening - - - 13 
 
 Reade's Poetical Works - - 18 
 Shakspeare, by Bowdler - - 19 
 Southey's Poetical Works - - 21 
 Thomson's Seasons, illustrated - 23 
 
 Ferguson's Swiss Travels 
 Forester's Rambles in Norway 
 " Sardinia and Corsica - 
 Gironiere's Philippines - 
 Gregorovius's Corsica - 
 
 " Plants - 13 
 " Trees and Shrubs - - 13 
 M'Culloch'sGeographicalDictionary 14 
 
 Political Economy and 
 Statistics. 
 
 HinchlifTs Travels in the Alps - 
 Hope's Brittany and the Bible 
 " Chase in Brittanv 
 
 " Dictionary of Commerce 14 
 Murray 's Encyclo. of Geography - 16 
 
 Laing's Notes of a Traveller - - 22 
 Macleod's Political Economy - 14 
 
 Hewitt's Art-Student in Munich - 
 " (W.) Victoria - 
 
 Sharp's British Gazetteer - - 20 
 Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &c. - - 23 
 Webster's Domestic Economy - 24 
 
 M'Culloch's Geog . Statist. &c. Diet. 14 
 " Dictionary of Commerce 14 
 " London - 22 
 
 Hue's Chinese Empire - 
 Hue and Gabet's Tartary & Thibet 
 Hudson and Kennedy's Mont 
 
 Religious & Moral Works. 
 
 Willich's Popular Tables - - 24 
 
 Blanc - - - . . 
 Hughes's Australian Colonies 
 
 Amy" Herbert ... - 20 
 Bloomfield's Greek Testament - 4 
 Calvert's Wife's Manual - - 6 
 
 The Sciences in general 
 
 and Mathematics. 
 
 Humboldt's Aspects of Nature 
 Hurlbut's Pictures from Cuba 
 Hutchinson's African Exploration 
 
 Clevelldll 20 
 Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul 6 
 Cotton's Instructions in Christianity 6 
 Dale's Domestic Liturgy - - 7 
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 Eclipse of Faith 7 
 Englishman's Greek Concordance 7 
 " Heb.&Chald.Ccncord. 7 
 Experience (The) of Life - - 20 
 Gertrude - - 20 
 Harrison's Light of the Forge - 8 
 Home's Introduction to Scriptures 9 
 " Abridgment of ditto - 10 
 Hue's Christianity in China - - 10 
 Humphrcys's Parables Illuminated 10 
 Ivors ; or, the Two Cousins - 20 
 Jameson's Sacred Legends - - 11 
 ." Monastic Legends - - 11 
 Legendsof the Madonna 11 
 
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 " Popular Astronomy - - 3 
 Bourne on the Screw Propeller - 4 
 " 's Catechism of Steam- Engine 4 
 Boyd's Naval Cadet's Manual - 4 
 Brande's Dictionary of Science, &c. 4 
 " Lectures on Organic Chemistry 4 
 Cresy's Civil Engineering - - 6 
 DelaBeche'sGeologyofCornwall,&c. 7 
 De la Rive's Electricity - - 7 
 Grove's Correla. of Physical Forces 8 
 Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy 9 
 Holland's Mental Physiology - 9 
 Humboldt's Aspects of Nature - 10 
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 Hunt on Light - 10 
 Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia - 12 
 Marcet's (Mrs.) Conversations - 14 
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 Jameson's Canada - - - - 
 Jerrmann's St. Petersburg - 
 Laing's Norway - 
 " Notes of a Traveller 
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 MacDougall'sVovageof theHesohtte 
 Mason's Zulus of Natal 
 Miles's Rambles in Iceland - 
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 Seaward 's Narrative - 
 Snow's Tierra del Fuego 
 Von Tempsky's Mexico 
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 ployment ----- 11 
 
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 Peschel's Elements of Physics - 17 
 
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 Letters to my Unknown Friends - 11 
 
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 " Mineralogy - - - 17 
 
 Heirs of Cheveleigh 
 Hoyvitt's Tallangetta - 
 
 " on Happiness - - - 11 
 
 " Guide to Geology - - 17 
 
 Moore's Epicurean 
 
 Lyra Germanica 5 
 Maguire's Rome - - - - 14 
 Margaret Percival - 20 
 Maitineau's Christian Life - - 14 
 
 Portlock's Geology of Londonderry 18 
 Powell's Unity of Worlds - - 18 
 Smee's Electro-Metallurgy - - 20 
 Steam-Enpine (The) - 4 
 
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 Sketches (The), Three Tales 
 Southey's The Doctor &c. 
 Trollope's Barchester Towers 
 
 " Hymns ... 14 
 
 Wilson's Electric Telegraph - - 22 
 
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