SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
LECTURES 
 
 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 BY 
 
 ISAAC TAYLOR, 
 
 II 
 
 AUTHOR OF " PHYSICAL THEORY OF ANOTHER LIFE," " NATURAL HISTORY 
 OF ENTHUSIASM," " HOME EDUCATION," ETC. 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., 200, BROADWAY. 
 1841. 
 
H. LUDWIG. PRINTKB 
 
 72 vesey-st., N. Y. 
 
T3 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THESE Lectures were delivered at the instance 
 of the Committee of the " London City Mission," 
 and if that Committee be held responsible for 
 having made the request, its responsibility there 
 ceases. For whatever the Lectures may contain 
 the Lecturer alone is answerable, and he supposes 
 it not unlikely that more than two or three passages 
 might be adduced with which neither that Com- 
 mittee, as a body, nor the members of it as indi- 
 viduals, would fully concur. The Lecturer confi- 
 dently hopes, nevertheless, that, in frankly express- 
 ing his sincere convictions, as he is accustomed to 
 do, he has not infringed the proprieties of the 
 
VI ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 position he occupied, as called forward on this 
 occasion by them. 
 
 In so calling him forth, his much-esteemed 
 friends were aware that the Lecturer has never 
 been used to speak the language of any one 
 section of the religious commonwealth ; and 
 while well assured of his firm attachment to 
 the great principles of the Gospel, as recovered 
 by the Reformers, they would anticipate, as 
 probable, some freedom of expression, on parti- 
 cular points. 
 
 It is due, as well to those who honoured the 
 Lecturer with their attendance, as to his friends 
 of the " London City Mission," to state distinctly 
 that, in revising the Lectures for the press, he 
 has not merely made many verbal corrections, 
 but has introduced more than a few passages 
 tending, as he hopes, to strengthen or illustrate 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. Vll 
 
 his argument ; and it is among these added passa- 
 ges that will be found the more distinct expressions 
 of his individual views on points connected with 
 the present aspect of our English Christianity. 
 
 It can scarcely be necessary to forewarn the 
 reader not to look, in these Lectures, either for 
 a systematic digest of Theology, or for a formal 
 biblical argument, in support of the several articles 
 of an evangelic creed. The Lecturer has not 
 thought himself qualified to undertake any such 
 task ; nor would any endeavour of the kind have 
 consisted with the professed intention of the 
 Lectures, which were projected with the hope of 
 directing the attention of well-educated persons to 
 the great principles of the Gospel ; and especially 
 as at this moment put in jeopardy by the wide 
 diffusion of opinions which would substitute the 
 " vain inventions " of antiquity, for the purity and 
 simplicity of apostolic Christianity. 
 
Till ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Making no pretensions therefore to speak as a 
 master of Theology, the Lecturer has ventured, 
 as he supposes a private Christian may do with- 
 out blame, and especially if his years have been 
 devoted to religious studies to present some 
 broad views of those principal articles of belief, 
 in the truth and import of which all Christians 
 are alike concerned. 
 
 STANFORD RIVERS, 
 April, 1841. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FIRST LECTURE. PAGE 
 
 THE EXTERIOR CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY . . 11 
 
 SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 THE TRUTHS PECULIAR TO SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY ...... 89 
 
 THIRD LECTURE. 
 THE ETHICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY . . .139 
 
 FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY THE HOPE OF THE WORLD AT THE PRESENT 
 MOMENT . 187 
 
 ;NOTES. 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 51 . , *239 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 58 ....,.: 241 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 100 . . 243 
 
THE 
 
 FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 ON THE EXTERIOR CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 THERE may be those who, in comparing the 
 physical, or even the moral condition of civilized and 
 of barbarous nations, would give the preference to 
 the latter ; alleging that, on the whole, more enjoy- 
 ment is secured, and less suffering entailed by a 
 lower, than by a more advanced development of the 
 social system. But let such a question be deter- 
 mined as it may, yet is it certain that, except as 
 the consequence of national catastrophes, sudden 
 or slow in their operation, no community recedes 
 from the position it has reached ; or, by a voluntary 
 act, renounces knowledge and the arts, and em- 
 braces barbarism. 
 
 Advancement, which is the Law, as well of the 
 human mind, individually, as of the social system, 
 forbids a deliberate return to what is more simple, 
 2 
 
14 ONSPIRI TUAL 
 
 after what is more complex has once been attained ; 
 for, to step back on its path, would imply that a 
 people should not merely cease to desire what they 
 have learned to enjoy ; but that they should consent 
 no longer to know, what they had ascertained to be 
 true ; and should learn to believe as true, what they 
 have discovered to be false ; and should persuade 
 themselves to act in a manner which experience has 
 taught them is equally absurd and mischievous. 
 Even, therefore, if savage life did present itself to 
 the view of a civilized people as a paradise ; yet 
 between it and themselves there is interposed a gulf, 
 into which, indeed, many a nation has been plunged 
 headlong, but which none can pass by spontaneous 
 movement. 
 
 There may too be those, and perhaps they are 
 more than a few, who, knowing little of Christi- 
 anity except in its incidental connexion with secular 
 affairs, over which it too often throws perplexity ; 
 knowing nothing of its truth, or its energies, or its 
 beauty ; and not knowing, or not considering, that 
 every other form of religion is utterly destitute as 
 well of truth, as of any power to bless, imagine that 
 an equitable comparison between the religion of 
 Europe, and the religions of Asia, would exhibit 
 but an ambiguous advantage in favour of the former. 
 Or such persons may persuade themselves that an 
 innocuous pantheism, upon the bosom of which all 
 
* CHRISTIANITY. 15 
 
 consciences might be lulled, would indeed be a 
 happy exchange for the stirring verities of the Bible. 
 
 Yet even if it were so, no such exchange can 
 ever be offered to our choice ; for Christianity, like 
 civilization, and in a much deeper sense, is a move- 
 ment forward. Christianity is a system of truths 
 which has carried the human mind as far in ad- 
 vance of ancient philosophy, as it has of false reli- 
 gion. It is no scheme of vague opinions, which 
 may be indifferently refuted, or admitted ; but a 
 progress in abstract truth and a progress in moral 
 sentiment and a progress in manners, which, 
 though its future course may be arrested by cala- 
 mities falling upon the human family, could not be 
 freely renounced but by an act of desperation, fatal 
 to the social existence of the people that should 
 attempt it. 
 
 Christianity is a development, and the only deve- 
 lopment ever yet given, of those higher faculties of 
 human nature, which although they may long slum- 
 ber, yet when once awakened, will not be curbed 
 by the limitations of time ; they will not ; for their 
 scope lies far forward in the field of Eternity. 
 
 Christianity, like civilization, may be overborne 
 at different points, or turned from its course ; but it 
 must recover its lost ground. It is a guardian 
 power, which has long been carrying the human 
 family, as in its bosom, over a rugged road, and 
 
16 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 beneath inclement skies ; but will not be stayed 
 until it have fulfilled its trust. 
 
 We grant indeed that a general decay of religious 
 belief, throughout Europe, is an event which does 
 not want some indications of probability. But if 
 we suppose it to have taken place, its visible effects 
 would everywhere be those of a turn of tide ; or the 
 reflux of a deep current, heretofore setting heaven- 
 ward (how stormy soever may have been its sur- 
 face, or sluggish its movement.) It would be a 
 reflux towards whatever is sensual, selfish, frivo- 
 lous, and ferocious. Like the loss of civilization 
 the loss of Christianity would be equivalent to a 
 ceasing to know, a ceasing to feel, a ceasing, in the 
 best sense, to live ; or the living on a principle con- 
 fessedly earthly, after a higher principle has been 
 recognized. 
 
 At this moment the hold of Christianity upon the 
 convictions, the moral sentiments, and the manners 
 of several of the nations, called Christian, is in the 
 last degree feeble ; nevertheless, so long as, even 
 in such countries, the Gospel is yet publicly regard- 
 ed as true, and so long as its decisions are appealed 
 to as of divine authority, the community, low as it 
 may have sunk in virtue, has still its eye directed 
 upward toward that which is purer and more ele- 
 vated, as well in faith as in morals, than any thing 
 else around it. Even, therefore, to such communi- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 17 
 
 ties, the ceasing to be Christian would not be the 
 coming to a stand merely ; but the commencement 
 of a descent towards an abyss. 
 
 But to a community within which the Gospel has 
 widely diffused itself through the opinions, habits, 
 and affections of the mass, and in which it intensely 
 affects the moral energies of thousands ; the ceasing 
 to be Christian would be a dissolution, political, 
 social, domestic : it would be national death. 
 
 In this country every institution which at once 
 fortifies and adorns our social condition, has been 
 constructed on the supposition of a flow and pres- 
 sure in this one direction ; that is to say, toward 
 whatever is, or is assumed to be, true in religion, 
 and pure in morals : every slope in the basement 
 of the political building is adapted to this, and to no 
 other movement of the waters : should they turn, 
 there is not an embankment which must not yield, 
 and add its fragments to the general ruin. 
 
 Throughout southern Europe, where an almost 
 stagnant neap-tide of moral feeling has for ages 
 covered the surface of society, the turn toward open 
 Atheism might show itself only in the drooping of 
 heads, this way, instead of that, upon ecclesiastical 
 levels ; but it could not be so in England. Eng- 
 land, and her affluence at home, and her influence 
 through the world, and her bright cluster of ancient 
 honours ; England, and her pure domestic affec- 
 2* 
 
18 ,ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 tions, and home felicity, and her generous temper, 
 and her wide philanthropy ; England, her power 
 and her embellishments, we may be assured is 
 fated along with the Gospel. The waters of the 
 sanctuary stand breast high around her, and should 
 they fall off, she herself falls, to rise no more. 
 
 In this, if in no other country, Christianity, much 
 as it is dishonoured, yet rules in theology, and is 
 the standard of morals, and gives sanction to law ; 
 and, as an arbiter, acknowledged by all, mediates 
 between angry factions. But more than this, it is 
 by far the most profound of the forces now at work 
 within the social system ; it is a force not con- 
 trollable by any secular, or ordinary means, inas- 
 much as, for the sake of it, thousands amongst us, 
 if challenged to do so, would relinquish goods, and 
 life itself. Amid our very agitations it still conso- 
 lidates its power ; and even spurious zeal, (if there 
 be any) breaks up the ground for its advances. 
 Atheism herself has lately strengthened it by a re- 
 action ; while the sudden, and unlocked for revival, 
 in our times, of ancient superstitions, directs a new 
 attention to its simple truths. Christianity comes 
 to our times as the survivor of all systems, and after 
 confronting, in turn, every imaginable form of error, 
 each of which has gone to its almost forgotten place 
 in history itself alone lives. 
 
 In philosophic scorn we may turn from the peru- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 19 
 
 sal of the history of Christianity, during its eighteen 
 centuries past, blessing ourselves in a thence-de- 
 rived indifference towards all religion. But feelings 
 such as these spring from modes of thinking that 
 are loose and unphilosophical. What we should 
 discern in the course of events, on the stage of 
 European affairs, during this lapse of time, is not 
 so much a series of interested frauds, of imbecile 
 illusions, of fanatical violences, borrowing a sanc- 
 tion from religion ; but rather a slow movement, of 
 vast compass, yet tending always towards a high 
 moral end, however remote, and which higher end 
 it is now visibly approaching. We have before us, 
 in this history, a power which, even when the most 
 enfeebled or perverted, could lend a grandeur even 
 to folly, and a sublimity to extravagance ; which 
 has often imparted the energies of virtue to crimes ; 
 which has never visited mankind with a scourge, 
 without bringing up a blessing ; and which now at 
 length stands forward in no other character than as 
 the reprover of violence, and of oppression, and of 
 impurity ; and as the guardian of whatever is most 
 holy and happy. Its spirit and tendency, which 
 once might seem ambiguous, are now, by universal 
 acknowledgment, simply benign. 
 
 But we are still reminded of the errors, or, to use 
 the objector's own word, the inconsistencies of 
 Christians, even in these times, when, as we allege, 
 
ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 our religion has recovered, in great measure, its 
 pristine purity. Yet justly interpreted, this charge 
 conveys the objector's own latent feeling, that 
 Christianity is, what we are affirming it to be, an 
 idea of perfection, which is in progress to exhibit 
 its perfect symmetry. The objector means to say, 
 that, should the time ever come when the religion 
 of Christ shall have mastered whatever now op- 
 poses its influence, and shall reign triumphant, in its 
 own splendour, all men will have reached, under 
 its guidance, a high stage of moral excellence. 
 The objector means to say that, should he survive 
 to so happy a day, he himself, urged forward in 
 the general movement, will have become wise. 
 
 The same momentous fact, namely, That the 
 moral energies of the Gospel are, in great part, yet 
 to be developed, indirectly attested as it is even by 
 its opponents, is most cordially admitted by its 
 friends ; who individually acknowledge, with humi- 
 liation, their personal falling short of the rule of 
 their profession. Or, if we listen to those whose 
 office it is to urge this rule upon others, evidence to 
 the same effect is every day borne by all ; for every 
 pulpit exhortation, every didactic treatise, every 
 urgent appeal made to the Christian community, 
 as such ; and every incitement to zeal and diligence 
 in works of charity, speaks the same language, and 
 attests the deep conviction of each Christian bosom 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 21 
 
 that the heavenward impulses of the Gospel are in 
 progress, only, towards their consummation in the 
 virtue and happiness of mankind. 
 
 What then are the genuine elements of this 
 power, which, by the confession of all, is carrying 
 forward the social system towards goodness and 
 felicity ? WHAT is CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 In the present instance we have consented to 
 employ a compound phrase, and are to speak of 
 Spiritual Christianity. Have we then in view cer- 
 tain refinements upon the broad principles of the 
 Gospel ? Or is it our purpose to recommend some 
 scheme of piety, elaborately imagined, and deli- 
 cately framed, and eligible for the few, and barely 
 to be understood even by them ? Indeed it is not. 
 We have no such purpose. We are not instruct- 
 ed to be the expositors or champions of partial no- 
 tions, or of private conceits, or of fond peculiarities, 
 or of mystifications ; or of anything that does not 
 lie clearly upon the surface of the inspired pages. 
 We are of no party ; we yield undue homage to no 
 names ; we have no unconfessed solicitudes, no in- 
 direct purposes ; we challenge for our faith and 
 doctrine CATHOLICITY, in the highest and best sense 
 which that abused word may bear. 
 
 By Spiritual Christianity, therefore, we mean 
 nothing more, (and we can mean nothing less) than 
 Christianity itself: Christianity in its simplicity, 
 
22 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 in its grandeur, in its integrity, in its beauty. 
 Christianity, as it is truth absolute, truth eternal, 
 truth of infinite moment to every man, and intelli- 
 gible to every man. 
 
 In proof of the breadth of the view which we 
 mean to take of the Gospel, we bind ourselves to 
 ask for no practical concessions in behalf of Spi- 
 ritual Christianity which may not be demanded, as 
 a necessary inference from some one of the prin- 
 ciples that, without a doubt, are its visible charac- 
 teristics. We inquire then what these visible 
 characteristics are ? 
 
 I. 
 
 In reply, We say, FIRST, that CHRISTIANITY is 
 A RELIGION OF FACTS ; and we use the term in its 
 plain historic sense. Christianity touches the affec- 
 tions, and binds the consciences of men, on no other 
 plea than that of its being a declaration of facts ; 
 and these, either long past, or now passing ; or 
 certainly anticipated as yet impending. 
 
 We have not therefore before us either a theory 
 of abstract principles, or a system of sentiments, 
 selected as excellent and refined, from among other 
 eligible modes of feeling. We have not to do with 
 a congeries of the best things of all systems, or 
 with a convenient summary of the product of the 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 23 
 
 wisdom of all times. We have not to recommend 
 a rule for those who may think good to adopt it. 
 We have before us nothing but a series of facts, 
 and the just consequences of these facts. Chris- 
 tianity is historically true it is true in its own 
 sense ; or it can have no claim upon our se- 
 rious regard ; and if, in vindicating the high claim 
 it advances, we cannot maintain our position on 
 open ground, accessible to all minds, we fail by our 
 own showing ; or, rather let it be said that, irre- 
 spective of the ability, or the want of ability, of any 
 single advocate of Christian principles, the Gospel 
 demands our submission, purely ON THE GROUND 
 
 OF ITS HISTORIC TRUTH. 
 
 Is THEN CHRISTIANITY HISTORICALLY TRUE ? 
 
 In the present instance we do not hold ourselves 
 obliged to undertake an argument so often, and so 
 conclusively conducted ; but rather we suppose our- 
 selves entitled to assume this as granted ; neverthe- 
 less, we must, for a moment, trace a single line of 
 connexion between the historical truth of the Gos- 
 pel, and those principles of our moral nature, to 
 which an appeal is necessarily made in asserting 
 the reality of spiritual religion. 
 
 What is it then which the question concerning 
 the truth of Christianity supposes to be doubtful ; 
 or what is it which can be regarded as open to ar- 
 
24 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 gument among those who are at once well informed, 
 and candid ? Not the actual existence of Christi- 
 anity, as a visible institute, up through the course 
 of time, from the present age to that of the Julian 
 Caesars. Nothing within the range of history 
 nothing mathematically demonstrated, is more cer- 
 tain than is the series of facts to which we now 
 refer. Thus far then, we presume, there can be 
 no controversy, or none amongst educated persons. 
 Let church history be what it may in its qualities, 
 assuredly it is history and this, close up to the 
 moment of its alleged origination.* 
 
 What then is it that may be further questionable ? 
 Is it the antiquity and genuineness of the literary 
 remains comprised in the canon of the New Testa- 
 ment? If there be indeed room for reasonable 
 controversy on this ground, the demur, be it what 
 it may, must be dealt with, not in the mass ; but in 
 detail ; not in the mode of vague suppositions ; but 
 in that of a rigorous attention to every particle of 
 the evidence, as severally bearing upon each sepa- 
 rate portion of the document ; upon each book, 
 each epistle, each paragraph, sentence, word, sylla- 
 
 * The testimony of the Roman historian, to this effect, is 
 by none called in question. Auctor nominis ejus Christus, 
 qui Tiberio imperante, per Procuratorem Pentium Pilatum, 
 supplicio affectus exat. Tac. An. XV. 
 
IE 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. . , 
 
 ble, letter. There is no summary process" by 
 means of which a controversy like this may be 
 disposed of. The question, if indeed there be a 
 question, is one of historical criticism ; and is to be 
 determined in no other manner than by a diligent 
 application of the rules of that now well-digested 
 science. 
 
 Nor can it be necessary to remind well-informed 
 persons, that the legitimate deductions of one science 
 are not to be overruled by sidelong inferences, de- 
 rived from another. The question being whether 
 Csesar's Commentaries are indeed Caesar's ; we are 
 not to be told, as a sufficient reply, that the newest 
 discoveries in human physiology, or that recent ex- 
 periments in chemistry, or that a doctrine derived, 
 yesterday, from an excavation, does not favour the 
 affirmative ? Nothing can be more impertinent or 
 unphilosophical than intrusions of this sort.* 
 
 * But if, on grounds of philosophical justice, we thus pro- 
 test against the interference of the physical or physiological 
 sciences with the historical evidences of Christianity; the 
 very same doctrine, must in all equity, be held to condemn 
 the ill-considered zeal of those who, from mistaken religious 
 motives, would fain interdict the advances of science, even 
 when confining itself to its own ground, and when employing 
 methods altogether unexceptionable. Those who have indeed 
 made themselves familiar with the historic proof of Christi- 
 anity, will be exempt from all solicitude as to the ultimate 
 conclusions of Geology, or of any other science. 
 3 
 
26 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 But if there be a question concerning the antiquity 
 or genuineness of any portion of the New Testa- 
 ment, the well-informed Christian will be the most 
 eager to provoke, and the most assiduous in prose- 
 cuting the inquiry ; and if there are any who wish 
 to evade it, it must be either the ill-informed Chris- 
 tian, or the too well-informed infidel. 
 
 But it is said that " this critical argument in sup- 
 port of the antiquity and genuineness of the several 
 portions of the New Testament, is too recondite to 
 be appreciable by the majority, even of well-edu- 
 cated persons." Is it so ? then it keeps company 
 with the entire circle of the modern sciences, whe- 
 ther abstract or physical. 
 
 Even in an assembly of well-educated persons, 
 there are not many who would profess themselves 
 to be competent to follow, intelligently, the demon- 
 stration which establishes the mechanism of the hea- 
 vens, as now constituting the creed of Astronomy. 
 Beyond the walls of colleges, everything in science 
 is taken on trust ; and it is very safely so taken ; 
 for all well know, that the professors of science, in 
 these times, mystify nothing ; and offer satisfactory 
 proof in support of whatever they affirm. Although 
 there be few, in fact, who tread the paths of philo- 
 sophy, there is neither bar at the entrance, nor 
 labyrinth midway in the course. It should be re- 
 membered that, just in proportion as the results of 
 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 27 
 
 modern science have become unquestionably cer- 
 tain, the proof of that certainty has become the 
 more recondite, and so as to be fully intelligible 
 only to those who devote their lives to the pursuit. 
 
 So it is likewise on the field of historical criti- 
 cism ; and precisely because the methods of proof 
 now resorted to, are wide in their range, various in 
 their elements, and rigidly exact in their inductions ; 
 it is because they are certain, that they are also 
 difficult ; it is because they are circumstantially 
 strong, nay, irrefragable, that they demand powers 
 of attention severely disciplined, and many accom- 
 plishments, in those who would follow them through 
 their ample circuits. 
 
 We affirm then, that which will not be disputed 
 by any who are competent to call it in ques- 
 tion, that, in the authentic methods of historical 
 criticism, rigorously and laboriously applied to 
 the Christian documents, and to every separate 
 portion of them (a very few passages or phrases 
 being excepted) the genuineness of the books of 
 the New Testament has, in our own times, been 
 placed far beyond the reach of all reasonable doubt. 
 How difficult soever, or even impracticable it may 
 be to render this sort of evidence fully intelligible 
 to the imperfectly informed, no well-educated per- 
 son can feel a serious difficulty in yielding his ab- 
 solute assent to it. 
 
28 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 Here then we set our foot upon a rock. But let 
 it be well observed that, while the proof, could it 
 be produced, of the spuriousness of one or more 
 passages, or even of ample portions of the received 
 canon, would leave the Christian argument un- 
 touched, in the main ; on the contrary, unquestion- 
 able proof of the genuineness of any one consider- 
 able portion of that canon, would carry the whole 
 weight of Christianity ; for such an attested por- 
 tion could not be made to consist with the hypo- 
 thesis of infidelity. 
 
 To rid the world therefore, as the infidel might 
 wish to do, of the Evangelic history, each of the 
 Gospels, separately, and each of the Epistles, se- 
 parately, must be proved to be spurious. One of 
 the Gospels would save our religion ; or a single 
 apostolic Epistle, like a morning star alone in the 
 skies, when all other stars are obscured, would re- 
 deem the world from the darkness of Atheism. 
 
 But if the books be genuine ; what is it further 
 which may reasonably be doubted ? Instead of 
 opening an extensive argument which has so often 
 and so conclusively been handled, we shall confine 
 ourselves to considerations proper to our peculiar 
 subject. We are then to speak of Spiritual Chris- 
 tianity, and to insist upon modes of feeling of a 
 kind to raise us above the low levels of frivolous 
 pleasure, or of sordid secular avocations. By the 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 29 
 
 very necessity of our subject therefore, we must 
 make a frequent appeal to the MORAL SENSE, and 
 must suppose, in the hearer, not merely conscience 
 and candour ; but the sensibilities and instincts of 
 a well-ordered mind, alive in some degree, to the 
 sympathies of virtue. We are not professing to 
 address those who have lived in too constant fami- 
 liarity with what is gross or selfish, to allow the 
 moral faculties to have retained their genuine force. 
 
 Yet let it not hence be inferred that our argument 
 is itself a refinement, not intelligible except to those 
 whose mental qualifications are peculiar. A vivid 
 moral sense, and a just taste, even if they be rare 
 in fact, are so, not because factitious ; but because 
 in too many they have become blunted by a course 
 of life, unfavourable to their exercise. Nor do we 
 address ourselves to a fine discriminating moral 
 faculty, as contradistinguished from the rude, yet 
 native impressions of uncultivated minds, and 
 which would at once admit all that we are now 
 to ask ; but rather as opposed to that which itself 
 is opposed to nature, and to truth of feeling. 
 
 A correct moral feeling, under the guidance of 
 which he who possesses it makes his way with cer- 
 tainty through the labyrinths of a crowded, sophis- 
 ticated world, choosing by its aid, his friend his 
 colleague, his agent, with a seldom-baffled tact, 
 and holding himself at the distance of civility from 
 
30 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 many against whom he could bring no accusation 
 this feeling, and this taste, the antenna of the mind, 
 are as applicable to the persons of history, as to 
 the persons of the present moment ; or to such of 
 them, at least, as have become known to us, not 
 through the artificial medium of rhetorical eulogies, 
 but by the reports of unconnected contemporaries, 
 who have related, as by accident, the less as well 
 as the more important incidents of their private life, 
 and have repeated, perhaps with little skill as to 
 the selection, their conversations and discourses. 
 Brought to bear on such instances, the moral 
 sense and taste, or the instinctive feeling of what 
 is true in human nature, and of what is harmonious 
 and consistent with itself are less fallible, we may 
 boldly say, than direct reasoning, even of the 
 severest sort ; for in our reasonings, a false step, 
 at the commencement, sends us far astray ; but 
 as to the inductions of the moral sense, in gather 
 ing them up, we are feeling our path as we pro- 
 ceed, and at every step we get so much the nearer 
 to truth and certainty. Logic takes us on a circuit, 
 which if the course be but correctly calculated, 
 brings us round to a legitimate conclusion. But 
 the method of induction by the tact of the moral 
 sense, is a walking with nature, on a day's jour- 
 ney ; and a making ourselves familiar with the 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 31 
 
 sweet tones of her voice in a lengthened com- 
 munion. 
 
 We should however well observe the separate 
 offices of the logic of critical evidence, and of the 
 logic of the moral sense, as applied to the discrimi- 
 nation of the genuine and the spurious in history. 
 Thus, in the instance before us, it belongs to the 
 former, embracing the science of criticism as a sub- 
 sidiary means, to trace, in the original records of 
 Christianity in their varied style, in their phrases, 
 proper to the time, country, and writers in their 
 incidental allusions to persons, events and usages 
 in their internal agreements, and not less, in 
 their disagreements, the infallible marks of au- 
 thenticity. Nor does any thing remain to be 
 desired in the way of proof, in this line, which 
 may not be found in many conclusive modern 
 works. 
 
 It is the office, moreover, of the historical logic, 
 as applied to the Christian evidences, to show (and 
 which may most certainly be done) that the 
 memoirs of Christ have been derived from, at the 
 least, three independent sources ; and therefore, 
 that the supposition, could it otherwise for a mo- 
 ment be entertained, of an imaginative creation 
 of this altogether singular narrative, is totally 
 excluded. 
 
 The same species of argument, moreover, will 
 
32 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 exhibit the manifest incompetency of the writers of 
 the Gospels one and all, for the task of a literary 
 creation ; and their competency for that only of 
 furnishing an inartificial report of incidents and 
 discourses. 
 
 So far, a strict analysis of the entire mass of the 
 evidence, and of the minute circumstances which 
 attach to it, excludes every doubt that the evangelic 
 history is HISTORY. 
 
 But now, after these rigorous methods of analysis 
 have done their part, something remains which, 
 in fact, if it can be satisfactorily achieved, carries 
 conviction home to the mind in a manner not often 
 if ever effected by a merely critical argument. 
 
 We summon then to our aid, those powers of 
 perception which, even if they cannot clothe them- 
 selves in words, and therefore cannot be conveyed 
 distinctly from mind to mind, are not therefore the 
 less to be relied upon. Yet let us not be misunder- 
 stood ; nor let it for a moment be supposed that we 
 are so forgetful of the principles of Spiritual Chris- 
 tianity, hereafter to be affirmed, as to attempt to 
 hale things divine to the tribunal of the perverted 
 moral perceptions of the human mind. This we 
 are not doing ; but are only endeavouring to bring 
 the moral sense to bear upon objects which lie 
 altogether within its proper range ; that is to say, 
 upon human character, human conduct, and upon 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 33 
 
 the" well-known harmonies of the world of mind, as 
 exposed to our view in others, or as presented by 
 our personal consciousness. 
 
 Moreover we do not hesitate to ask, that such 
 faint conceptions as the human mind may of itself 
 entertain, of the bright excellence of a better world, 
 should be at hand, and give their testimony, so far 
 as they may, in support of ^our conclusions ; for it 
 has ever been held that, if the spotless virtue of 
 heaven were to appear upon earth, she would be 
 recognized and reverenced, even by the most abject, 
 or the most perverted of mankind. 
 
 Read then the Gospels, simply as historical me- 
 moirs : and by such aids as they alone supply, make 
 yourself acquainted with Him who is the subject of 
 these narrations. Bring the individual conception, 
 as distinctly as possible before the mind : allow the 
 moral sense to confer, in its own manner, and at 
 leisure, with this unusual form of humanity. " Be- 
 hold the man " even the Saviour of the world, and 
 say whether it be not historic truth that is before the 
 eye. The more peculiar is this form, yet withal 
 symmetrical, the more infallible is the impression of 
 reality we thence receive. What we have to do 
 with in this instance, is not an undefined ideal of 
 wisdom and goodness, conveyed in round affirma- 
 tions, or in eulogies ; but with a self-developed 
 individuality, in conveying which the writers of the 
 
 
34 
 
 ON SP T R ITUAL 
 
 narrative do not appear. In this instance, if in any, 
 the medium is transparent : nothing intervenes 
 between the reader and the personage of the his- 
 tory, in whose presence we stand, as if not separated 
 by time and space. 
 
 It may be questioned whether the entire range 
 of ancient history presents any one character in 
 colours of reality so fresh as those which distinguish 
 the personage of the evangelic memoirs. The 
 sages and heroes of antiquity less and less nearly 
 related, as they must be, to any living interests, 
 are fading amid the mists of an obsolete world : but 
 He who " is the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
 ever," is offered to the view of mankind, in the 
 dyes of immortality, fitting a history, which, instead 
 of losing the intensity of its import, is gathering 
 weight by the lapse of time. 
 
 The Evangelists, by the translucency of their 
 style, have given a lesson in biographical compo- 
 sition, showing how perfectly individual character 
 may be expressed in a method which disdains every 
 rule but that of fidelity. It is personal humanity, 
 in the presence of which we stand, while perusing 
 the Gospels, and to each reader, apart, if serious 
 and ingenuous, and yet incredulous, the Saviour of 
 the world addresses a mild reproof " It is I. 
 Behold my hands and my feet : Reach hither thy 
 hand, and thrust it into rny side, and be not faith- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 35 
 
 less, but believing." And can we do otherwise than 
 grant, all that is now demanded namely, That the 
 Evangelists record the actions and discourses of a 
 real person ? 
 
 It is well to consider the extraordinary contrasts 
 that are yet perfectly harmonized in the personal 
 character of Christ. 
 
 At a first glance he appears always in his own 
 garb of humility ; lowliness of demeanour is his 
 very characteristic. But we must not forget that 
 this lowliness was combined with nothing less than 
 a solemnly proclaimed, and peremptory challenge 
 of rightful headship over the human race ! Never- 
 theless the oneness of the character the fair per- 
 fection of the surface, suffers no rent by this 
 blending of elements so strangely diverse. Let 
 us then bring before the mind, with all the distinct- 
 ness we can, the conception of the Teacher, more 
 meek than any who has ever assumed to rule the 
 opinions of mankind, and who yet, in the tones 
 proper to tranquil modesty, and as conscious at 
 once of power and right, anticipates that day of 
 wonder, when, " the KING shall sit on the throne 
 of his glory," with his angels attendant ; and when 
 " all nations shall be gathered before him," from 
 his lips to receive their doom ! The more these 
 elements of personal character are disproportionate, 
 
36 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 the more convincing is the proof of reality, which 
 arises from their harmony. 
 
 We may read the Evangelists listlessly, and not 
 perceive this evidence ; but we can never read 
 them intelligently without yielding to it our con- 
 victions. 
 
 If the character of Christ be, as indeed it is, 
 altogether unmatched, in the circle of history, it is 
 even less so by the singularity of the intellectual 
 and moral elements which it combines, than by the 
 sweetness and perfection which result from their 
 union. This will appear the more, if we consider 
 those instances in which the combination was alto- 
 gether of an unprecedented kind. 
 
 Nothing has been more constant in the history 
 of the human mind, whenever the religious emo- 
 tions have gained a supremacy over the sensual 
 and sordid passions, than the breaking out of the 
 ascetic temper in some of its forms ; and most often 
 in that which disguises virtue, now as a spectre, 
 now as a maniac, now as a mendicant, now as a 
 slave, but never as the bright daughter of heaven. 
 Of the three Jewish sects, extant in our Lord's 
 time, two of them that is to say, the two that 
 made pretensions to any sort of piety, had assumed 
 the ascetic garb, in its two customary species the 
 philosophic (the Essenes) and the fanatical (the 
 Pharisees) ; and so strong and uniform is this 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 37 
 
 crabbed inclination, that Christianity itself, in violent 
 contrariety to its spirit and its precepts, went off 
 into the ascetic temper, within a century after the 
 close of the apostolic age, or even earlier. 
 
 Under this aspect then, let us for a moment 
 consider the absolutely novel phenomenon of the 
 Teacher of a far purer morality than the world had 
 heretofore ever listened to ; yet himself affecting 
 no singularities in his modes of living. The supe- 
 riority of the soul to the body, was the very purport 
 of his doctrine ; and yet he did not waste the body 
 by any austerities ! The duty of self-denial he 
 perpetually enforced ; and yet he practised no 
 factitious mortifications! This Teacher, not of 
 abstinence, but of virtue ; this Reprover, not of 
 enjoyment, but of vice, himself went in and out 
 among the social amenities of ordinary life with so 
 unsolicitous a freedom, as to give colour to the 
 malice of hypocrisy, in pointing the finger at him, 
 saying " Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine- 
 bibber ; a friend (companion) of publicans and 
 sinners !" Should we not then note this singular 
 apposition and harmony of qualities that he who 
 was familiar with the festivities of heaven, did not 
 any more disdain the poor solaces of mortality, than 
 disregard its transient pains and woes ? Follow 
 this same Jesus from the banquets of the opulent, 
 where he showed no scruples in diet, to the high- 
 4 
 
38 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 ways and wildernesses of Judea, where, never 
 indifferent to human sufferings, he healed " as many 
 as came unto him." 
 
 These remarkable features in the personal char- 
 acter of Christ have often, and very properly been 
 adduced, as instances of the unrivalled wisdom and 
 elevation, which marked him as pre-eminent among 
 the wise and good. 
 
 It is not however for this purpose that we now 
 refer to them ; but rather as harmonies, altogether 
 inimitable, and which put beyond doubt the historic 
 reality of the Person. Thus considered, they must 
 be admitted by calm minds as carrying the truth of 
 Christianity itself. 
 
 There are however those who will readily grant 
 us, what indeed they cannot, with any appearance 
 of candour deny the historic reality of the person 
 of Christ, and the more-than-human excellence 
 which his behaviour and discourses embody ; but 
 at this point they declare that they must stop. Let 
 such persons see to it : they cannot stop at this 
 point ; for just at this point there is no ground on 
 which foot may stand. 
 
 What are the facts ? 
 
 The inimitable characteristics of nature attach 
 to what we may call the common incidents of the 
 evangelical history, and in which Jesus of Nazareth 
 is seen mingling himself with the ordinary course 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 39 
 
 of social life. But is it true that these characteris- 
 tics suddenly, and in each instance, disappear when 
 the same person is presented to us walking on 
 another, and a high path namely, that of super- 
 natural power ? IT is NOT so, and on the contrary, 
 very many of the most peculiar and infallible of 
 those touches of tenderness and pathos which so 
 generally mark the evangelic narrative, belong 
 precisely to the supernatural portions of it, and are 
 inseparably connected with acts of miraculous 
 beneficence. We ask that the Gospels be read with 
 the utmost severity of criticism, and with this 
 especial object in view, namely to inquire 
 Whether those indications of reality which have 
 already been yielded to as irresistible evidences of 
 truth, do not belong as fully to the supernatural, as 
 they do to the ordinary incidents of the Gospels ? 
 or in other words, whether, unless we resolve to 
 overrule the question by a previous determination, 
 any ground of simply historic distinction presents 
 itself, marking off the supernatural from the ordi- 
 nary events of the evangelic narratives ? 
 
 If we feel ourselves to be conversing with historic 
 truth, as well as with heavenly wisdom, when Jesus 
 is before us, seated on the mountain brow, and 
 delivering the Beatitudes to his disciples ; is it so 
 that the colours become confused, and the contour 
 of the figures unreal, when the same personage, in 
 
40 ONSTIRITUAL 
 
 the midst of thousands, seated by fifties on the 
 grassy slope, supplies the hunger of the multitude 
 by the word of his power ? Is it historic truth that 
 is presented when the fearless Teacher of a just 
 morality convicts the Rabbis of folly and perversity ; 
 and less so when, turning from his envious oppo- 
 nents, he says to the paralytic " Take up thy bed 
 and walk ? " Nature herself is before us when the 
 repentant woman, after washing the Lord's feet 
 with her tears, and wiping them with her hair, sits 
 contrasted with the obdurate and uncourteous 
 Pharisee : But the very same bright forms of 
 reality mark the scene when Jesus, filled with com- 
 passion at the sight of a mother's woe, stays the 
 bier, and renders her son alive to her bosom. 
 
 Or, if we turn to those portions of the Gospels in 
 which the incidents are narrated more in detail, and 
 where a greater variety of persons is introduced, and 
 where therefore the supposition of fabrication is the 
 more peremptorily excluded, it is found that the su- 
 pernatural and the ordinary elements are in no way 
 to be distinguished in respect of the simple vivacity 
 with which both present themselves to the eye. The 
 evangelic narrative offers the same bright translu- 
 cency the same serenity, and the same precision, 
 in reporting the most astounding, as the most fa- 
 miliar occurrences. It is like a smooth-surfaced 
 river which, in holding its course through a varied 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 41 
 
 country, reflects from its bosom, at one moment the 
 amenities of a homely border, and at the next the 
 summits of the Alps, and both with the same un- 
 ruffled fidelity. 
 
 As the subject of a rigorous historic criticism, and 
 all hypothetical opinions being excluded, no pretext 
 whatever presents itself for drawing a line around 
 the supernatural portions of the Gospels, as if they 
 were of suspicious aspect, and differed from the con- 
 text in historic verisimilitude. Without violence 
 done to the rules of criticism, we cannot detach the 
 miraculous portions of the history, and then put to- 
 gether the mutilated portions, so as to consist with 
 the undoubted reality of the part which is retained. 
 
 Or take the narrative of the raising of Lazarus of 
 Bethany. A brilliant vividness, as when a sunbeam 
 breaks from between clouds, illumines this unmatch- 
 ed history ; and it rests with equal intensity upon 
 the stupendous miracle, and upon the beauty and 
 grace of the scene of domestic sorrow. If we follow 
 Martha arid Mary from the house to the spot where 
 they meet their friend, and give a half-utterance to 
 their confidence in his power ; at what step let us 
 distinctly determine at what step, as the group pro- 
 ceeds towards the sepulchre, shall we halt and refuse 
 to accompany it ? Where is the break in the story, 
 or the point of transition ; and where does history 
 finish, and the spurious portion commence ? Is it 
 4* 
 
42 ON SPIRIT UAL 
 
 when we approach the cave's mouth that the ges- 
 tures of the persons become unreal, and the lan- 
 guage untrue to nature ? Where is it that the indi- 
 cations of tenderness and majesty disappear ? at 
 the moment when Jesus weeps ; or when he in- 
 vokes his Father ; or when, with a voice which 
 echoes in Hades, he challenges the dead to come 
 forth ; or is it when " he who was dead," obeys this 
 bidding ? 
 
 We affirm that, on no principles which a sound 
 mind can approve, is it possible, either to deny the 
 reality of the natural portions of this narrative, or to 
 sever these from the supernatural. But this is not 
 enough ; for it might be in fact more easy to offer 
 some intelligible solution of the difficulty attaching 
 to the supposition that the Gospels are not true, in 
 respect of the ordinary, than of the extraordinary 
 portion of their materials. If we were to allow it 
 to be possible (which it is not) that writers showing 
 so little inventive or plastic power, as do Matthew 
 the Publican, and John of Galilee, should, with the 
 harmony of truth, have carried their imaginary Mas- 
 ter through the common acts and incidents of his 
 course ; never could they, no, nor writers the most 
 accomplished, have brought him, in modest simpli- 
 city, through the miraculous acts of that course. 
 Desperate must be the endeavour to show that, 
 while the ordinary events of the Gospel must be ad- 
 
CHRISTIANITY/ 43 
 
 milted as true, the extraordinary are incredible. On 
 the contrary, it would be to the former, if to any, 
 that a suspicion might attach ; for as to the latter, 
 they cannot but be true : if not true, whence are 
 they ? 
 
 The scepticism, equally condemned as it is by 
 historical logic and the moral sense, which allows 
 the natural, and disallows the supernatural portion 
 of the history of Christ, is absolutely excluded when 
 we compare, in the four Gospels, separately, the 
 narrative of what precedes the resurrection, with 
 the closing portions, which bring the crucified Jesus 
 again among his disciples. 
 
 If those portions of the evangelic history which 
 reach to the moment of the death of Christ, are, in 
 a critical sense, of the same historic quality as those 
 which run on to the moment of his ascension, and if 
 the former absolutely command our assent if they 
 carry it as by force, then, by a most direct inference, 
 " is Christ risen indeed," and become the first fruits 
 of immortality to the human race. Then is it true 
 that, " as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be 
 made alive." No narrative is any where extant 
 comparable to that of the days and hours imme- 
 diately preceding the crucifixion ; and the several 
 accounts of the hurried events of those days present 
 the minute discordancies which are always found 
 
44 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 to belong to genuine memoirs, compiled by eye- 
 witnesses. 
 
 The last supper and its sublime discourses ; the 
 agony in the garden, the behaviour of the traitor, 
 the scenes in the hall of the chief priest, and before 
 the judgment seat of the Roman procurator and in 
 the Palace of Herod, and in the place called the 
 Pavement, and on the way from the city ; and the 
 scene on Calvary, are true if anything in the com- 
 pass of history be true. 
 
 But now if our moral perceptions are, in this 
 way, to be listened to, not less incontestably real 
 are the closing chapters of the four Gospels, in 
 which we find the same sobriety and the same vi- 
 vacity ; the same distinctness, and the same fresh- 
 ness ; the same pathos, and the same wisdom, and 
 the same majesty ; and yet all chastened by the re- 
 collected sorrows of a terrible conflict just passed, 
 and mellowed with the glow of a triumph at hand. 
 
 Let it be imagined that writers such as the evan- 
 gelists, might have led their master as far as to 
 Calvary ; but could they, unless truth had been be- 
 fore them, have reproduced him from the sepul- 
 chre ? What abruptness, harshness, extravagance, 
 what want of harmony, would have been presented 
 in the closing chapters of the Gospels, if the same 
 Jesus had not supplied the writers with their mate- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 45 
 
 rials, by going in and out among them after his 
 resurrection ! 
 
 On the supposition that Christ did not rise from 
 the dead, let any one whose moral tastes are not 
 entirely blunted, read the narrative of his encounter 
 with Mary in the garden, and with his disciples in 
 the inner chamber, and again on the shore of the 
 Lake ; let him study the perfect simplicity and yet 
 the warmth of the interview with the two disciples 
 on their way to Emmaus. The better taste of 
 modern times, and the just sense of what is true 
 in sentiment, and pure in composition, give us an 
 advantage in an analysis of this sort. Guided, then, 
 by the instincts of the most severe taste, let us 
 spread before us the final portion of the Gospel of 
 Luke ; namely, the twenty-fourth chapter, which 
 reports a selection of the events occurring between 
 the early morning of the first day of the week, and 
 that moment of wonder when, starting from the 
 world he had ransomed, the Saviour returned 
 whence he had come. Will any one who is ac- 
 quainted with antiquity affirm that any writer, 
 Greek, Roman, or Barbarian, has come down to 
 us, whom we can believe capable of conceiving at 
 all of such a style of incident or discourse ; or who, 
 had he conceived it, could have conveyed his con- 
 ception in a style so chaste, natural, calm, lucid, 
 pure ? Nothing like this narrative is contained in 
 
46 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 all the circle of fiction, and nothing equal to it in all 
 the circle of history ; and yet nothing is more per- 
 fectly consonant with the harmonies of nature. We 
 may listlessly peruse this page, each line of which 
 wakens a sympathy in every bosom which itself 
 responds to truth. But if we ponder it if we al- 
 low the mind to grasp the several objects, we are 
 vanquished by the conviction that all is real. But 
 if real, and if Christ be risen indeed, then is Chris- 
 tianity indeed A RELIGION OF FACTS ; and then are 
 we fully entitled to a bold affirmation, and urgent 
 use of whatever inferences may thence be fairly 
 deduced. 
 
 Acute minds will not be slow to discern, as in 
 perspective before them, the train of those infer- 
 ences which we shall feel ourselves at liberty to 
 deduce from the admission that Christianity is his- 
 torically true. This admission cannot, we are 
 sure, be withheld ; and yet let it not be made with 
 a reserved intention to evade the consequences. 
 What are they ? They are such as embrace the 
 personal well-being of every one ; for, if Christi- 
 anity be a history, it is a history still in full pro- 
 gress ; it is a history running on, far beyond the 
 dim horizon of human hopes and fears. 
 
 But it is said, all this, at the best, is moral evi- 
 dence only ; and those who are conversant with 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 47 
 
 mathematical demonstrations, and with the rigorous 
 methods of physical science, must not be required 
 to yield their convictions easily to mere moral evi- 
 dence. 
 
 We ask, have those who are accustomed thus to 
 speak, actually considered the import of their objec- 
 tion ; or inquired what are the consequences it in- 
 volves, if valid ? We believe not ; and we think so, 
 because the very terms are destitute of logical mean- 
 ing ; or imply, if a meaning be assigned to them, a 
 palpable absurdity. 
 
 If, for a moment, we grant an intelligible mean- 
 ing to the objection as stated, and consent to under- 
 stand the terms in which it is conveyed, as they are 
 often used, then we affirm That some portion of 
 even the abstract sciences is less certain than are 
 very many things established by what is called 
 moral evidence That a large amount of what is 
 accredited as probably true within the circle of the 
 physical and mixed sciences is immeasurably in- 
 ferior in certainty to much which rests upon moral 
 evidence : and further That so far from its being 
 reasonable to reject this species of evidence, the 
 mere circumstance of a man's being known to dis- 
 trust it in the conduct of his daily affairs, would be 
 held to justify, in his case, a commission of lunacy. 
 
 No supposition can be more inaccurate than that 
 which assumes the three kinds of proof, mathema- 
 
48 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 tical, physical, and moral, to range, one beneath 
 the other, in a regular gradation of certainty ; as 
 if the mathematical were in all cases absolute ; the 
 physical a degree lower, or, as to its results, in 
 some degree, and always, less certain than those of 
 the first ; and by consequence the third, being in- 
 ferior to the second, necessarily far inferior to the 
 first ; and therefore, always much less certain than 
 that which alone deserves to be spoken of as cer- 
 tain ; and in fact barely trustworthy in any case. 
 
 Any such distribution of the kinds of proof is 
 mere confusion ; illogical abstractedly, and involving 
 consequences, which, if acted upon, would appear 
 ridiculously absurd. 
 
 It is indeed true, that the three great classes of 
 facts the universal, or absolute (mathematical 
 and metaphysical) the general, or physical and the 
 individual (forensic and historical) are pursued and 
 ascertained by three corresponding methods or, 
 as they might be called three logics. But it is far 
 from being true that the three species of reasoning 
 hold an exclusive authority, or sole jurisdiction, 
 over the three classes of facts above mentioned. 
 Throughout the physical sciences, the mathemati- 
 cal logic is perpetually resorted to ; while, even 
 within the range of the mathematical, the physical 
 is, once and again, brought in as an aid. But if we 
 turn to the historical and forensic department of 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 49 
 
 facts, the three methods are so blended in the esta- 
 blishment of them, that, to separate them altogether 
 is impracticable ; and as to moral evidence, if we 
 use the phrase in any intelligible sense, it does but 
 give its aid, at times, on this ground ; and even then 
 the conclusions to which it leads rest upon induc- 
 tions which are physical, rather than moral. 
 
 The conduct of a complicated historical, or fo- 
 rensic argument concerning individual facts, re- 
 sembles the manipulations of an adroit workman, 
 who, having some nice operation in progress, lays 
 down one tool, and snatches up another, and then 
 another, according to the momentary exigencies of 
 his task. 
 
 That sort of evidence may properly be called 
 moral, which appeals to the moral sense, and in 
 assenting to which, as we often do with an irresis- 
 tible conviction, we are unable, with any precision, 
 to convey to another mind the grounds of our firm 
 belief. It is thus, often, that we estimate the vera- 
 city of a witness, or judge of the reality or spurious- 
 ness of a written narrative. But then even this 
 sort of evidence, when nicely analyzed, resolves it- 
 self into physical principles. What are these con- 
 victions, which we find it impossible to clothe in 
 words, but the results, in our minds, of slow, in- 
 voluntary inductions concerning moral qualities, and 
 which, inasmuch as they are peculiarly exact, are 
 5 
 
50 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 not to be transfused into a medium so vague and 
 faulty as is language, at the best. 
 
 As to the mass of history, by far the larger por- 
 tion of it rests, in no proper sense, upon moral 
 evidence. To a portion the mathematical doctrine 
 of probabilities applies ; for it may be as a million 
 to one, that an alleged fact, under all the circum- 
 stances, is true. But the proof of the larger portion 
 resolves itself into our knowledge of the laws of the 
 material world, and of those of the world of mind . 
 A portion also is conclusively established by a mi- 
 nute scrutiny of its agreement with that intricate 
 combination of small events which makes up the 
 course of human affairs. 
 
 Every real transaction, especially those which 
 flow on through a course of time, touches this web- 
 work of small events at many points, and is woven 
 into its very substance. Fiction may indeed paint 
 its personages so as for a moment to deceive the 
 eye ; but it has never succeeded in the attempt to 
 foist its factitious embroideries upon the tapestry of 
 truth. 
 
 We might take as an instance, that irresistible 
 book in which Paley has established the truth of 
 the personal history of St. Paul.* It is throughout 
 a tracing of the thousand fibres by which a long 
 
 * The " Horee Paulinae." 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 51 
 
 series of events connects itself with the warp and 
 woof of human affairs. To apply to evidence of 
 this sort, the besom of scepticism, and sweepingly 
 to remove it as consisting only in moral evidence, 
 is an amazing instance of confusion of mind. 
 
 It is often loosely affirmed that history rests 
 mainly upon moral evidence. Is then a Roman 
 camp moral evidence ? Or is a Roman road moral 
 evidence ? Or are these and many other facts, when 
 appealed to as proof of the assertion that, in a re- 
 mote age, the Romans held military occupation of 
 Britain, moral evidence ? If they be, then we affirm 
 that, when complete in its kind, it falls not a whit 
 behind mathematical demonstration, as to its cer- 
 tainty.* 
 
 Although it is not true that Christianity rests 
 mainly upon moral evidence, yet it is true, that it 
 might rest on that ground with perfect security. 
 
 It is to this species of evidence that we have now 
 appealed ; not as establishing the heavenly origin 
 of Christianity which it does establish"; but simply 
 as it attests the historic reality of the person of 
 Christ. And here we must ask an ingenuous con- 
 fession from whoever may be bound in foro con- 
 
 * Some instances, intended to place this important point 
 in a clear light, will be found in a note appended to the Lec- 
 tures. 
 
52 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 scientia to give it, that the notion of Christianity, 
 and the habitual feelings toward it of many in this 
 Christian country, are such as if, brought to the 
 test of severe reasoning, could by no ingenuity be 
 made to consist, either with the supposition that 
 Christianity is historically false, or that it is his- 
 torically true ! This ambiguous faith of the cul- 
 tured, less reasonable than the superstitions of the 
 vulgar (for they are consistent, which this is not) 
 could never hold a place in a disciplined mind but 
 by an act, repeated from day to day, and similar to 
 that of a man who should refuse to have the shut- 
 ters removed from the windows on that side of his 
 house whence he might descry the residence of his 
 enemy. 
 
 If Christianity be historically true, it must be 
 granted to demand more than a respectful acknow- 
 ledgment that its system of ethics is pure ; or, were 
 it historically false, we ought to think ourselves to 
 be outraging at once virtue and reason in allowing 
 its name to pass our lips. While bowing to Chris- 
 tianity as good, and useful ; and yet not invested 
 with authority toward ourselves, we are entangled 
 in a web of inconsistencies, of which we are not 
 conscious, only because we choose to make no 
 effort to break through it. If Christianity be true, 
 then is it true that "We must all appear before 
 the judgment-seat of Christ ;" and must, " every one 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 53" 
 
 of us, give an account of himself to God." What 
 meaning do such words convey to the minds of 
 those who, with an equal alarm, would see Chris- 
 tianity overthrown as a controlling power in the 
 social system ; or find it brought home to them- 
 selves, as an authority they must personally bow 
 to ? Christians ! how many amongst us are Chris- 
 tians, as men might be called philosophers, who, 
 while naming Newton always with admiration, 
 should yet reserve their interior assent for the very 
 paganism of astronomy. 
 
 A religion of facts, we need hardly observe, is 
 the only sort of religion adapted powerfully to affect 
 the hearts of the mass of mankind ; for ordinary or 
 uncultured minds can neither grasp, nor will care 
 for, abstractions of any kind. But then that which 
 makes Christianity proper for the many, and indeed 
 proper for all, if motives are to be effectively sway- 
 ed, renders it a rock of offence to the few who will 
 admit nothing that may not be reduced within the 
 circle of their favoured generalizations. Such minds,, 
 therefore, reject Christianity, or hold it in abeyance, 
 not because they can disprove it, but because it will 
 not be generalized, because it will not be sublima- 
 ted, because it will not be touched by the tool of 
 reason : because it must remain what it is an in- 
 soluble mass of Facts. In attempting to urge con- 
 sistency upon such persons, the advocate of Chris- 
 
54 Otf SPIRIT UAL 
 
 lianity makes no progress, and has to return, ever 
 and again, to his document, and to ask Is this true, 
 or false ? if true, your metaphysics may be true 
 also ; but yet must not give law to your opinions ; 
 much less govern your conduct. 
 
 Resolute as may be the determination of some to 
 yield to no such control, nevertheless, if the evan- 
 gelic history be true, " one is our Master, even 
 Christ ;" He is our Master in abstract speculation 
 our Master in religious belief our Master in 
 morals, and in the ordering of every day's affairs. 
 
 It will readily be admitted that this our first 
 position, if it be firm, sweeps away, at a stroke, a 
 hundred systems of religion, ancient and modern, 
 which either have not professed to rest upon historic 
 truth, or which have notoriously failed in making 
 good any such pretension. These various schemes 
 need not be named ; they barely merit an enu- 
 meration : they are susceptible of no distinct refu- 
 tation ; for they are baseless, powerless, obsolete. 
 
 Say you that Christianity is intolerant in thus 
 excluding all other systems ? But must it not be 
 exclusive of every other, if it be true ? Let us have 
 a religion, willing to walk abreast with other reli- 
 gions religions affirming what it denies, and de- 
 nying what it affirms, when we admit mathemati- 
 cal or physical sciences, equally indulgent towards 
 what must be purely absurd, if themselves are not 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 55 
 
 so ! Yet an exclusive religion is not therefore an 
 intolerent one. An intolerant religion, is 
 
 gion of a sect and of a sect in fear, j^&fc 
 
 v 'r 
 
 II. 
 
 Our second proposition, chiming assent, if the 
 first be admitted, is, 
 
 THAT CHRISTIANITY is A RELIGION OF FACTS 
 
 WITH WHICH ALL MEN, WITHOUT EXCEPTION AND 
 WITHOUT DISTINCTION, AND IN AN EQUAL DEGREE, 
 ARE PERSONALLY CONCERNED, 
 
 The very opposite characteristic has attached to 
 every scheme of natural religion, as well as to 
 every corruption of Christianity, from the first cen- 
 tury onward ; and it is to be especially noted that, 
 just in proportion as such systems, whether pagan 
 or nominally Christian, have worn an aspect of ele- 
 vation, and have been fraught with moral energy, 
 or a power to control the passions, they have, with 
 so much the more arrogance, insisted upon, or ta- 
 citly assumed the rule of spiritual caste ; and have 
 laboured to effect a distribution of men into classes 
 patrician, or plebeian ; spiritual, or natural, by 
 the destination of nature. 
 
 But Christianity is therefore a Spiritual religion^ 
 and it moves the human heart from its depths, and 
 
56 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 confers a substantial dignity upon man, because it 
 attaches a sovereign importance to those elements 
 of our moral constitution in respect of which the 
 natural or the artificial distinctions that subsist be- 
 tween man and man, be they what they may, must 
 always seem trivial. Christianity addresses men, 
 only or chiefly as they stand related to God ; and in 
 the presence of the Infinite, of what account are 
 the differences of the finite ? 
 
 This characteristic of Christianity that it pro- 
 pounds truth to all, and demands to be considered, 
 examined and accepted by men individually, is 
 more peculiar than we, in modern times, can easi- 
 ly imagine ; for this great principle, given to the 
 world by the Gospel, has now so diffused itself 
 through the atmosphere of the world of mind, that 
 we breathe it unconsciously. But never, until it 
 was proclaimed by the Apostles, had it been sur- 
 mised, either by Greek or Jew, that Truth, sacred 
 Truth, the brightest daughter of the skies, might 
 be vulgarized, and offered to the acceptance of the 
 mass of mankind. 
 
 In the ancient world, Truth, whether theological 
 or physical, was, like the costly perfumes of the 
 East, an exquisite luxury, which should be found 
 only within marble palaces. But in the modern 
 world, and this vast change is attributable mainly to 
 the spread of Christianity, truth lias become, like 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 57 
 
 the very breezes of heaven, common property, and 
 is everywhere sweet, salutary, free ; and enjoyed 
 with equal zest in the cottage and the palace. 
 
 By no means so strange to the ear of the ancient 
 world was the doctrine of the future life, and of the 
 resurrection of the body, as was this doctrine, That 
 Truth is every man's concernment, every man's 
 right, and every man's most necessary possession. 
 The apostolic voice, sounding throughout the an- 
 cient world, and calling upon " all men everywhere 
 to repent, and to believe the Gospel," besides its 
 direct religious import, carried an inevitable, though 
 latent inference, which has effected the greatest of 
 all the revolutions that have marked the intellectual 
 condition of mankind. This challenge to repent 
 and to believe, awakened in every bosom a sense 
 of responsibility, altogether new ; putting as it did 
 every human being in a position of direct relation- 
 ship to God the Judge of all ; and fixing in the 
 minds of all a deep conviction that the difference 
 between truth and error, is of infinite consequence 
 to men, individually. 
 
 The promulgation of this Christian principle gave 
 a death-blow, on the one hand, to despotism, both 
 spiritual and civil ; and on the other to sophistry, 
 whether philosophic or religious. For if every 
 man be obliged, as he will answer it to God, to pos- 
 sess himself of truth, he must be free ; free not 
 
58 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 only to think, but to speak ; free to move ; free 
 to go in quest of truth ; free to bring it home ; 
 free to confer with his fellows concerning it ; and 
 free to impart what he has acquired. 
 
 Again ; if truth be for all, and if it be indispensa- 
 ble to each, it must break itself away from the 
 erudite frivolities of schools ; and will soon come to 
 be discussed among those who neither could use, 
 nor would endure, the astute methods of a factitious 
 logic. 
 
 It is well known how early, and with what dili- 
 gence, and with what variety of devices, those who 
 had usurped the direction of the human mind, la- 
 boured to put out this candle, and to deny truth 
 to all men. These endeavours actually triumphed. 
 First, the pernicious " discipline of the secret," then 
 Christianized Gnosticism, then Asceticism, then 
 Hierarchical ambition, sealed the Gospel, in their 
 turns ; or, we might say, clothed the Sun in sack- 
 cloth.* 
 
 The Lutheran reformation broke in upon this 
 mystery of pride, making a new proclamation of 
 the apostolic doctrine, that the Gospel, as a system 
 of momentous facts, is addressed to man as man, 
 and that it concerns all mfcn without distinction. 
 Whatever incidental disorders may have attended 
 
 * Some illustrations of these several affirmations will be 
 found in a Supplemental Note. 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 59 
 
 the new promulgation of this animating principle, 
 itself is not chargeable with any such irregularities ; 
 for to affirm that every man should take heed that 
 he knows what is essential to his salvation, surely 
 implies no disparagement of the legitimate means of 
 conveying truth from those who know more, to those 
 who know less. On this ground, our choice is not 
 between peace and ignorance, on the one side ; and 
 knowledge and license on the other ; but between 
 the disorders of ignorance tending always toward 
 anarchy ; and the disorders of knowledge, tending 
 always toward a more settled adjustment of ele- 
 ments. 
 
 It is evident that, if two religious systems be 
 compared, of which the one addresses itself to a 
 few, on the ground of certain natural advantages, or 
 of some artificial prerogative ; while the other ad- 
 dresses all, on ground common to all ; the latter 
 must bear, with the greater stress, upon the con- 
 science, because it descends deeper into human na- 
 ture, and has to do with motives of a wider grasp. 
 Christianity is, for this very reason, a spiritual re- 
 ligion that is to say, it is a power touching every 
 principle of our nature, and working from the very 
 depths of our hearts, because it heeds no distinctions 
 among those who are heirs in common of immor- 
 tality, are amenable in common to eternal justice, 
 
60 ON SPIRIT UAL 
 
 and are redeemed, one and all, by the precious 
 blood of the same Saviour. 
 
 Within the Christian system, if a few do, in fact, 
 reach an eminence not attained by the many, it is 
 only by allowing a fuller operation to motives which 
 all might properly admit in the very same degree. 
 
 " Go ye into all the world," said the Lord to his 
 ministers " Go ye into all the world, and preach 
 the Gospel to every creature." Now, the highest 
 conception we can form of Spiritual Christianity, 
 as embodied in the habits, motives, and conduct of 
 men, embraces absolutely nothing beyond what 
 must come to be the ordinary feeling of Christians, 
 when this commission shall have been completed, 
 and when, to " Christ, every knee shall have bow- 
 ed, every tongue have made confession ! " Nor in- 
 deed should it be thought possible, that a religion 
 destined to be universal, can exhibit the harmony of 
 its energies in any single instance, until it has be- 
 come so : it is abroad that the power of the sum- 
 mer's sun is felt ; not in the pencils of light that 
 enter a darkened chamber. 
 
 We have professed that we shall ask nothing on 
 behalf of spiritual religion which does not neces- 
 sarily flow from the admission, that Christianity is 
 historically true ; but if true, then the commission 
 which we have cited to preach the Gospel to every 
 creature, is not merely a command to promulgate 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 61 
 
 saving truth, but an implicit command also, ad- 
 dressed to every creature, to receive it. And let it 
 be considered that the fact of coming within the 
 range of this proclamation can be regarded as an 
 indifferent circumstance, only on the supposition 
 that the proclamation itself has not issued from a 
 Sovereign Power. What may be the future des- 
 tiny of the millions of the human family upon 
 whose ear this sound has never fallen, it were worse 
 than idle to conjecture. Be it what it may, it must 
 differ, in a forensic sense, from that of those who 
 have heard it. An instantaneous change in a man's 
 forensic position, or in his personal relationship to 
 government, is a circumstance not unusual in civil 
 affairs ; and more than a few passages of the New 
 Testament support the inference that it holds in 
 the administration of heaven, and that the mere fact 
 of having been formally challenged by heaven to 
 repent, draws with it consequences as endless as 
 immortality. 
 
 III. 
 
 We thus reach our THIRD PROPOSITION, which 
 is this,THAT CHRISTIANITY, AS A RELIGION OF FACTS, 
 INDUCES A NEW RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MAN AND 
 HIS MAKER. 
 
 A vindictive power, sure of its purpose, gives no 
 notice of its approach. But if an absolute Sovereign 
 6 
 
62 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 encounters the guilty on his path, before the day of 
 trial, and challenges his submission, a purpose of 
 grace may fairly be inferred from such an act of 
 condescension. This condescension however to- 
 ward the guilty, does not leave him on the ground 
 he previously occupied ; for disobedience thence- 
 forward takes the character of contumacy ; and 
 continued resistance may then be construed as trea- 
 son. The Gospel, even rejected, has therefore 
 induced a new and a permanent relationship between 
 man and his Creator. 
 
 But how new and intimate is that relationship 
 which it induces when the offered reconciliation is 
 accepted ! 
 
 It may be well to measure the vastness of the 
 interval which has been passed over, when such a 
 relationship commences. 
 
 Among the many instances in which truth has 
 been, as we might say, furtively obtained from 
 Christianity, and made to grace systems not en- 
 titled to the credit they confer, is this of the paternal 
 relationship assumed to exist between man and his 
 Creator. 
 
 On the ground of natural, or as we should say, 
 Abstract Theology, the bold assumption of this re- 
 lationship can by no means be made good, in a 
 satisfactory manner ; unless indeed we assign a 
 very vague sense to the phrase, and intend nothing 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 63 
 
 more by it than a wide benevolence, altogether re- 
 gardless of individual welfare ; and which is to be 
 traced no further than appears in the beneficent 
 operation of general laws. But surely the paternal 
 relationship involves much more than this ! 
 
 And let it be considered how vapid and cold, at 
 the very best, are any sentiments of devotion which 
 rest strictly on the ground of abstract theology. 
 Grant it, that the human mind, and especially as 
 aided by the discoveries of modern science, does 
 hold a sort of communion with the Infinite Mind. 
 Man, with the mechanical aids of modern science 
 in his hand, stands on his turret of observation, mid- 
 way in the field of the universe an intelligent 
 spectator of the movements of infinite wisdom and 
 power; for it is true that the procedures of the 
 infinite mind, are, to the finite mind, of an intelli- 
 gible quality. Fitness, that is to say, the adaptation 
 of means to an end, is the ground of this intellectual 
 correspondence between man and the Creator of 
 the world. Yet this correspondence does not merit 
 to be designated as a communion ; for it has no re- 
 turn. We gaze with delight upon the wonders of 
 the universe ; and once and again, perhaps, admira- 
 tion bursts aloud from our lips. We hail the Parent 
 of all : we invoke the ever-present Power, and we 
 offer him our homage. But the feeble sounds of 
 praise are lost in the vault of heaven ! there is none 
 
64 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 to answer us ; there is none to accept the language 
 of our hearts ! MIND indeed is before us ; and an 
 infinite energy of intelligence is in movement in our 
 view ; but then this Energy works its work, heed- 
 ing us not. It is seen upholding systems incalcu- 
 lably remote ; and again it takes its circuit near 
 to the very ground on which we stand ; and we 
 trace, with our microscope, the infinite Power, at 
 work in the herbage beneath our feet. But toward 
 us this Power this Intelligence this Goodness, 
 is ever silent. Although, by abstract reasoning, we 
 may have convinced ourselves that the creative 
 power must be at every moment, and everywhere 
 in operation, yet, so far as appears, or if we consult 
 only our instinctive impressions, we might believe 
 the vast frame-work of nature to be the forgot- 
 ten product of a Power which long ago had taken 
 its departure from its finished mechanism, and 
 which will never return ; and is now occupied on 
 some field of exercise immensely remote ! 
 
 A mournful sense of the want of reciprocity be- 
 longs to those emotions with which, when untaught 
 by revelation, Man contemplates the order and 
 beauty of the universe. Nor is this the whole of 
 our disadvantage, in a religious view ; for, eager 
 and ratiocinative as is the human mind, it cannot 
 but happen that, in our contemplations of nature, 
 considered as the work of the Creator, the pre- 
 
CHRISTIANITY, 65 
 
 mises should engage more attention than the con- 
 clusion. And it is more and more so, in proportion 
 as science becomes less theoretic and more exact ; 
 less a matter of sentiment, and more of calculation ; 
 less a delight of our leisure, and more the arduous 
 occupation of our lives. What, in fact, is the the- 
 ology of natural philosophy, but a formal in- 
 ference, which courtesy demands to be noted on the 
 closing page of a treatise, and which we have post- 
 poned to that page, lest it should interrupt, even 
 for a moment, the eager course of our inquiries ? 
 
 In the hope of getting near to the Deity, on some 
 other path than that, either of philosophy, or of the 
 Christian revelation, the Mystic, patiently enduring 
 the hunger and thirst of the soul for divine refresh- 
 ments, goes on a pilgrimage over a sandy desert in 
 search of the temple of God, which he supposes 
 somewhere to be discoverable on earth, but which 
 he never finds. Mysticism, without the animation 
 of philosophy, and barren of its rational inferences, 
 gathers no vital warmth in its endless circuits of 
 meditation ; nor can it, any more than philosophy, 
 pretend to enjoy an affectionate communion with 
 the Infinite Mind. The Mystic sits in silent ex- 
 pectation, from day to day, from year to year, upon 
 the steps of the royal palace ; but never yet has 
 he exchanged a smile of recognition with the 
 Sovereign. 
 
66 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 How different is that communion of the heart 
 with God which Christianity opens before us ! The 
 Christian, looking on the right to philosophy, on the 
 left to mysticism ; looking on all sides in search 
 of any who may compete with him, says, with a 
 cordial animation, " Truly our communion is with 
 the Father." 
 
 Either we ourselves must have very cold pa- 
 rental feelings, or we allow ourselves a very im- 
 proper application of the word Father, to the su- 
 preme benevolence, when what we actually intend 
 by it is nothing more than that comprehensive good- 
 ness from which all creatures, in their several ranks, 
 draw their supplies ; and which is equally rich in 
 its bounty toward the conscious, and the uncon- 
 scious, toward the grateful, and the ungrateful ; 
 toward the pious, and toward the wicked. 
 
 What then is paternal love ? It is not the sim- 
 ple benevolence of a superior toward the dependent 
 beings who may sit at the same board. No, a 
 Father's love is a fondness for the persons indi- 
 vidually, and severally, of his family : it is peculiar, 
 it is indestructible, it is not diminished toward each, 
 in being shared by many ; it is whole and entire for 
 for each. It is a concentrated desire for the 
 well-being of each singly ; a desire carried for- 
 ward through all the details of family nurture and 
 provision. A Father's love grasps the object of its 
 love, nor quits its hold ; nor consents to substitute 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 67 
 
 one object of fondness for another. Nor merely so ; 
 for not content in securing the good of its object, 
 it looks for, nor can dispense with, a warm return 
 of the same personal fondness. Is a Father satisfied 
 in providing a fortune for his children, and in send- 
 ing them well abroad, just as a legal guardian 
 might do ? A Father must have a reciprocity of 
 love, or he is not happy. The heart of a Father 
 yearns to receive, every day, the undoubted ex- 
 pressions of filial affection. 
 
 Is then God our Father ? The Gospel declares 
 it, as a fundamental truth ; and in opening up, by 
 instances, the import of this declaration, it shows 
 that this language of sacred affection is to be under- 
 stood, not in a sense lowered and vague, as com- 
 pared with that which it bears in its ordinary ac- 
 ceptation ; but in a sense of incalculably greater 
 intensity and depth. 
 
 Genuine piety commences at the moment when 
 the love of our heavenly Father towards ourselves 
 individually, as his children, is distinctly recognised. 
 The earliest movements of the new life of the soul 
 take this very character. " As many as are led by 
 the Spirit of God," they are taught that they are 
 " the sons of God," and find that they have not 
 received " the spirit of bondage again, to fear ;" 
 but " the spirit of adoption," whereby they invoke 
 God as their Father. " The Spirit itself bearing 
 
68 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 witness with their spirits, that they are the children 
 of God." 
 
 It is this filial sentiment the peculiarity of Chris- 
 tian piety, which brightens the enjoyments of life, 
 even the most common of them, with a sense that, in 
 our obscure homes, we are sitting, from day to day, 
 at the board which our heavenly Father has spread. 
 It is this feeling which mitigates and sanctifies af- 
 fliction ; wherein, even when the sharpest, we dis- 
 cern a token of the truth that God is " dealing with 
 us as with sons," and is in fact preparing us for our 
 home. It is this same affection the distinct filial 
 sentiment, which dispels the terrors of death ; while 
 the Christian believes that the Father of spirits is 
 removing a member of his family from a less to a 
 more desirable abode. 
 
 If Christian principles be thoroughly admitted, 
 the Christian's home, even under these inclement 
 skies, differs but in circumstance from the mansion 
 preparing for him above. " If a man love me," 
 said Jesus to his disciples, " he will keep my words, 
 and my Father will love him, and we will come 
 unto him, and will make our abode with him." 
 
 The intimate and affectionate relationship opened 
 between the individual Christian and his heavenly 
 Father finds its field of exercise in two principles 
 very decisively pronounced in the inspired writings, 
 as well of the Old as of the New Testament : we 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 69 
 
 mean the doctrine of a particular providence, and 
 that of the proper efficacy of prayer, in relation to 
 the ordinary events of life. It is easy to see in 
 what manner a cordial belief of these principles 
 tends to give vivacity and intensity to the religious 
 affections ; for it is thus that the very same world 
 of cares, fears, hopes, which tends to obliterate the 
 moral sentiments of other men, becomes, to the 
 affectionate Christian, an efficacious discipline of 
 faith and love. 
 
 We have named as two, the doctrines of a par- 
 ticular providence, and of the efficacy of prayer, 
 though in fact they are only two expressions of one 
 great truth. Both are so explicitly taught in the 
 Old and New Testament, and both are so amply 
 confirmed by precept and example, and so much 
 of what is called Christian experience hinges upon 
 both, that the truth of Christianity itself may seem 
 to be staked upon the certainty of them ; nor can 
 it be doubted that, with many cultured minds, a 
 factitious difficulty believed to be fatal to both, has 
 had much influence in keeping alive a painful un- 
 certainty, or a reserved scepticism on the subject 
 of religion. For if it be thought absolutely impos- 
 sible to reconcile a belief in the efficacy of prayer, 
 either with the operation of general laws, or with 
 the dogma of necessity, or even with the Christian 
 doctrine of the divine foreknowledge and predesti- 
 
70 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 nation of events, how shall we believe Christianity 
 itself to be true ? 
 
 To hide from themselves the formidable front of 
 this difficulty, some, with amazing inconsideration, 
 and in violation of the clearest axioms of abstract 
 science, have taken refuge in the supposition of a 
 controlling providence in respect to great events, 
 and none in respect of small ; as if mountains might 
 be subject to one law of gravitation, and mole-hills 
 to another ; or as if it were possible to make good 
 any philosophical distinction between great events 
 and small ; or as if a great event were any thing 
 else than a congeries of small events, regarded as 
 one only in relation to certain consequences thence 
 resulting ! Or some will persuade themselves to 
 such confusions of thought are we liable, that the 
 divine providence comes in, at times, to avert the con- 
 sequences which must result from its own general 
 laws, were they left to take their customary course ! 
 What a conception is this -of infinite wisdom as 
 employed in the government of the world ! Should 
 we think well of a mechanist who, in any such 
 manner, should have to put his hand to his work ? 
 
 On the other hand there are those who, coolly 
 regarding the notion of a particular providence, and 
 of the efficacy of prayer, as illusions, or vulgar 
 prejudices, and yet finding it impossible to rid them- 
 selves, as professed Christians, of the duty of prayer, 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 71 
 
 resort to a supposition, equally vapid and prepos- 
 terous, That the sole efficacy, or reason of prayer, 
 turns upon its reflex, or secondary influence upon 
 the mind of the worshipper, as an expression of the 
 devout affections. As if reasonable men might be 
 persuaded to continue, with sincere earnestness, 
 any exercise whatever, which was well understood 
 to be destitute of all direct utility ! A notion such 
 as this resembles the supposition that we might 
 continue to enjoy the accommodation of moonlight, 
 even if the sun were blotted from the planetary 
 system ! A reflective influence may indeed be of 
 very high importance ; but it must suppose always 
 the reality of a direct influence. 
 
 In thus venturing to speak of the difficulties 
 attaching to these doctrines as factitious, we are 
 not chargeable with the presumption of undertaking 
 to make intelligible the intricate movements of the 
 moral universe. It is not indeed given to man to 
 penetrate these ; yet it is always within his power, 
 and therefore it is his duty, to dispel any confusion 
 that may belong to his modes of thinking, by a 
 stricter analysis of the notions over which he has 
 a perfect command. We do not hesitate to affirm 
 then, that, whatever seeming difficulty besets our 
 Christian faith, on this ground, it is easily removable 
 by the methods of analysis, as applied to abstract 
 thought. 
 
72 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 To enter upon any such analysis, on the present 
 occasion, were out of place. Nevertheless, on the 
 ground of a careful consideration of the subject, we 
 must profess to believe the doctrine of a particular 
 providence, and of the proper efficacy of prayer 
 inseparably connected as they are with the fer- 
 vour of Christian piety, to be liable to no solid 
 objection. 
 
 It is amid the vivid alternations of joy and sorrow, 
 and under what may be called the homely discipline 
 of the Christian's daily course, and as animated by 
 the belief of the truths to which we have just 
 alluded, that the devout affections are cherished, 
 and are rendered at once keen and profound ; while, 
 by the very admixture of ingredients drawn from 
 the passing interests of earth, extravagance is 
 excluded, and a simple practical air is given to the 
 religious life. 
 
 It will not be forgotten that the intimate filial 
 relationship which the Christian scheme establishes 
 between man and his Maker, results from, and is 
 inseparably connected with the mediation of Christ. 
 Being " reconciled through him, we have access unto 
 the Father ; " and a fixed principle is it, rendered 
 unalterable, at once by the Divine sanctity, and the 
 polluted condition of man, that " no man cometh 
 unto the Father" none can claim the privileges of 
 sonship, but "by the Son" through his interces- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 73 
 
 sion, and as the consequence of his propitiatory 
 death. 
 
 This great truth, adverted to in this place, lest 
 we should seem forgetful of what is so peculiarly 
 a Christian doctrine, will demand to be considered 
 more distinctly hereafter. At present we have to 
 do with the fact merely, and to which we direct 
 especial attention, constituting as it does one of the 
 most marked of the visible characteristics of Chris- 
 tianity and one which removes to a wide distance 
 every other system of religion, whether claiming 
 to be Christian, or not. 
 
 It is remarkable that our Lord, while abstaining 
 from a distinct enunciation of that scheme of re- 
 demption which, before his death and resurrection, 
 remained incomplete ; yet invariably, when ad- 
 dressing his sincere followers, encouraged them to 
 look with affectionate confidence to " his Father, 
 and their Father ;" and when interpreting his own 
 language, in this behalf, by apologues, he left them 
 no room to doubt that they were to believe them- 
 selves individually the objects of the Divine care 
 and love. 
 
 Previously therefore to any inquiry as to the 
 
 Truths peculiar to Christianity, this intimate and 
 
 affectionate relationship established between man 
 
 and his Maker, as reconciled through Christ, pre- 
 
 7 
 
74 -ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 sents itself to our notice, and should be regarded 
 as a prominent feature of the Christian system. 
 
 Will it be said that our Lord, or his Apostles, 
 give encouragement, in any way, to an unhallowed 
 familiarity in our approaches to God ; or that the 
 reverence due to the infinite Majesty is infringed 
 by them ? Certainly not. The contrary is most 
 evident. We see then that, according to the IDEA 
 of the Christian system, the deepest reverence is 
 still compatible with an affectionate and filial con- 
 fidence, involving the belief that the individual 
 Christian is the object of a paternal regard. 
 
 On what scheme this adjustment of reverence 
 and affection may be accomplished, is an after 
 question. We now merely state the fact, and 
 appeal to it as a most striking proof, at once of the 
 spirituality, and of the benign tendency of the 
 Gospel, and of its immeasurable superiority to 
 every other religious system, whether contemplative 
 or superstitious. 
 
 Within the entire range of antiquity we meet 
 with absolutely nothing that approaches this charac- 
 teristic Christian feeling ; except indeed what we 
 find in the Old Testament, and especially the 
 Psalms. And as to the several perversions of 
 Christianity, from the first century to the present 
 time, they stand condemned, one and all, by this 
 very test, if by no other. 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 75 
 
 So far as such systems have leaned toward intel- 
 lectuality and abstraction, they have in the same 
 degree excluded the warmth and simplicity of 
 Christian piety. While such as have been marked 
 by a tendency to superstition, have, as uniformly, 
 and as completely, removed the worshipper to a 
 distance, where dread and anxiety must prevail 
 over every happier sentiment. Or if, under any 
 such systems, the fanatic has broken through these 
 restraints, he has drawn near to the throne not with 
 calm filial affection, but with the effrontery of an 
 evil spirit. 
 
 Let this one test be applied to that scheme of 
 pietism which, in imitation of the style of antiquity, 
 is at this moment, and with so much diligence and 
 success, propagated around us. This restored su- 
 perstition is in part poetic and imaginative ; in part 
 it is ritual and servile. That is to say according 
 to the constitution of minds, it is either a mild and 
 picturesque enthusiasm, or a stern and severe fana- 
 ticism ; both meeting within the same ritual forms, 
 and worshipping beneath the same roof. 
 
 Now, as to the first of these species of pietism, it 
 is a principle of human nature, well understood, that 
 the genuine workings of the heart are in no manner 
 more effectively repressed and excluded than when 
 they become transmuted into the illusive form of a 
 poetic enthusiasm. What is general benevolence 
 
76 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 what is friendship what is filial love, when they 
 slide off into romantic sentiment ? nothing better 
 are they than shining exhalations false and cold ! 
 Attractive as may be this imaginative guise of piety, 
 it is not the piety it is not the filial love of the 
 Christian system ; and where the one is cherished 
 the other disappears. 
 
 As to the stern, or fanatical species of supersti- 
 tious piety that of the emaciated devotee, we need 
 hardly say that, as well the theological notions 
 whence it takes its rise, as the temper it generates, 
 are equally incompatible with the principles and 
 with the spirit of that life-giving piety which our 
 Lord's discourses tend to cherish. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We have said That Christianity is a religion 
 not of notions, but of Facts : That in these facts 
 all men have the same, and the deepest concern- 
 ment, and, That a cordial admission of them as 
 true, induces a new and intimate relationship be- 
 tween man and his Maker. We have then to 
 assume our ultimate position, in thus considering 
 the exterior characteristics of the Christian scheme ; 
 and it is this 
 
 THAT THE FACTS OF CHRISTIANITY, WHEN AD- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 77 
 
 MITTED AS TRUE, ARE OF A KIND TO EXCITE, AND 
 TO MAINTAIN IN ACTIVITY, THE WARMEST AND THE 
 MOST PROFOUND EMOTIONS OF WHICH MEN ARE SUS- 
 CEPTIBLE, ACCORDING TO THE INDIVIDUAL CONSTI- 
 TUTION OF THEIR MINDS. 
 
 A vastly higher amount of religious feeling than 
 that which ordinarily entitles a man, by the world's 
 courtesy, to the designation of an enthusiast, may 
 yet be rigorously defended, as still falling short of 
 what the nature of the case would justify. He is 
 an enthusiast, surely not who feels strongly on an 
 occasion which would justify feelings much more 
 intense ; but he whose emotions, whether more or 
 less acute, are spurious ; that is to say, are not of 
 the quality which the occasion demands ; and 
 whose sentiments want heart, truth, proportion. A 
 man is no enthusiast who, with an intensity of min- 
 gled love and fear, rushes forward to rescue a wife 
 and children from imminent peril. But we hold in 
 contempt one who, at such a moment, should think 
 to act the hero, and save his family with clat. 
 We blame him, not for feeling too much ; but for 
 feeling too little ; and this is indeed always the 
 fault of the enthusiast, and of the fanatic too ; and 
 even when his spurious passions mount to the high- 
 est pitch. 
 
 The wild extravagance of the enthusiast, or of 
 the fanatic, and the torpor of the formalist, althougk 
 7* 
 
78 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 to the eye they may range as extremes, are, in 
 truth, only varieties of the same lethargy of the 
 moral faculties. Let the enthusiast and the formal- 
 ist be both awakened to a cordial belief of the facts 
 of Christianity, and the difference between the two 
 will almost disappear. 
 
 But now, the objects of religious belief the facts 
 of Christianity, being in themselves of boundless 
 range, and our personal concernment with them 
 being of incalculable moment, whither, it may be 
 asked, shall we be carried, if, with such impulses 
 around us, we fully surrender ourselves to their 
 influence ? " After all," says the objector, " is not 
 Christianity a religion of sobriety and reason?" 
 Assuredly it is so, and it is so because its seat is in 
 the moral faculties, which are never profoundly 
 moved, but when they are moved tranquilly. The 
 characteristic of the affections is depth, not visible 
 agitation. 
 
 It is on this very ground that Christianity tri- 
 umphs, as compared with every other religious sys- 
 tem, ancient or modern, which has powerfully 
 affected the human mind. These systems, so far 
 as they have been powerful, at all, have been reli- 
 gions of agitation. Christianity, on the contrary, 
 so far as it is effectual for its own purposes, is a 
 religion of affection and habit, not of passionate 
 commotion. Every powerful religion, Christianity 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 79 
 
 excepted, has been either wild or sullen : and the 
 same is true of every corruption of Christianity 
 itself, in all the wide circuit of delusions, commen- 
 cing with the ascetic frenzy, and ending in the base 
 superstition of the middle ages. If asceticism be 
 tranquil, it is tranquil by apathy : if superstition be 
 tranquil, it is tranquil by the constraint of dread ; 
 but Christianity is at once tranquil and happy. If 
 enthusiasm have its ecstasies,, it is only joyous, so 
 far as it is also unsound. 
 
 The very characteristic of a genuine warmth of 
 affection, is, that it is so calm, as to be liable to the 
 control of reason. Unreasonable affection, or a 
 doating fondness, is just so much the less constant 
 and profound, as it is less under command. To 
 feel intensely to feel keenly to feel with so sove- 
 reign a force of emotion, as may carry a man through 
 any labours or sacrifices, for the sake of one be- 
 loved, is only another description of moral serenity. 
 This even balance of the mind, means nothing less 
 than a balance of great forces. We are not used 
 to speak of the equilibrium of a straw ; but we do 
 speak of that of the engine-beam which vibrates 
 silently, with a sort of omnipotence. 
 
 Single out an instance of a heart susceptible^ 
 more than others, of a tender and self-renouncing 
 affection. Does not that chosen heart one of a 
 thousaad, float in the midst of a tranquil tempera- 
 
80 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 ment ? Is not the beauty of an unruffled surface 
 its characteristic grace, and its very symbol ? What, 
 in truth, is love, but the equipoise of the moral and 
 intellectual faculties ? and the emotions are then 
 the most intense, when every faculty, moral and 
 intellectual, has found its place of rest around that 
 centre. 
 
 Christianity for this very reason, is a religion of 
 sobriety, and a religion of self-control, because it 
 is a religion of LOVE, intense, and deep. 
 
 " Why," it is often petulantly asked "Why, if 
 the issues of the present life are of infinite extent, 
 why are we so much restricted in our knowledge of 
 the future world ? Why is it only a vague report 
 of the awful futurity that reaches the ear of man ? 
 Why is not the curtain of the invisible world some- 
 times lifted?" We do not undertake to furnish 
 what might be the most direct reply to such a ques- 
 tion ; but we may, with confidence, give a reply, 
 which we hold to be sufficient. 
 
 If the present life be indeed a season of moral 
 discipline, and an exercise of those affections which 
 are, in their nature, of a tranquil order, then un- 
 doubtedly must the mind be screened, during the 
 season of this exercise, from the impulse of im- 
 pressions which would at once overwhelm them. 
 You say, " Let me see the invisible ; lift the cur- 
 tain of the grave." But would you risk the con- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 81 
 
 sequences of such a discovery, even as it might 
 affect the physical structure of the mind ? Cer- 
 tainly the discipline of the heart, after such a reve- 
 lation, would not be what now it is. By the mere 
 guidance of our moral sentiments our habitual 
 emotions, we are to make our choice, on trying oc- 
 casions, between virtue and vice ;, but this choice 
 would obey another and a very different law, if we 
 had actually seen the one in its native condition 
 eternally wedded to happiness ; and the other in 
 the grasp of misery. 
 
 If it be said, that the having heard a vague report 
 of things future does not supply motives strong 
 enough to fortify the frailty of human nature, ex- 
 posed as it is to cruel temptations ; we fully grant 
 it :. truly it is not a listless hearing of these things, 
 or a vague belief of them, that will give effect to 
 Christianity. What we have spoken of is a cordial 
 belief of the Christian verities ; and such a belief 
 is not to be expected to come in upon the mind 
 unsought for, and undesired. 
 
 Christianity professes to be a preparation for 
 heaven. What then is heaven ? or what must we 
 suppose to be the conditions of a permanent and 
 ultimate felicity intended for beings constituted like 
 ourselves, and moreover, " far gone, as we are> 
 from original righteousness ?" 
 
 In offering a reply to this, question, we shall not 
 
82 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 advance a step on the ground of mere conjecture ; 
 but shall confine ourselves to that which lies clearly 
 within the range of reasonable, nay, of inevitable 
 anticipations. 
 
 We ask then, first, are there to be sensitive plea- 
 sures, in a future state secondary enjoyments, 
 analogous to the pleasures of sense in the present 
 state ? Let it for a moment be granted that there 
 may be such ; yet it is certain that, if heaven be a 
 world of progressive or upward-tending virtue, the 
 bent of all minds must be toward enjoyments of a 
 higher class than these : for a tendency downwards, 
 or only an inert disposition to rest on the level of 
 sensitive pleasure, can be nothing but sensuality, 
 whether found on earth or in heaven. 
 
 In heaven, that is in a world of permanent and 
 progressive happiness, if there be at once higher 
 and lower sources of enjoyment, the higher must 
 always be held in chief esteem ; and there must be 
 a tendency toward them in all who themselves are 
 to be permanently and progressively happy. 
 
 But now, shall we further imagine heaven to 
 draw a portion of its delights from the purer sources 
 of intellectual occupation the pleasures of reason, 
 in the acquisition, and communication of knowl- 
 edge 1 If so, then sensitive pleasure must subside 
 to a lower level ; for if not, the inferior would be 
 chosen in the presence of what is confessedly bet- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 83 
 
 ter ; and such a choice is not merely unwise, but 
 essentially vicious. 
 
 Man however is formed for action, still more than 
 either for passive enjoyment, or for mere contem- 
 plation. He is so constituted that the sense of 
 enjoyment arising from the exercise of the active 
 faculties is of a far more vivid and commanding 
 sort than even the choicest pleasures of intellect. 
 Let but a high field of action be opened before 
 human minds, and towards it will rush the major- 
 ity ; if not all. Are great things doing ? the 
 frivolous leave their amusements Elysian leisure 
 is broken up ; and even philosophers leave the 
 stars to roll on while they come to take a part in, 
 or to witness great actions. The supremacy of the 
 active and moral faculties is attested by this tenden- 
 cy to forget and abandon every other kind of 
 enjoyment, when great enterprises are in progress. 
 
 And yet it is not action, merely ; but action, 
 prompted by lofty motives, and tending toward 
 vast results, affecting the well-being of multitudes, 
 that sways the human mind, in a sovereign manner, 
 and draws all toward one centre, as to a vortex. 
 
 But now what idea have we been used to enter- 
 tain of a future state 1 If we exclude the terrific 
 supposition of a world of anarchy the chaos of 
 discordant wills if we think of heaven as a world 
 of happiness, and therefore of absolute order, yet 
 
84 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 of high activity, it must be, not merely a sphere of 
 vast movements, and of the development of mo- 
 tives deep and intense but of actions and movements 
 openly and constantly controlled by the Supreme 
 Wisdom and Goodness. Heaven a happy futurity, 
 and as contrasted with earth, must be thought of as 
 God's visible kingdom, or his direct administration 
 of the intelligent universe. 
 
 Heaven must be a sphere wherein whatever is 
 good, and wise, and just, is carried forward triumph* 
 antly, and amid the joyful acclamations of all. And 
 yet it must be a world in which the series of events, 
 as they are portions of a succession which is 
 infinite, may often fail to be intelligible to finite 
 minds. What then follows ? That a demand will 
 as often be made upon the loyalty, and the devout 
 submission of such minds. This is an inevitable 
 supposition : the occupants of heaven, if they are 
 to be constantly happy, must first have learned so 
 to love God, under circumstances of perplexity 
 and trial, as may fit them to pass forward on the 
 high road of duty, with reverent affection, and with 
 unshaken constancy, whether or not the actual 
 aspect of affairs may consist with their notions of 
 sovereign goodness, and wisdom. It does not 
 appear how we can exclude suppositions such as 
 these from our anticipations of a happy futurity. 
 
 Are we prepared to throw up the hope of immor- 
 
or THE 
 
 CHRISTIANITY .V / 85 
 
 . 
 
 tality 1 If not, and if we allow ourselves distinctly to 
 forecast what must be its conditions, under the 
 sway of the attributes of an Infinite Being, we are 
 compelled to grant that beings, such as ourselves, 
 and if undisciplined by Christianity, must have 
 many lessons yet to learn before it is possible that 
 we should take part in the felicity of heaven. We 
 have to learn to be happy in the only manner in 
 which happiness can be rendered permanent and 
 progressive to intelligent and moral agents. But 
 what is Christianity? It is the very schooling 
 which we feel that we need in preparation for shar- 
 ing in the only happiness possible to be enjoyed. 
 
 If we look around, Christianity stands forward, 
 by the open or implicit confession of all, as a 
 heavenward tendency : it is indeed the only move-* 
 ment on earth, setting toward a world of peace, 
 justice, purity, and love. Or if, looking upward, 
 we compel ourselves to rest upon the conception of 
 a state of permanent felicity of holy energy, and 
 affection, we must feel that we need that culture of 
 the purest emotions which the Gospel, and it alone 
 supplies. 
 
 The Spiritual Christianity then, concerning 
 which, as to its elements, we are yet more parti- 
 cularly to inquire, is nothing but Heaven's training 
 of fallen man, for its own happiness. 
 
 In concluding the present Lecture we invite a 
 8 
 
 
86 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 candid admission of the following affirmations not 
 one of which, singly, can, as we think, be denied, 
 and which yet, in their connection, embrace all that 
 we mean to advance in behalf of Spiritual Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 We assume as granted, the first principles of 
 natural (or more properly) Abstract Theology, and 
 the belief of a future life : we then say That the 
 happiness of a future life must consist in the activi- 
 ty of the benign emotions, as the impulses of a 
 course of progressive virtue and beneficence. 
 
 That a true religion, considered as a preparation 
 for future happiness, must possess this character- 
 istic, that it is at once pure in its ethical principles, 
 and that it makes provision for the culture of the 
 benign emotions, in a manner at once efficacious 
 and happy. 
 
 We then affirm, what must surely be conceded, 
 that no positive religious system, now extant (and 
 not Christian) can pretend to make any such pro- 
 vision for a future state of purity and felicity ; and 
 moreover, that 
 
 No system of philosophical deism makes such a 
 provision ; for even if its ethical principles were 
 pure, yet, as it rests upon no ground of positive 
 evidence, and can never be more than an opinion, 
 it does but feebly affect even the few who are the 
 most favourably disposed to yield to such an iriflu- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 87 
 
 ence and does not at all affect the mass of man- 
 kind. In fact, no scheme of philosophical deism 
 has ever exerted a powerful and salutary influence 
 over the conduct of men. 
 
 Christianity then has no rival, considered as a 
 positive religion claiming authority pure in its 
 ethical principles, and making a provision for the 
 culture of the benign emotions as a preparation for 
 the happiness of a future state. 
 
 But further. In looking to Christianity under 
 the aspect now mentioned, we must exclude first, 
 those systems called Christian, the obvious inten- 
 tion of which is to reduce it to as near a resemblance 
 as possible to philosophical deism, by rejecting 
 whatever is most peculiar to it : and we do so, 
 because Christianity, when thus reduced, becomes 
 as powerless and vapid as deism itself : it ceases 
 to be a positive or authoritative system, and takes 
 a place, quiescently, among mere schemes of opi- 
 nion. 
 
 On the other hand, we must exclude as not 
 Christian, although called so, those systems which, 
 running in a direction opposite to the philosophic 
 scheme, are of a servile character, and of abject 
 tendency ; and which, instead of giving an active 
 and happy expansion to the affections, either be- 
 numb the moral faculties by dread and perplexity, 
 or lull the conscience by formalities. 
 
88 ON SPIRITUAL, ETC. 
 
 In a word, we reject as unchristian, on the one 
 side, Rationalism ; and on the other, Superstition. 
 
 We then stand clear to advance the unrivalled 
 claims of the GOSPEL as being 
 
 A positive and authoritative religion, resting upon 
 Facts that are incontrovertible. 
 
 A religion pure in its ethical principles. 
 
 A religion which gives the fullest and happiest 
 expansion to the benign emotions, by opening be- 
 fore us a ground of intimate, affectionate, and yet 
 reverential communion with God. 
 
 What those great Truths are on which this com- 
 munion must rest, it will be our part, in the next 
 Lecture, to inquire. 
 
THE 
 
 SECOND LECTURE 
 
 ON THE TRUTHS PECULIAR TO SPIRITUAL 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 STANDING clear as we do of party entanglements, 
 and therefore free from the solicitudes of contro- 
 versy, we must not affect either to be ignorant of 
 the now peculiar position of religious opinions, or 
 indifferent as to the result of what may so well be 
 called a crisis in the religious history of this 
 country. 
 
 We think it neither desirable, nor indeed possible, 
 to treat the momentous subjects now before us, irre- 
 spectively of the great controversy of the times. 
 We must of necessity allude to this controversy, 
 frequently ; nor can we profess a philosophic neu- 
 trality in relation to questions on the determination 
 of which, as we confidently believe, the religious, 
 and, by consequence, the political and social well- 
 being of this and other countries depends. 
 
 Disclaiming therefore indifference or neutrality, 
 we yet hope, in this and the following Lectures, to 
 give evidence of a conscientious impartiality ; and 
 
92 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 so to speak as shall justify our profession of being 
 the champions of no party. 
 
 We are then to speak of the Truths which are 
 peculiar to Spiritual Christianity ; and therefore in 
 regard, as well to brevity, as to controversial justice, 
 we must not include any truths, important as they 
 may be in themselves, which it shares in common, 
 either with natural theology, or with what we are 
 compelled to regard as a mutilated Christianity. 
 
 Moreover, we must set off, from our enumeration, 
 on this occasion, certain articles of belief, clearly 
 attested indeed by Christ and his Apostles ; but 
 which are not properly elements of the Gospel. 
 True indeed they may be, but they are more ancient 
 than Christianity ; they would have been true had 
 it never appeared ; and they must remain so, were 
 it to be withdrawn. 
 
 A due regard to the unsullied brightness of the 
 Christian system demands this distinction to be 
 made, and to be much regarded, between certain 
 articles which it assumes to be true, but which are 
 not of its substance. 
 
 The advocates of Christianity, too often, as we 
 think, have burthened themselves with the task of 
 obviating difficulties connected with these extra- 
 neous articles of belief, which, so far as they may 
 be substantial, press, not upon the religion of the 
 Bible, but rather upon the first principles of natural 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 93 
 
 theology. It is certain that Christianity neither 
 aggravates any burthen that had previously rested 
 upon the lot of man ; nor imposes any new burthen. 
 What the inspired writer says of the Divine Being 
 himself, may be said of the word of his grace " It 
 is LIGHT, and in it is no darkness at all." So far 
 as any such burthens admit of being either allevi- 
 ated, or removed, the whole tendency of Christian- 
 ity is to lessen their weight, or to exempt us alto- 
 gether from their pressure. 
 
 For example : Our Lord and the Apostles ap- 
 peal, with confidence, to those convictions of every 
 human bosom which declare that man is liable to 
 the Divine displeasure, and which give a foreboding 
 of judgment to come. They reprove the sin and 
 perversity of men with all boldness, on the ground 
 of these admitted truths ; and they draw the prompt 
 and necessary conclusion from the fact of that sad 
 degeneracy of human nature which is seen every- 
 where, is felt always, and is acknowledged, as often 
 as pride is remanded, for a moment, by compunc- 
 tion or remorse. 
 
 That man is indeed " far gone from original 
 righteousness," and that he neither loves God, nor 
 desires the knowledge of him ; and that, abandoned 
 to his own principles and resources, he is destitute, 
 helpless, and without hope ; and that he is visibly 
 tending toward an after state of still more open 
 
94 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 alienation from God these melancholy truths, 
 anterior to Christianity, are so assumed in the 
 Christian system that there can be no liberty to call 
 them in question by any who yield their faith to its 
 authority. They are, in fact, the very ground-work 
 of that structure of mercy which is properly called 
 THE GOSPEL : nevertheless they are not of its 
 substance. 
 
 Our Lord affirms with distinctness that which, if 
 thoroughly believed, must alarm our fears to the 
 utmost. This affirmation is his ; but not the fact. 
 The affirmation does but give an articulate form to 
 that which may properly be called a universal fore- 
 boding of the human family. If it be said that 
 such dark anticipations rest upon no positive evi- 
 dence ; yet, and prevalent as they are, they must 
 be granted to possess a dim substantiality, upon 
 which our Lord's assertions throw a steady light ; 
 and we feel them to be real. 
 
 Such is the belief, with all its appalling conse- 
 quences, that the human race has fallen under the 
 usurped sway of an invisible and malignant power 
 the ancient enemy of God the outlaw of heaven, 
 the author of error ; first the seducer, and then the 
 tormentor of his victims. 
 
 A dark belief indeed is this ! but we gain very 
 little by rejecting it, so long as the human family 
 remains as far from virtue as from happiness, nor 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 95 
 
 indicating any tendency to a return. So long as 
 superstitions the most frightful, with their unmiti- 
 gated horrors, continue to press, age after age, upon 
 the larger portion of mankind, we do but shift a 
 difficulty, not remove it, by denying the agency of 
 an invisible enemy. 
 
 This belief, whispered in all nations, is uttered 
 aloud wherever superstition has long ruled without 
 a check. In half civilized and savage countries, 
 the infernal agency flares upon our sight ; and, if 
 we would be thoroughly equitable, ought we not to 
 acknowledge, that, in civilized countries, indications 
 to the same effect are not ambiguous. May it not 
 be more than surmised that the author of mischief 
 who walks abroad with noisy pomp in pagan lands, 
 keeps house among ourselves, and goes softly ? 
 
 Is it affirmed to be a blasphemy to suppose that 
 there can be a Satan within the bounds of God's 
 universe ? Alas ! how many Tamerlanes, in an- 
 cient and in modern times, have shown us that we 
 are not at liberty to reason in this manner ! " The 
 beauty and beneficent intention of creation," it is 
 said, " rebuke the dogma of a personal Evil prin- 
 ciple." But we ask, Why there may not be a 
 Satan, if there be on earth tyrant tormentors, ma- 
 lignant calumniators, and avowed enemies of peace, 
 order, and purity ? " Beneath the fair vault of 
 heaven," you say, " there can be no agent of mi- 
 
96 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 sery ; or no sphere for his malice, if there were 
 one. Look between decks of a slave ship, and 
 tell us why there may not be a Satan. Alas ! the 
 darkest surmises of superstition have been only 
 exaggerations of the things of earth ! And the hor- 
 rid descriptions which deform the Koran are but 
 wild dreams of things which have been actually 
 transacted [on earth ! When we go about ingeni- 
 ously to trace the origin of the belief in an infernal 
 world, to the horrors of eastern despotism, what do 
 we but exhibit incontestable proofs that, notwith- 
 standing the goodness of God, such a world maybe ? 
 
 Under the very same conditions stands the doc- 
 trine of future punishment. The Saviour of the 
 world vouches for the truth of this the instinctive 
 belief of the human race. He speaks of the " wrath 
 to come," and solemnly warns us to escape from it. 
 But is he therefore our enemy ? or is Christianity 
 to be blamed on this account ? First let HS be sure 
 that the alarm it gives is groundless ; for if it be 
 well founded, assuredly the Gospel is " good news." 
 That sort of infatuation which impels us to vent 
 upon an innocent messenger, our vexation on hear- 
 ing ill tidings, attaches to us when we resent the 
 Gospel, because it involves the belief of the terrible 
 retributions of the future world. 
 
 In the present instance, after having fully admit- 
 ted that the inspired writings allow us no liberty to 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 97 
 
 call in question the articles we have mentioned, we 
 protest against the common error of loading reve- 
 lation with the weight of them. If they be denied, 
 the Gospel itself has no reason ; and wherever they 
 have been denied, it has thrown off its characteris- 
 tics of intensity and seriousness. 
 
 Moreover, certain of the most sacred truths of 
 religion must not be claimed as peculiar to Spiritual 
 Christianity, inasmuch as they have long consisted 
 with the most serious corruptions of its purity. 
 Thus must we say that orthodoxy, although essen- 
 tial to Christianity, is yet, of itself, not Christianity. 
 A fact indeed it is that churches which have de- 
 clined from orthodoxy, or that have only wavered 
 concerning it, have, without an exception, lost the 
 warmth of religious feeling, as well as the purity- 
 of religious practice ; and after making a few de- 
 scents, have walked forth upon the broad level of 
 deism, compromising almost the very name of 
 Christian. 
 
 If therefore it were asked, " Is a trinitarian faith 
 of much importance to practical piety ?" we should 
 be content to say trace the history, either of indi- 
 viduals, or of churches, that have renounced it, and 
 you will find an answer. A trinitarian faith, clear 
 of every evasion, and excluding, even the disposition 
 9 
 
98 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 to look for evasions, we hold to be the basis of all 
 Christian piety. 
 
 But now, with a due ingenuousness, let us look 
 to the other side of this argument. Orthodoxy 
 alone, is not, we say, Christianity, for it has con- 
 sisted with the widest departures from its purport. 
 More than a little constancy of faith and strength 
 of mind are demanded in travelling over the road 
 of the trinitarian controversy, from the early years 
 of the third century, onward, toward modern times ; 
 and if our belief have not previously been firmly 
 grounded upon the proper biblical evidence, it is 
 probable that the perusal of this history will breed 
 doubt, disgust, suspicion ; and will end in a hetero- 
 dox conclusion. 
 
 The Greek mind, which had relinquished none 
 of the faults of a better age, and which retained 
 few of its admirable qualities, and which had been 
 schooled in nugatory disputation by a degenerate 
 philosophy, a sophistical logic, and a spurious 
 rhetoric, found its field in the trinitarian argument. 
 Ponderous tomes have brought this argument down 
 to our times ; but how much of the warm apostolic 
 feeling do these books present to our view ? Some- 
 thing indeed ; but not more in proportion to the 
 mass, than there are grains of the precious metal 
 to be gathered from a mud bank, in the offing of a 
 gold coast. 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 99 
 
 Orthodoxy, very early severed from evangelical 
 truth, showed at once what was its quality, when 
 so divorced. Some time before the breaking out 
 of the trinitarian controversy, a discipline and course 
 of life directly contravening the first principle of 
 the Gospel had received the almost unanimous 
 homage of the church, throughout the world, and 
 was applauded, on all sides, as the highest style of 
 Christian piety. 
 
 What moral influence was orthodoxy likely to 
 exert, when it fell into the hands of those who had 
 overlooked, or who virtually denied, the truths 
 which alone can bring it home to the heart ? The 
 Saviour, forgotten as " the end of the law, for right- 
 eousness, to every one that believeth," was soon for- 
 gotten also as the " one Mediator between God and 
 man." Most instructive is the fact, that, at the very 
 moment when trinitarian doctrine was the most 
 hotly contended for, and punctiliously professed, 
 mediators many, and gods many, and goddesses 
 many, were receiving, under the auspices, and by 
 the encouragement of the great preachers, theolo- 
 gians, and bishops of the time, the fervent devotions 
 of the multitude ! It was to these potent interces- 
 sors that sincere petitions were addressed ; while 
 to the Trinity was offered a doxology ! When- 
 ever men were in real trouble, and when they 
 needed and heartily desired help from above, they 
 
 
100 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 sought it, where they believed they should the 
 soonest find it at the shrines of the martyrs, or of 
 the Virgin. No fact of church history carries a 
 heavier lesson than that which we gather when, 
 listening to the perorations of the great preachers 
 of the age of orthodoxy, we hear them, first in- 
 voking, with animation, and high sounding phrases, 
 a saint in the heavens, while the finger pointed to 
 his glittering shrine : and then ascribing " honour 
 and glory" to the Trinity !* 
 
 Orthodoxy by itself, does not touch the con- 
 science, does not quicken the affections ; it does 
 not connect itself, in any manner, with the moral 
 faculties. It is not a religion, but a theory ; and 
 inasmuch as it awakens no spiritual feelings, it 
 consists easily with either the grossest absurdities, 
 or with the grossest corruptions. 
 
 Orthodoxy, powerless when alone, becomes even 
 efficient for evil at the moment when it combines 
 itself with asceticism, superstition, and hierarchical 
 
 * The facts here adverted to important in themselves, are 
 gathering importance daily, inasmuch as an avowal at length 
 unambiguous, has been made, of the long disguised intention 
 to restore the very system of which these impieties were a 
 principal element. Some few samples of the " catholic" 
 piety of the fourth century will be furnished in a supple- 
 mentary note. 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 101 
 
 ambition. What is the religious history of Europe, 
 through a long course of time, but a narrative of the 
 horrors and the immoralities that have sprung from 
 this very combination ? 
 
 Heterodoxy, which has long been the temptation 
 of the continental protestant churches, has at length 
 wrought their ruin ; or, at the best, has left them 
 in an expiring condition. But in perfect equity must 
 it not be acknowledged that orthodoxy, severed 
 from evangelic truth, has been the temptation of 
 England ; and that, at this moment, by reviving its 
 ancient connexion with superstition, it gives just 
 alarm to the true sons of the reformers ? Those 
 great men the lights of the sixteenth century 
 whom we do not worship, but whose steps we 
 would follow, were orthodox, and yet they were no 
 monks : they were Trinitarians, but they were not 
 idolaters : they had studied the Fathers ; but they 
 bowed to the Scriptures ; and from the Scriptures 
 they recovered evangelic truth inestimable trea- 
 sure, which so many around us are now ready to 
 exchange for the "vainly-invented" superstitions 
 of antiquity ! 
 
 Furthermore, in defining the principles assumed 
 to be peculiar to Spiritual Christianity, we must not 
 name some points of belief which have been differ- 
 ently understood, or might we say, differently misun- 
 9* 
 
102 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 derstood, among the cordial adherents of evangelic 
 piety. There are articles which, though "full of 
 sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly 
 persons," do not appear to all to be clear from 
 extreme difficulties. 
 
 We name then, as peculiar to Spiritual Chris- 
 tianity, those truths which the human mind had 
 never conceived of until the Gospel, and its pre- 
 cursive types had appeared those truths which, 
 although they lie broadly on the surface of the 
 apostolic writings, so many learned interpreters have 
 endeavoured, by all means, and with indefatigable 
 industry, to dispel from the Christian system, those 
 truths which the pride of the heart the most highly 
 resents, but in which the contrite spirit finds its 
 peace. 
 
 First in systematic order, as well as in magnitude, 
 is the doctrine of the Propitiation, effected by the 
 Son of God so held clear of admixture and eva- 
 sions, as to sustain, in its bright integrity, the con- 
 sequent doctrine of THE FULL AND ABSOLUTE 
 
 RESTORATION OF GUILTY MAN TO THE FAVOUR OF 
 
 GOD, on his acceptance of this method of mercy ; 
 or, as it is technically phrased, " JUSTIFICATION 
 THROUGH FAITH." A doctrine this, which, in a 
 peculiar manner, refuses to be tampered with, or 
 compromised ; and which will hold its own place, 
 or none. It challenges for itself, not only a broad 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 103 
 
 basis, on which it may rest alone ; but a broad 
 border, upon which nothing that is human may 
 trespass. 
 
 This doctrine when unadulterate, not only ani- 
 mates orthodoxy, but shows us why it was necessary 
 to lay open the mystery of the Divine nature, so 
 far as it is laid open in scriptural trinitarian doctrine ; 
 for we could not have learned the method of salva- 
 tion, without first learning, that He who " bore our 
 sins," was indeed able to bear them, and was, in 
 himself, " mighty to save." 
 
 Whatever belongs to the Divine Nature must be 
 incomprehensible by the human mind ; and there- 
 fore the incarnation is incomprehensible ; and 
 therefore the atonement involves a mystery incom- 
 prehensible ; but not so the consequent doctrine of 
 justification through faith. This doctrine turns upon 
 the well understood relations of a forensic substitu- 
 tion ; and as to transactions of this order, they are 
 among the clearest of any with which we have to 
 do, as the subjects of law and government. 
 
 Yet simple as it is in itself, the doctrine of justifi- 
 cation through the intervention of our legal sponsor, 
 does, as we fully admit, rest upon a supposition so 
 stupendous, that we are fain to recoil, and to ask, 
 " can such things be true ?" 
 
 Is it true indeed, that the Eternal Word was 
 " made flesh ; " and that, as man, he put himself 
 
104 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 in the place of the guilty ? Look abroad upon the 
 wide field of nature, and then come home, and 
 calmly consider what it is you imply when you 
 speak of being "justified through faith in Christ ; " 
 of whom you say, that he is equal with God, and 
 that he " upholdeth all things by the word of his 
 power ? " 
 
 It is, we grant it, a spectacle of wonders which 
 the Scriptures open before us on this 'ground ; but 
 are these wonders of such a kind that we may 
 readily attribute them to the inventive faculty of 
 minds like our own ? Let us however trace with 
 care the steps by which we have come into the 
 prospect of mysteries such as these : just as a 
 traveller looks anew to his footing when, having 
 reached a mountain summit, through mists, which 
 the morning breeze suddenly rolls away, he beholds 
 with amazement kingdoms outstretched beneath 
 his feet. 
 
 In bringing the mind distinctly to contemplate the 
 Scriptural doctrine of the atonement, effected by the 
 death of Christ, we feel ourselves to have reached 
 an elevation higher than the highest of the specula- 
 tions of man. We are compelled to confess our- 
 selves in the presence of things divine and eternal. 
 
 What then are the steps by which we reach this 
 height ? Let us retrace them ; and they are few. 
 The books of the New Testament are unimpeach- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 105 
 
 able as to their genuineness and authenticity ; and 
 we are compelled to acknowledge the grace, ma- 
 jesty, and wisdom of the Saviour of whom they 
 speak. He claims the right to teach us sacred 
 truth ; and to teach it to mankind to the end of the 
 world. The apostolic writings are warranted as 
 the vehicles of the Saviour's instructions ; and 
 unless we can rely upon these, in their obvious 
 meaning, and after we have used all diligence to 
 ascertain it, this Teacher can be no teacher to us ; 
 nor this Saviour our Saviour. How should he be 
 so, if we may not thus confide in the intelligible 
 import of a known language ; for on the contrary 
 supposition, we have no means remaining within 
 our reach, of knowing certainly the terms of the 
 salvation herein offered to us. We do then rely 
 with ingenuous confidence upon the grammatical 
 sense of the apostolic writings. We follow whith- 
 ersoever these messengers of Heaven may lead us. 
 Whatever they plainly affirm, we must either accept 
 as true, or must disclaim their authority. 
 
 But Christ's ministers teach us, if language can 
 convey such a meaning, that he was indeed " God 
 manifest in the flesh" " God over all, blessed for 
 ever." 
 
 If we draw back from such a doctrine, as in dis- 
 may, let us look to the alternative. The book 
 which compels us to believe that it is from God, 
 
106 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 and the only book in the world that embodies a per- 
 fect morality, and the only book that contains an 
 authentic hope of immortality for man, is then, if we 
 cannot admit this doctrine, so ambiguous, nay, so 
 delusive in its language, that it can warrant no 
 certain conclusions on any subject. Granted that 
 the incarnation and the atonement are stupendous 
 mysteries, which surpass our reason, and try our 
 faith : but the alternative supposition -that the 
 book of God may not be'trusted, poisons faith, and 
 breaks reason on the wheel. 
 
 Jesus then is divine in the highest sense ; but 
 why divine ? Wherefore has the " Son left the 
 bosom of the Father ?" The means are infinite : is 
 the end such ? For what specific purpose was it that 
 he who "is the brightness of the Father's glory," 
 " abhorred not the virgin's womb," and walked the 
 earth, and conversed as man, with man ? Was it 
 only to teach us virtue ? or was it only to embody 
 it ? But then where is the proportion of the means 
 to the end ? 
 
 But we say, it was to suffer, " the just for the 
 unjust ;" and those who hold Christian truth thus 
 far, undoubtedly hold that which is of saving effica- 
 cy : but we must advance yet further, if we would 
 exclude the most serious errors. The doctrine of 
 the atonement, dimly perceived, or at least not held 
 in connexion with its forensic consequence, became 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 107 
 
 little more, to the ancient church, than a spectacle 
 of wonder and pathos, to be exhibited at certain 
 seasons of the year ; and in its turn with the com- 
 memoration of other martyrdoms ! 
 
 The Church history of fourteen centuries affords 
 convincing proof that something more than the doc- 
 trine of the propitiatory work of Christ, retained in a 
 creed, is necessary to give vitality to the Christian 
 system. Very early the wonders of Calvary, in 
 turn with the eulogies of the saints, were the themes 
 of the cold, turgid rhapsodies of a false oratory. 
 
 Almost every practice, rite and principle of the 
 ancient church had the same tendency to remove, 
 farther and further from its place, although it was 
 never denied, the scriptural doctrine of the atone- 
 ment. The Apostle had said, " there is now no 
 condemnation to them that believe ;" and that the 
 sacrifice for sins, " once offered," effected an abso- 
 lute expiation. But it was not so in the sense of 
 antiquity. The expiation did not expiate ; for the 
 ascetics discovered that they had still the whole 
 work of satisfaction to do for themselves. The 
 expiation did not expiate ; for the Church was con- 
 stantly occupied in praying for the repose of souls, 
 affirmed by itself to have received the utmost bene- 
 fit which could be received from a sincere faith in 
 Christ. The sacrifice once offered for the sins of 
 the world did not, any more than those offered 
 
108 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 under the Mosaic dispensation, " make the comers 
 thereunto perfect ;" for it needed to be reiterated in 
 the sacrifice of the mass . It was not true in the 
 opinion of the church, that we are " saved from 
 wrath" through Christ, for it taught even the faith- 
 ful to look forward to a terrible futurity of purgato- 
 rial anguish. 
 
 No fact connected with the history of opinions, is, 
 we think, more conspicuously certain than this, that 
 the ancient church, while holding trinitarian doc- 
 trine, and while professing to believe in the atone- 
 ment, had, in some inexplicable manner, compro- 
 mised, or lost sight of, the principal element of 
 Apostolic Christianity. 
 
 Compare for a moment, the broad aspect of the 
 Mosaic dispensation, and that of the ancient church 
 system. The Psalms, and the other devotional 
 portions of the Old Testament, make it evident that, 
 although the ritual economy did not fully open the 
 scheme of divine mercy toward man, it did yet 
 avail to convey a calm and affectionate comfort to 
 the heart of the contrite worshipper. As a proof 
 that it did so, we may appeal, not merely to the 
 pure spirituality which breathes through the Psalms, 
 and the prophetic writings ; but also to the signifi- 
 cant fact that it was not until sometime after the 
 close of the prophetic dispensation, that the Jewish 
 people went off into that fanaticism which exhibits 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 109 
 
 the uneasiness of a guilty conscience, wholly igno- 
 rant of the Divine mercy. 
 
 Most remarkable is the contrast which presents 
 itself in comparing, on this ground, the ancient 
 Jewish, and the ancient Christian church. The 
 pious members of the former did enjoy the stillness 
 and the illumination of an early morning time ; and 
 they looked with the comfort of hope toward the 
 spreading brightness of the sunward sky. But 
 after that the one sacrifice had superseded its 
 types, infatuated men, with the Gospel open in their 
 hands, and although they had eyes to see, saw not 
 its glory ; but deprived themselves of all its bless- 
 ings. The Jewish church had lived upon hope ; 
 the Christian church seemed to have inherited de- 
 spair. The most ferocious, as well as absurd meth- 
 ods of placating the wrath of Heaven, joined with 
 the doctrine that sin after Baptism, that is to say, 
 the vast majority of all sins, could be entitled only 
 to an ambiguous forgiveness, denied peace to the 
 consciences, as well of the few, as of the many. 
 
 A forensic act, authoritatively announced, and in 
 consequence of which the condemned stands exempt 
 from the demands of Law, whether it rest on the 
 ground of his afterwards established innocence, or 
 of any satisfaction he may have been able to pro- 
 pound, must be in its nature absolute. It is not an 
 10 
 
110 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 undefined indulgence ; it is not a weak connivance ; 
 it is not a timid compromise ; it is not an evasion 
 which must be held to condemn, if not the Law, its 
 administrators. After such a transaction has been 
 recorded in court, and proclaimed aloud, no conduct, 
 on the part of him who has been so discharged, 
 could be more offensive than that of an endeavour 
 to go over the ground again ; as if to effect the same 
 result, on conditions less humiliating to himself. 
 
 In the justification of man through the mediation 
 of Christ, man individually, as guilty, and his Divine 
 Sponsor, personally competent to take upon himself 
 such apart, stand forward in the Court of Heaven ; 
 there to be severally dealt with as the honour of 
 Law shall demand ; and if the representative of the 
 guilty be indeed thus qualified, in the eye of the 
 law, and if the guilty, on his part, freely accept this 
 mode of satisfaction, then, when the one recedes 
 from the position of danger, and the other steps into 
 it, Justice having already admitted both the compe- 
 tency of the substitute, and the sufficiency of the 
 substitution, is itself silent. 
 
 Such a transaction does indeed originate in 
 grace or favour ; but yet if it satisfy law, it ca nbe 
 open to no species of after interference. Now in 
 the method of justification through faith, God him- 
 self solemnly proclaims that the rectitude of his 
 government is not violated ; nor the sanctity of his 
 
CHRI STI ANI T Y. Ill 
 
 law compromised. It is He who declares that, in 
 this method, he " may be just while justifying the 
 ungodly." After such a proclamation from Heaven 
 has been made, " who is he that condemneth? It 
 is God that justifieth !" 
 
 A sacred doctrine this ! not to be tampered 
 with ; and most honoured, assuredly, when admit- 
 ted with a simple-hearted and joyful gratitude ! If 
 it be asked, " Is it a truth ?" in reply, besides 
 citing the apostolic authorities, which are most ex- 
 plicit, we might well ask Whence such a doctrine 
 might proceed, if not from God? Which of the 
 creations of the human mind does it resemble? 
 Whether we regard that aspect of it in which it is 
 thoroughly intelligible ; or that in which it presents 
 an inscrutable mystery, it stands equally remote 
 from the customary style of human speculations ; 
 beside that it contravenes the pride and prejudices 
 of the heart. Clear and bright as noon is this 
 Truth : vast and deep as infinity. 
 
 Nevertheless, we suppose an objector to declare 
 that he can by no means bring himself to embrace 
 a doctrine involving what this involves. Let him 
 however well consider on what part of the great 
 scheme of man's salvation, as taught in the Scrip- 
 tures, the real difficulty presses. We believe that, 
 with most objectors, it is placed too far forward, 
 Fully do we grant it to be indeed a mystery that 
 
112 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 guilty man should be delivered from the hands of 
 justice by the personal intervention of his Sove- 
 reign ; and yet, i& there not a previous ground of 
 amazement in the mere fact, admitted as it is by all 
 who do not deny man's individual responsibility, 
 that he feeble as he is, and frail, should, by the 
 Creator, and Sovereign of the universe, be held 
 personally answerable for the acts of so brief a 
 course ? Is not this the mystery ? and after we have 
 mastered this, or at least have found that, amazing 
 as it is, we can by no means evade it ; there will 
 remain no sufficient pretext for rejecting, as incredi- 
 ble, the wonders which attach to the mode of his 
 deliverance. Is it true that the children of earth are 
 severally the subjects of a universal government, 
 and that they shall singly be called to account at 
 that tribunal ? If we find that this must be granted, 
 the way is open also for the mystery of mercy. 
 
 On the other hand, when once we have delibe- 
 rately rejected the scheme of salvation, as if it were 
 incredible, we shall find it only so much the more 
 difficult to retain our hold of those notions of virtue 
 apart from which man can neither respect himself, 
 nor his fellows, and which are found to be the ne- 
 cessary means of social order, and of personal con- 
 trol. 
 
 If these notions of a moral system (in the religious 
 sense of the terms) be once abandoned, then there 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 113 
 
 is no home for man for his towering conceptions 
 of happiness for his boundless hopes for his pure 
 affections for his domestic felicity for his senti- 
 ments of virtue and honour ; there is no resting-place 
 short of that sensual swamp, whereon, although he 
 may take his level with the brute orders, he be- 
 comes the infamy of the creation the enigma of 
 the universe ; while they remain as they were, the 
 instances of the wisdom and benevolence of its Au- 
 thor. 
 
 But it is not possible to abandon the religious no- 
 tion of a moral system ; and the more intimately we 
 follow this notion out, in its consequences, the more 
 deeply shall we feel that the mystery of redemption 
 is anticipated by the equal wonders of that relation- 
 ship between the finite and the Infinite which is 
 involved when the Supreme Being condescends to 
 challenge men, singly, as offenders, and as answer- 
 able, individually, to Himself. 
 
 By this very challenge, man not as a race, but 
 as an individual, is assumed to be a morally inde- 
 pendent and free agent, in a sense which lifts him 
 from the dust to a level of reciprocity with God. 
 The Eternal Ruler of the Universe declares himself 
 a party in a controversy in which each individual of 
 the human race separately sustains the opposite po- 
 sition. No liberty is granted to us to recede from 
 the high, but ominous dignity of thus waging battle 
 10* 
 
114 ON S PIR I TUA t 
 
 with the Almighty : this is a nobility we are born 
 to ; and if in no other manner, yet by acts of wilful 
 rebellion, have we singly accepted the distinction, 
 and stand pledged to the consequences. 
 
 At this point then is the true knot of the difficulty 
 which is supposed to attach to the scheme of man's 
 salvation ; and those who are staggered by its vast- 
 ness, would do well to consider how far they will 
 have to step back, toward the ground of the most 
 abject animal philosophy, before they can reach a 
 level where indeed there is no mystery to be en- 
 countered, because there is no Truth to be grasped, 
 And yet, even if that level were reached .-what per 
 plexities still surround us ! On this level the level 
 of atheistic sensualism, we meet a being, endowed 
 (with cursed) intellectual faculties, which enable him 
 to bring under review, and to measure, and weigh, 
 a moral system, and to calculate the consequences 
 of allowing himself to be reckoned a member of 
 such a system ; and then, finding these consequen- 
 ces undesirable to cut himself off from it (in will 
 at least) and by a deliberate suicidal act, to die to 
 the extent of half his nature ! Are we in search of 
 doctrines which may be scouted as incredible, and 
 which reason must indignantly resent ? Here then is 
 such a doctrine incredible, not because mysterious, 
 but because monstrous. But how do we seem to 
 breathe anew when, after rejecting enormities such 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 115 
 
 as these, we accept that which mystery as it is,. 
 we yet assent to, as the true harmony of our moral 
 faculties ! 
 
 Is redemption a mystery ? but let us well consider 
 the invisible wonders that are more than dimly in- 
 dicated by the vast range, the depth, intensity, and 
 force of the feelings proper to an unschooled con- 
 science. If opinions, or if " creeds," may be fac- 
 titious, affections are not so. How absurd the sup- 
 position that they can be ! Take then a sensible 
 and unsophisticated mind ; and, only adapting your 
 style to its style to its acquired medium of thought, 
 may you not at once, and with ease, confer with it 
 on the entire range of ethical questions ? will it not 
 respond and consent, while you reason concerning 
 "righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come" 
 while you speak of duty to man, and of duty to 
 God, and while you bring the moral sense into con- 
 tact with eternal truth and virtue. 
 
 The moral system then, and the religious position 
 of man as related to God is a fact, not a theory.- 
 How should you be able to awaken, in a sensitive, 
 unsophisticated bosom, and by the magic of a single, 
 word, the pungent sense of shame and demerit ; or 
 the glow of virtuous sympathy, if the Creator had 
 not, by his own endowments, mide man, so far, a 
 partaker of his own nature ? How could you ex- 
 cite, within a guileless, and yet not guiltless bosom, 
 
116 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 the anguish of compunction ; how heave it with the- 
 swellings of repentance, if the waters there were 
 not deep ? They are deep ; and the agitations of 
 that bosom its ebbings and flowings of love, fear, 
 resentment, gratitude, are but waves breaking upon 
 the shore of an ocean ; and the sounds they bring to 
 an attentive ear, are the murmurs of the deep even 
 the vast profound of the moral universe ! 
 
 We boldly say then, that the incontestable facts 
 of the relationship between man individually, and 
 the Eternal God a relationship at once of commu- 
 nity of moral nature, and of forensic dependence, if 
 duly considered, preclude every objection to which 
 the scheme of redemption might seem liable, as if it 
 involved more than can be granted to be possible. 
 Such objections are, we say, precluded, inasmuch 
 as they are anticipated by a mystery as vast ; and 
 yet not to be denied. 
 
 But we suppose the scriptural doctrine of human 
 salvation effected by the propitiatory sufferings of 
 the Son of God to be assented to. By what rule 
 then do we discriminate between a cold orthodoxy 
 in respect to it and an evangelic faith ? Our rule 
 must in this instance be an experimental, rather than 
 an abstract one : a rule not so much polemical as- 
 practical. 
 
 It seems reasonable to affirm, that, if the apostolic 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 117 
 
 doctrine of justification through faith be clearly held 
 and cordially admitted, it will occupy the foremost 
 place in our regards ; for it is the ground of all our 
 hopes, and the relief of every fear : it is the luminous 
 centre of all religious truth. It is the sun in our 
 heavens : it is the source of light, and the source of 
 vital warmth. We do not therefore hesitate to af- 
 firm that it is scripturally held only by those who do 
 assign to it this prominent position ;, who recur to it 
 ever and again with delight, who never feel it to be 
 an exhausted theme ; who build their own hopes 
 upon it firmly ; who invite others to do the same 
 with confidence ; who neither distrust it in theory, 
 nor dishonour it in practice ; who enounce it freely, 
 and boldly ; and of whose piety it is the spring and 
 reason. 
 
 On the contrary, we cannot but impute a want of 
 apostolic feeling, as well as a dimness of religious 
 perception, to those, whatever articles may be ex- 
 pressed in their creed, who speak reluctantly on this 
 great theme, or ambiguously, or in a tone of evasion ; 
 who now confess it, now deny it ; and whose wri- 
 tings or discourses on the subject, baffle the endea- 
 vours of the most candid to ascertain what it is they 
 really believe. 
 
 And without a doubt, or a moment's hesitation, 
 we charge those with disaffection towards this first 
 principle of Apostolic Christianity, who would fain 
 
118 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 "reserve" it for the hearing of a few, and would 
 put it, and keep it, under their bushel. We utterly 
 disallow, as spurious, the delicacy of those who pro- 
 fess that they cannot desecrate so sacred a truth as 
 that of the Atonement, by proclaiming it in the hear- 
 ing of the thoughtless multitude ! 
 
 The great question now at issue in the protestant 
 church is not whether we shall restore or reject cer- 
 tain ancient superstitions ; but whether we are to 
 retain that GOSPEL that bright apostolic truth, 
 which those superstitions so early supplanted, and 
 with which it never has for a moment consisted, and 
 never will consist. The question on which, at this 
 hour, the religious destinies of England turn, is not 
 whether we shall re-establish, or shall repudiate, 
 the " ROMISH/' or any other doctrine, " concerning 
 purgatory, pardons, worshipping and adoration, as 
 well of Images, as of relics, and also invocation of 
 saints ; those fond things vainly invented, and 
 grounded upon no warranty of scripture ; but rather 
 repugnant to the word of God." THIS is NOT THE 
 QUESTION ; but whether " the righteousness of God 
 through faith," shall stand or fall among us ; and 
 whether the Protestant Church itself, shall continue 
 to be a witness for God, or shall be rejected as apos- 
 tate. If the distinctly pronounced doctrine of justi- 
 fication through faith be indeed apostolic, can the 
 bold restorers of the base superstitions of the fourth 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 119 
 
 century make out their title to the honours of Apos- 
 tolicity ? How can we grant it them ; or how re- 
 fuse to assign it to those who having clearly read 
 this apostolic truth in the apostolic writings, cor- 
 dially entertain it, and convincingly teach it ; and 
 who honour it in their lives, and whose orders are 
 authenticated by the Holy Spirit, in " giving efficacy 
 to the word of his grace ?" 
 
 II. 
 
 The Second great truth, peculiar, as we believe, 
 to Spiritual Christianity, is that of THE SOVEREIGN 
 
 AND ABIDING INFLUENCE OF THE HoLY SPIRIT IN 
 RENOVATING THE SOUL, IN EACH INSTANCE IN WHICH 
 IT IS RENOVATED. 
 
 This doctrine also, like the preceding, while in 
 one view it is an inscrutable mystery, is in another 
 an intelligible truth, which accords at once with our 
 consciousness, and with the principles of sound phi- 
 losophy. The contact of the Infinite Mind with the 
 finite, is indeed a depth ; but not so the restoration 
 of the moral faculties, as a matter of consciousness. 
 The gradual predominance of better impulses, where 
 the worse have had sway, is no abyss wherein faith 
 is staggered ; nor is even the fact, when it occurs, 
 difficult to be admitted, of a sudden breaking down 
 
120 ONSPIRITUAL 
 
 of the obduracy of the will, and the yielding of pride, 
 and the subsiding of the tempest of passion, and the 
 dying away of earthly desires. Whether the com- 
 mencement of such a change be conspicuously mark- 
 ed, or not, is a point not important. What is there, 
 we ask, either in the fact of such a change, or in its 
 being attributed to the divine agency, which reason 
 ought to resent ? It may be offensive to pride ; but 
 we boldly say it is not so to reason ; and it can be- 
 come so only in consequence of mystifications which 
 may have been thereto attached. 
 
 It may be well here to state the distinction be- 
 tween mystery, and mystification ; or between the 
 inscrutable and the perplexed. Those things may 
 properly be called mysterious which, either in their 
 own nature, or from the peculiarity of their position 
 toward us, transcend the powers of the human mind 
 to grasp them : they are things which may be known 
 of, although not known. The divine omnipotence 
 is a mystery, and the omnipresence ; and so is the 
 indisputable truth, that the Eternal Being is related 
 to the successive points of duration the past, the 
 present, and the future, in one and the same man- 
 ner, whatever that may be ; or, to use a mathema- 
 tical analogy, that His relation to time is measura- 
 ble, at all points, by the same radius. 
 
 But mystification is factitious mystery ; or, it is 
 the heaping of obscurity upon things which, in their 
 
OF TBE 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. > 121 
 
 nature, come within the range of the senses, or of 
 the consciousness, or of the reasoning faculty. To 
 affirm that a substance familiar to four of the senses 
 has suddenly ceased to be what our perceptions 
 declare it yet to remain, is mystification, not mys- 
 tery ; nor is such a dogma to be admitted without 
 inflicting an injury upon the intellectual and moral 
 faculties, fatal, in an equal degree, to the vitality of 
 faith, and to the integrity of reason. 
 
 Those early, and alas ! not extinct superstitions 
 which stood connected with the doctrine of the ope- 
 rations of the Holy Spirit were all of this class. 
 How was a most sacred truth transmuted into a 
 frivolous mystification, when men were taught to 
 look for the renovating influences of the Holy Spi- 
 rit not into their own bosoms, but to the fingers 
 of the priest ! 
 
 But a true philosophy will not, we think, con- 
 demn as irrational the following affirmations That 
 a great an entire change in the condition and habits 
 of the moral faculties or what may well be called 
 a renovation of them, is indispensable to our re- 
 covery of true virtue and felicity. 
 
 That men, unassisted from above, do not and 
 we may add, cannot, effect any such renovation of 
 their moral nature. 
 
 That this happy change, wherever it takes 
 
 11 
 
122 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 place, must therefore be regarded as the immediate 
 effect of a divine influence upon the mind. 
 
 That this change coincides with, and is undis- 
 tinguishable from, the natural and ordinary opera- 
 tions of the mind : that is to say, it is a moral 
 restoration ; neither preternatural in the sense of 
 the enthusiast ; nor semi-miraculous in the sense 
 of those who uphold sacramental and ritual mystifi- 
 cations. 
 
 Let it only be granted that true felicity must con- 
 sist in the predominance of holy aifections, or of 
 emotions habitually tending toward God ; and let it 
 also be granted that no such affections ordinarily 
 belong to us, nor spontaneously spring up or grow 
 with our growth ; then must we not acknowledge 
 that the doctrine so clearly affirmed in Scripture of 
 the sovereign renovating influences of the Holy Spi- 
 rit is full of consolation to ourselves, as well as 
 strictly accordant with the best conceptions we can 
 form of the goodness of God ? 
 
 What then is conversion, but an act of sovereign 
 benevolence, the highest in its intention, and the 
 most to be desired ; and which, if we deal faith- 
 fully with ourselves, we must confess to be needed 
 not less absolutely (if we are to be happy) than is 
 that creative power to which we owe, every moment, 
 existence itself? 
 
 Now we are fairly entitled to claim this sacred 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 123 
 
 truth the doctrine of the sovereign, renovating in- 
 fluence of the Holy Spirit in the heart, and the 
 direct source and cause of whatever is holy, as pe- 
 culiar to Spiritual Christianity, inasmuch as, like 
 the doctrine of justification through faith, it has 
 (even when admitted in words) been constantly 
 evaded, or supplanted, on the one side by rational- 
 ists, and on the other by the promoters of supersti- 
 tion, ancient and modem. 
 
 Great truths are always lost or retained together ; 
 and the two we have named have both been re-^ 
 moved from the view of the mass of professed 
 Christians, through a long course of time, by the 
 substitution of symbols, for the things signified; 
 and by the practice of so magnifying the rites which 
 typify spiritual realities, as to throw these into the 
 shade. 
 
 It was vain to suppose that the mass of men 
 would continue to think of justification, and sancti- 
 fication, and of fitness for Heaven, as moral and 
 spiritual realities, when they were assured, in the 
 most solemn manner, that justification, sanctifica- 
 tion, and preparation for heaven, all passed upon 
 them, unconsciously, at the moment when they 
 emerged from the baptismal pool ! 
 
 But at this point we are warned " not to trifle 
 with things sacred." God forbid that we should 
 do so, while intending to plead for the most serious 
 
124 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 truths ! But in this instance we repel the imputa- 
 tion with confidence, and affirm that it is not we 
 who trifle with things sacred. What things then 
 are sacred ? The rites of religion are so, when they 
 hold their place ; but they become mischievous im- 
 pieties, when thrust from it. To rites we assign 
 the utmost measure of importance which, so far as 
 we can gather, the Apostles teach us to assign to 
 them ; and we dare attach no more ; and especially 
 because all religious history exhibits the infatuated 
 determination of the human mind to evade realities, 
 if it be possible, by the aid of ceremonies. 
 
 But we say it is not the adherents of evangelic 
 doctrine who trifle with things sacred. Surely the 
 immortal welfare of man is sacred ; and yet how is 
 this sported with by those who lull the conscience 
 with a promise of salvation that may be managed 
 by proxy ! Must not one tremble to witness the 
 temerity of those who, with little or no inquiry into 
 the condition of the soul, yet venture to grant pass- 
 ports into eternity ? 
 
 But it is not we who trifle with things sacred, or 
 even with the symbols of such things ; and we ap- 
 peal to the fact that, wherever Spiritual Christianity 
 most flourishes, there the genuine ordinances of 
 Christ are the most reverently and affectionately 
 regarded. 
 
 Yet again we hold nothing on earth to be more 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 125 
 
 sacred, than is the work of the Holy Spirit, when 
 clearly manifested in the temper and unblamable 
 conduct of Christian men. If there be any instances 
 in which the reality of religion comes home to our 
 convictions with irresistible force, it is when we 
 converse with those who themselves hold much com- 
 munion with God. As the Agent is most sacred, 
 so is his work ; nor can there be, as we think, an 
 impiety more bold than that of those who, after dis- 
 tinctly contemplating the work of the Spirit of God, 
 indubitably displayed in the walk and heavenly dis- 
 positions of Christian men, dare to scout it as alto 
 gether factitious, because, forsooth, the Christianity 
 of these seeming Christians is open to the suspicion 
 of having reached them through some indirect chanr 
 nel ! Thus to walk forth amid the most precious 
 of the works of God, trampling without remorse 
 upon whatever does not happen to lie within a cer- 
 tain ecclesiastical border, must be held to indicate 
 is it the highest moral courage or not rather, a 
 temper most irreligious, as well as arrogant. 
 
 This is indeed to trifle with things sacred ; and 
 the more so when it is remembered that the preva- 
 lence of so intolerant a theory, and the bold avowal 
 of it by those who are regarded as the best in- 
 formed expounders of Christianity, silently but ex- 
 tensively operates to drive cultured and ingenious 
 minds into deism or atheism. What is this 
 11* 
 
126 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 tianity, say such, which, while professing to be a 
 religion, not of bondage and forms, but of truth 
 and love, nevertheless impels its adherents to vio- 
 late all charity on the precarious ground of an ela- 
 borate hypothesis ! 
 
 It is unavoidable thus pointedly to advert to 
 these now prevalent errors, because in the practical 
 interpretation given them, they are absolutely in- 
 compatible with an adherence to Spiritual Chris- 
 tianity. Those who are sternly enjoined, on peril 
 of their own salvation, not to recognize as Christian 
 brethren any whose ecclesiastical legitimacy may 
 be ambiguous, are, of necessity, driven to adopt 
 such a notion of Christian piety as may consist 
 with the application of this ecclesiastical rule. In 
 plain words, they must learn to scout as futile or 
 illusory, whatever is moral and spiritual in religion ; 
 while they fix their attention exclusively upon that 
 which is formal and adjunctive. Nor will those 
 who are taught to judge of others in this manner, 
 be slow to judge of themselves, on the same prin- 
 ciple. " If we be Christians ecclesiastically, it is 
 enough : all besides is illusion." 
 
 And such in fact are every day seen to be the 
 products of the ecclesiastical theory which we de- 
 nounce as, at this time, the antagonist of Spiritual 
 Christianity. In its recent revival it has shed a 
 cold arrogance into many bosoms that once glowed 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 127 
 
 with Christian affection ; and, at the same time, it 
 has drawn such aside (in how many sad instances !) 
 from an enlightened regard to the substantial truths 
 of the Gospel ; while they give all their eares to 
 frivolous and servile observances. 
 
 But we turn to a happier theme. Happy indeed, 
 and ennobling, as well as efficacious, is the belief, 
 that He - l from whom all holy desires, good coun- 
 sels, and just works do proceed," dwelleth in us, as 
 the Author of spiritual life ! In a word, that the 
 body of the Christian is " the temple of the Holy 
 Ghost." A doctrine this, which, if scripturally 
 held, precludes at once despondency and presump- 
 tion. For how should we despond, if He who 
 " creates us anew in Christ Jesus," is almighty ? 
 or how presume, if we be convinced that, were the 
 sacred energy withdrawn, there " would remain in 
 us no good thing ?" 
 
 III. 
 
 We reach then our ultimate position, and THE 
 THIRD TRUTH, peculiar, as we assume, to Spiritual 
 Christianity, which is this THAT A CORDIAL RE- 
 CEPTION OF THE TWO ALREADY NAMED, JUSTIFICA- 
 TION THROUGH FAITH, AND THE SOVEREIGN INDWEL- 
 LING INFLUENCES OF THE HoLY SPIRIT, BRINGS 
 
128 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 WITH IT A SETTLED AND AFFECTIONATE SENSE Of 
 SECURITY, OR PEACE AND JOY IN BELIEVING, WHICH 
 BECOMES THE SPRING OF HOLY TEMPERS, AND VIR- 
 TUOUS CONDUCT. 
 
 Man, created for happiness, is truly virtuous only 
 so far as he is happy. Virtue may indeed be in a 
 suffering condition ; but never is it actually severed 
 from happiness ; for it is never cut off from com- 
 munion with Him who is the fountain of joy. 
 
 The Apostle, not speaking as in the person of 
 one who had been admitted into the third heavens, 
 and had witnessed the delights of paradise ; but 
 when addressing Christians, as such, appeals to 
 their consciousness, and affirms it as a common 
 truth, that, " being justified by faith, they have 
 peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." " The 
 love of God," he says, " is shed abroad in our 
 hearts, by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." 
 He enjoins Ckristians, as their characteristic duty, 
 to " rejoice always ;" and he repeats the injunc- 
 tion, as if to remind them that he had not forgot- 
 ten the many sources of uneasiness which might 
 disturb their happiness, and which yet, in his view, 
 should not destroy it. 
 
 If the Gospel be "glad tidings," can it be 
 strange that it should make those glad who heartily 
 receive it ? or would it not be strange if it did not ? 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 129 
 
 Are we anxious that our Christianity should be 
 apostolic ? let us then hear " the chief of the 
 Apostles," who affirms that although the object of 
 faith be unseen, yet the Christian, loving his Sa- 
 viour, and believing in him, " rejoices with joy un- 
 speakable, and full of glory." If to ourselves any 
 such state of mind, or such affections, or any such 
 happiness, be not known, or easily conceived of, our 
 faith itself should be examined anew. 
 
 " Perfect love," says " the beloved disciple ;" 
 that is to say, genuine love, " caste th out fear ;" 
 and with it " torment." 
 
 Through the knowledge of the Gospel, and the 
 hearty reception of its promises, we are " made 
 partakers of the Divine nature." But God is 
 " blessed for evermore." Shall we then be drawing 
 near to this nature continually, without a happy 
 consciousness of the felicity we are approaching ? 
 Shall we come up to the fountain of light, and re- 
 ceive thence no illumination ? Those do not ap- 
 pear to know much of human nature who are jeal- 
 ous of happiness, as an energy of virtue ; or who 
 suppose that virtue on earth will not show whence 
 she has descended, and whither she is going. 
 
 Bring this principle to a familiar test. The king- 
 dom of heaven, we are expressly told, is a pater- 
 nal system of love and duty ; it is not a despotism. 
 Now, if we be personally familiar with the mate- 
 
130 ON SPI.RITUAL 
 
 rials whence our illustration may draw its analogy, 
 let us look within the circle of a family, and there 
 make trial of the opposite methods of eliciting the 
 greatest amount of effective service, and of dutiful 
 performances ; that is to say of filial virtue. First, 
 let us work the principle of bondage and fear. Let 
 dread be the prime impulse of every domestic 
 movement, and love a rare and precarious blessing. 
 Let the paternal tenderness, if felt at all, yet be 
 disguised by frowns, and let it express itself, in all 
 instances, so ambiguously that the child may rea- 
 sonably question its very existence ; and let each 
 son and daughter, from the youngest to the eldest, 
 constantly have in view, as a chilling caution, the 
 possible, and not very improbable event, of a final 
 expulsion from the paternal home, and a cutting off 
 from all share in the inheritance. Make trial of 
 this method, until you have converted a home into 
 a prison, and children into abject and resentful 
 slaves ! 
 
 But assume the opposite principle. Do not ex- 
 clude fear, yet govern by love. Do not exclude 
 suffering ; but never, so far as your power may 
 avail, never let suffering exclude happiness. Let 
 all be as happy at home as the conditions of the 
 present state may admit ; .and especially let all feel 
 that happiness is secured to the utmost extent to 
 which parental vigilance may reach, Whatever 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 131 
 
 variety of disposition a family so treated may ex- 
 hibit, can there be a doubt that it will immeasura- 
 bly surpass the wretched family, in filial obedience, 
 as well as in attachment ? 
 
 If we then, being evil, yet know how to rule 
 our households by the means of love and joy, how 
 shall not our heavenly Father much rather know 
 how to do the same ? 
 
 But where then, it may be asked, is our security 
 against presumption, or a licentious abuse of Chris* 
 tian privileges? The same apostolic word that 
 enjoins us to rejoice, conveys the necessary precau- 
 tion; and to take up the precaution, forgetting the 
 privilege which it balances, is surely as great an 
 error as to use the privilege, and to forget the pre- 
 caution. A true belief of the Gospel brings with 
 it a belief also of the fact which the Gospel attests. 
 The Christian who indeed believes himself to be 
 saved, will recollect from what, and at what cost, 
 and to Avhat end. 
 
 In all cases in which the human mind comes habi- 
 tually under the control of a single motive, or of 
 motives of one cast and tendency, the consequence 
 is some species of extratagance, bordering often 
 upon insanity. If we are to be powerfully, and at 
 the same time healthfully affected, it must be by 
 motives which act upon us in the way of counter- 
 poise, or of mutual correction ; and the product of 
 
132 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 which is a joint product of forces moving in differ- 
 ent, if not opposite directions. 
 
 The motives of spiritual evangelic Christianity, 
 are of this composite kind. They are deep contra- 
 rieties, thoroughly harmonized. The motives and 
 reasons of an assured peace and joy, spring directly 
 from considerations the most profoundly afflictive, 
 or humiliating. It is in- this manner that moral 
 force is generated; and yet a force which is of 
 healthful and happy tendency. 
 
 Is it true that the Eternal Word was " made 
 flesh, and dwelt among us," and "died for our sins," 
 having been constituted " a curse for us ? " Sin 
 then is ruin immortal ruin ; and our condition, if 
 not benefitted by that sacrifice, is desperate. But 
 the Saviour, as we learn from his own lips, although 
 given by the Father, to suffer for the sins of the 
 " whole world," yet gave himself for his people, 
 individually. The propitiation, which was sufficient 
 for " taking away the sin of world," has no excess 
 of sufficiency in relation to the sin of each believer. 
 On this ground the apostle speaks of his Lord as 
 " having loved him, and given himself for him" 
 
 A distinct apprehension, therefore, of truths such 
 as these, brings home to the heart every kind of 
 powerful influence every imaginable element of 
 awe, compunction, dread, gratitude, and tender 
 affection, to which the human mind may be open- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 133 
 
 And just in proportion as sentiments of the one 
 kind become intense, those of the opposite quality 
 are enhanced. 
 
 Why then may not the Christian who has learned 
 to renounce all confidence in himself, as well as in 
 beings like himself, and to trust alone in Him who 
 is " mighty to save " why may he not freely 
 rejoice, nay, exult with joy unutterable, in the pros- 
 pect of a blissful immortality near at hand ; seeing 
 that the very condition of this joy is an always pro- 
 portionate depth of those convictions which render 
 him serious in temper, sedulous in duty, and keenly 
 apprehensive of the divine displeasure ? 
 
 It is on this very ground that we reject, as equally 
 unchristian and unphilosophical, those sombre in- 
 terpretations of Christianity which aim to secure 
 seriousness of temper, assiduity in good works, and 
 a necessary dread of the Divine Majesty, not by a 
 balance of counteracting motives ; but by giving an 
 almost unlimited operation to motives of one order, 
 and these of the kind which, when uncorrected, 
 crush and villify the moral sentiments^ 
 
 But do facts bear us out in advancing these broad 
 affirmations ? Let us select our genuine instances, 
 and we say they do. Wherever evangelic doctrines 
 are indeed entertained with an unfeigned belief of 
 their reality, there the product is not a lax, presump- 
 12 
 
134 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 tuous religionism ; but a humble, and yet happy 
 piety, and a consistent virtue. 
 
 But need we say that a loose and heartless evan- 
 gelic faith may, in a moral point of view, be of far 
 less value than is a cordially professed superstition ? 
 The vast intrinsic difference between genuine Chris- 
 tianity, and the austere illusions which are now 
 supplanting it, is much obscured by this circum- 
 stance. The grave puritanism (may we so apply 
 the term ?) which fascinates so many ardent minds, 
 is, although it dates itself from a remote age, in this 
 age quite new, and it possesses all that freshness 
 and animation which is characteristic of a recent 
 religious impulse ; or, as we might take the liberty 
 to call it, of a " revival." 
 
 Meantime the evangelic principle had, at the 
 moment of the birth of its antagonist, spent itself ; 
 or had become in a degree languid. Its interior 
 force had been dissipated by many and distracting 
 occupations commendable in themselves, but not 
 easily made to consist with profound sentiments, of 
 any kind. At the same time an almost unprece- 
 dented outburst of political and ecclesiastical strife 
 (must we not say of hatred ?) had produced its 
 inevitable its own effects, in vitiating the religious 
 sentiments of thousands, in all communions. 
 
 At such a moment, an austere pietism, exempted 
 from every admixture of vulgarity, by issuing from 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 135 
 
 halls of learning, and graced with the undefined 
 (and alas ! unexamined) recommendations of anti* 
 quity, and offering to young and ambitious spirits a 
 course of glory if not heavenly, yet not earthly in 
 the ordinary sense such a system, thus graced, 
 comes into comparison with what was already 
 exhausted divided distracted with what had 
 ceased for some long time, to be under the guidance 
 of powerful and deeply moved minds. 
 
 The consequence was such as might have been 
 supposed, and such as has invariably resulted from 
 similar opposition of a spent energy, with an energy 
 renovated. If at this moment there be reason to 
 anticipate a better issue of this collision than the 
 usual course of human affairs would warrant us in 
 expecting, such a hope must be drawn, chiefly, from 
 the now obvious fact, that the restorers of " Catho- 
 lic " superstitions are, like many other leaders of 
 sects, gifted with more zeal than discretion. 
 
 But it will be demanded what we mean by 
 speaking of the evangelic principle as having been 
 lately, or as still being, in a state of some exhaustion 
 or collapse. 
 
 Certainly not, that evangelical doctrine has ceased 
 to be professed with explicitness, or taught scrip- 
 turally. Certainly not, that it has so fallen into 
 decay as to fail of producing its proper and happy 
 effects in very many instances, and on all sides. 
 
136 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 Certainly not, that any dogmatic apostasy from the 
 faith has taken place among us. 
 
 On the contrary, it should be acknowledged with 
 gratitude, that those frightful delusions which were 
 the fruit of an absurd system of metaphysics, more 
 absurdly applied to the simplicity of scripture, and 
 which at one time extensively disgraced evangelic 
 communions, have nearly disappeared ; and that, 
 partly as scattered by argument, partly as extin- 
 guished by their own fumes, these false fires are 
 almost gone out. 
 
 What then do we complain of? not of False 
 Doctrine ; but rather of faintness at the heart ; as 
 a man may be labouring under no assignable malady, 
 whose pulse yet is feeble, whose appetite is way- 
 ward, whose waking hours are listless, and whose 
 repose is unquiet. 
 
 If it be our part to speak of Spiritual Christianity, 
 we are bound to take its characteristics as we find 
 them in the apostolic writings ; not as they may 
 happen to be presented to the eye in the momentary 
 aspects of this or that favoured religious body. 
 What does impartiality mean, if while loudly de- 
 nouncing superstition, or any other antichristian 
 error ; we allow it, by our discreet silence and deli- 
 cate reserve, to be gathered, that the body from the 
 bosom of which we are supposed to come is, in our 
 esteem, no sharer in those ever changing alternations 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 137 
 
 of health and sickness which attach to whatever is 
 human ! 
 
 Good reason is there to hope that, after the now 
 spreading " Catholic " puritanism shall have freely 
 exhibited its inner qualities, and shall have honestly 
 avowed its ulterior purposes, the deep movement 
 of which it has been the immediate cause, may, 
 through the divine goodness, take a happier course, 
 and extensively promote genuine piety. 
 
 "It is not in man that walketh to direct his 
 steps ;" and certainly there does not belong to the 
 religious commonwealth any such individual direc- 
 tive wisdom as might avail for the conduct of the 
 whole, in its dubious progress toward truth and 
 virtue. This overruling power it is not in man to 
 exercise. Our part is, while humbly we implore 
 this divine governance of the church, meekly to 
 yield ourselves to it, when personally challenged to 
 surrender our prejudices or to forego our preferences, 
 or to make any other sacrifice, which may give, 
 evidence of our << love of the Truth," 
 
 12* 
 
THE 
 
 THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 ON THE ETHICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 WE are now to speak of the ethical characteris- 
 tics of Spiritual Christianity ; or of the influence 
 which the great truths affirmed to constitute evan- 
 gelic doctrine should, and do exert over the dispo- 
 sitions and conduct of those who cordially embrace 
 them. 
 
 But whence are we to derive our knowledge of 
 what this influence actually is ? Is it to be drawn 
 inductively, from observation of facts around us ; 
 or hypothetically, from a consideration of what 
 ought to be the moral efficiency of such truths ? 
 
 We reply that we should adopt either method 
 without fear as to the result. Nevertheless the first, 
 namely, that of an appeal to the actual and visible 
 influence of the great principles of the Gospel, 
 wherever they have been allowed fully to take 
 effect, could not be rendered satisfactory, or be ex- 
 empted from plausible objections, within any such 
 limits as are prescribed to us in the present instance 
 
142 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 Scarcely any subject, connected with religion, 
 can be named, of wider compass than would be a 
 thoroughly impartial and comprehensive inquiry as 
 to the actual efficiency of evangelic principles, as 
 they have been maintained in this, and other coun- 
 tries. If we do not go into such an inquiry, it is 
 not from hesitation as to the issue ; nor merely from 
 a regard to our limits ; but still more from a deci- 
 sive unwillingness to affirm, without the adduction 
 of ample proof, even those things of which we 
 have the most entire persuasion, and the truth of 
 which long observation has confirmed. 
 
 In taking however the other method namely, 
 that of inferring the proper moral operation of cer- 
 tain religious truths from their manifest tendency, 
 we do not intend in any instance, to draw inferen- 
 ces not sustained, as we fully believe, by sufficient 
 evidence ; much less to assume in theory what is 
 contradicted in fact. 
 
 This method moreover, is warranted by the be- 
 lief which, as we think, the entire course of human 
 affairs, within the circle of church history, suggests, 
 or which it impels us to adopt, that the religion of 
 Christ, destined as it is to bless the human family 
 through a far extended period, ought to be consid- 
 ered as now, in our times, preparing itself for a 
 development of its powers, proportioned, at once, 
 tp the wide extent, and to the long continuance of 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 143 
 
 its ultimate triumph. The cycles of the Gospel 
 have been slow in their revolutions, because the en- 
 tire period of its history on earth is of incalculable 
 extent. 
 
 How then do such views bear upon our present 
 subject? Just as the breaking of the morning 
 affects the movements of those who, in painful 
 anxiety, have watched through the night. While 
 thus therefore considering what is, and should be, 
 the moral influence of the Gospel, we are, in this 
 sense, " forgetting the things that are behind, and 
 reaching forward to those that are before." We 
 are not thinking of the struggles of that which is 
 expiring ; but of that which is even now coming to 
 the birth. 
 
 We are then to confine our 'view of Christianity 
 to that aspect of it in which it presents itself as a 
 power, adapted to the reformation of the human 
 family ; or its restoration, universally, to a condition 
 of purity, brotherly affection, and rectitude ; and to 
 so much happiness as the prevalence of truth and 
 love must ensure. 
 
 That the religion of Christ was framed with the 
 intention of bringing about such a restitution of 
 the social system, and that it is actually advancing 
 toward the accomplishment of that end, will, as we 
 think, convincingly appear if we look to two or 
 
144 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 three special instances, in which what it has actu- 
 ally effected affords ground of hope for its further 
 triumphs. 
 
 It is certain that while the New Testament con- 
 tains, scattered over its surface, the definite articles 
 of a perfect system of ethics, delivered in the form 
 of precise precepts and prohibitions ; it contains 
 moreover, and which are the secret of its power, 
 vital principles, not always defined ; but which, as 
 they are evolved, one after another, and are succes- 
 sively brought to bear upon the opinions and man- 
 ners of Christianized nations, do actually remove 
 from them those flagrant evils which had accumu- 
 lated in the course of time, and which, so long as 
 they are prevalent, abate very much the religious 
 sensibilities even of those who are the most consci- 
 entious. 
 
 Let it then be well observed that, while the con- 
 science of the individual Christian studious of his 
 Bible, is informed and directed, and his conduct is 
 bound by explicit precepts, touching at all points 
 the entire surface of his moral existence ; these 
 precepts are propounded always as exemplifica- 
 tions of principles, supposed to reside in his bosom, 
 as a Christian, and apart from which the mere pre- 
 cept, even if rigorously respected, would leave him 
 liable to the imputation of not fulfilling " the law 
 of Christ." It must be so; because Christianity 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 145 
 
 is a spiritual religion ; a new life of the soul, ma- 
 nifesting itself, as occasion arises, in the outward 
 behaviour. 
 
 But this is not all ; and it is at the present mo- 
 ment especially important to keep the further truth 
 in mind, that the New Testament, considered as 
 embodying a system of morals for the world a 
 system which is slowly to develop itself, until the 
 human family has been led by it into the path of 
 peace and purity, effects this great purpose, not by 
 prohibiting, in so many words, the evils it is at 
 length to abolish ; but by putting in movement un- 
 obtrusive impulses, which nothing, in the end, shall 
 be able to withstand. 
 
 It is in this manner that the Gospel has already 
 conquered for itself an ample territory of just and 
 humane sentiments, on the field of the social sys- 
 tem ; and it is thus that it is now, with an observ- 
 able acceleration, going forth conquering and to 
 conquer. These conquests proceed even at times 
 when Christian piety may not be in the most heal- 
 thy state. We take an instance or two ; and those 
 which we shall name will show that no hopes of re- 
 formation for the world, if clearly founded upon 
 what we may be sure is the ultimate moral inten- 
 tion of the Scriptures, ought to be regarded as chi- 
 merical ; and that, with a steady faith, we may look 
 forward to what would deserve to be called a gold- 
 13 
 
146 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 en age, so far as the universal prevalence of 
 Christian principles must bring about so happy a 
 condition of the human family. 
 
 To the Gospel, thus working reformation by the 
 noiseless operation of its ethical principles, blessing 
 us often unawares, and even against the bent of 
 our perverse wills to the gospel, Woman owes 
 every thing good ; for she derives from it her power 
 to bless indeed those whom she loves ; and thus to 
 become herself happy. Acknowledged as " one 
 in Christ," with man, and a sharer in the perils and 
 dignities of personal responsibility to God, and a 
 partner, without a shade of difference, in the hope 
 of immortality, she takes a place never before 
 granted to her. This religious equality is enough 
 to ensure her welfare in every other sense ; and the 
 formal precepts which guard the sanctities of do- 
 mestic life stand forth indeed as law ; but are, in a 
 manner, superseded by deeper forces, which work 
 from within. The precept is the verbal expression 
 of something more efficient, and of wider applica- 
 tion than itself. Polygamy the curse of man, not 
 only disappears, (and whether it be distinctly pro- 
 hibited or not) but a broad foundation is laid for the 
 choicest happiness which earth admits, that of the 
 untainted domestic affections. If then a question 
 could be seriously agitated as to the lawfulness of 
 polygamy, under the Christian system, it would 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 147 
 
 properly be determined, not by searching for enact- 
 ments, or statutes ; but by considering whether the 
 hopes and dignities of Christian piety be woman's 
 right ; for if they be, then is she no longer man's 
 slave ; but his friend and companion on the road to 
 heaven ; and as such, her pure affections are not to 
 be outraged, or herself degraded. This instance 
 exemplifies that occult, but efficacious process by 
 which the religion of Christ brings about the reform 
 of manners, more certainly than could be done by 
 prohibitions. 
 
 It was as opposed to the first principles of the 
 Gospel the gospel of mercy, that the sanguinary 
 passion for the shameless murders of the public 
 games gave way. The Apostles, in their circuits 
 through the Roman world, had everywhere wit- 
 nessed these horrors ; and yet they did not, as an- 
 gry reformers would undoubtedly have done, openly 
 inveigh against them ; nor did they explicitly for- 
 bid Christians to take part in them. But they 
 taught humanity on principles so deep and wide, as 
 to ensure, at length, the removal of these atrocities, 
 wherever the Gospel should come to be respected 
 by the government of any country. 
 
 Or we may take the very significant instance of 
 slavery that horrid usage backed by a worse 
 doctrine slavery, which at this moment is cursing 
 the world, less even by the miseries it immediately 
 
148 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 entails, than by causing, as it does, a blockage on 
 that high road whereon mercy and truth for all na- 
 tions are ready to make their triumphant progress. 
 
 The present patrons of this enormity please them- 
 selves in affirming, what is indeed true, that neither 
 Christ nor his Apostles explicitly forbid it. They 
 do not ; but they have done more than forbid it ; 
 for they have challenged the slave as man, and have 
 taught him that his soul can neither be bought nor 
 sold. Only leave this doctrine to take its effect, 
 and it will, in its season, emancipate his body. 
 Christ, moreover, has taught men to cherish and 
 to respect each other as brethren. But will slavery 
 consist with the universal acceptance of any such 
 royal law of love ? It will not. Christianity and 
 slavery, when the former comes to rule the world, 
 will not endure each other : the one must expel and 
 destroy the other ; for they work, not merely from 
 different, but from antagonist principles : the one 
 is fatal to the other ; and that one which cannot die, 
 must ere long slay its rival. 
 
 This signal instance is the more pertinent to our 
 immediate argument, inasmuch as it is now, on a 
 large scale, and under circumstances of unusual 
 excitement, displaying this very characteristic of 
 Christian ethics, to effect an ulterior beneficent in- 
 tention by the efficacy of its principles, more than 
 by the force of its precepts. Moreover, it is to be 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 149 
 
 observed, that while the evil against which the Gos- 
 pel is thus directing its silent irresistible energy, is 
 of the highest enormity, the absence of express pro- 
 hibitions on the subject, and the apparent sanction 
 of an implicit approval, give the bolder relief to the 
 doctrine we are illustrating. For in this instance 
 it is seen, that, notwithstanding the ambiguity or 
 silence of the Christian code, touching slavery, and 
 notwithstanding the fact of its having given its in- 
 fluence more explicitly to strengthen the principle 
 of patient endurance in the slave, than to inculcate 
 upon the master the duty of releasing his bondman ; 
 that yet the deep-working principle of Christian- 
 ity its force of love, as it slowly develops itself, 
 and becomes better understood, and takes a firmer 
 hold of all minds, and raises the standard of humane 
 feeling, must render slavery every year less and 
 less tolerable, within Christianized communities 
 must at length expel it from the bosom of civiliza- 
 tion must drive it further and further outward into 
 the wilds of society, and leave it, seen and con- 
 fessed as such, a sheer curse, resting upon the heads 
 and homes of its infatuated supporters ; and at length 
 bring it to be denounced, by all but savages, as a 
 nuisance in the world a nuisance insufferable, to 
 be swept away at whatever risk. 
 
 A parallel instance of the gradual efficacy of the 
 Christian ethics in removing inveterate evils by the 
 13* 
 
150 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 slow expansion of principles, rather than by express 
 prohibitions, is that of War. The amiable friends 
 of universal peace seem, although diametrically op- 
 posed in every thing to the upholders of slavery, yet 
 to have fallen into a similar misapprehension of the 
 spirit of the Christian code. For while the apolo- 
 gists of slavery are looking into the New Testament 
 for what may serve to palliate their horrid doctrine, 
 in the way of apparent connivance, the friends of 
 Peace are searching for that which, we presume, 
 they will not find direct prohibitions of war ; al- 
 though they may easily find that which must, in its 
 season, and perhaps at no very remote period, re- 
 lieve the world of this scourge, and for ever. Let 
 but a Christian feeling pervade, even if it were only 
 three powerful communities of the civilized world 
 and there would be no more war, in any corner 
 of it. 
 
 Now in any instance in which the patrons of 
 prescriptive evils run to the Scriptures to find either 
 precedent for them, or the absence of formal pro- 
 hibitions, they might be told, not merely that, in 
 taking such a part, they show themselves to be 
 destitute of " the mind that was in Christ ;" but 
 that they totally, misunderstand the very structure 
 of the Christian system, as an ethical code, and 
 which we are bound to regard always in its power 
 and purport, rather than in its prohibitions ; and 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 151 
 
 especially when we have to do with immoral usages 
 peculiar to countries, or to times. The reprovers 
 of such usages should therefore be peculiarly care- 
 ful not to stake a good cause upon the interpreta- 
 tion of single texts ; but should rather bend their 
 utmost endeavours to the work of promulgating, in 
 the purest form, those first truths before which 
 nothing that is malign, unjust, or impure, will be 
 able to stand. It is a circumstance deserving to be 
 noticed, that those who have the most signalized 
 their zeal in opposition to special evils, have not 
 often been remarkable for their cordial regard to the 
 great truths of the Gospel. 
 
 This practical error, so often fallen into by Chris- 
 tian philanthropists, unfortunately gives counte- 
 nance, indirectly, to the course pursued by men of 
 an opposite temper, who, in quoting Scripture (as 
 Satan quotes it) in defence of impiety and wrong, 
 plant the Gospel, in the Gospel's own path ; and 
 doubly obstruct its triumphant progress, first, by 
 upholding what is wicked ; and then by loading 
 Christianity with the disgrace of seeming to sup- 
 port it. 
 
 Let the Gospel, in its genuine energy, pervade a 
 community, and each ancient abuse that attaches 
 to it, will come, in its turn, to be questioned and 
 rebuked, and will at length yield to this sovereign 
 influence. We confide too little in the heavenly 
 
152 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 efficacy of Christian principles, when we labour to 
 effect reformations on the lower ground of utility, 
 or of a temporizing expediency. 
 
 And yet even when argued on these lower grounds, 
 the purity of the Christian ethics seldom fails to win 
 a triumph. Some old injustice some immemorial 
 wrong, which has worked as a canker within the 
 social system, is at length brought under notice. 
 This interference of " busy zeal" is at first hotly 
 resented. The originators of the protest look again 
 to the grounds of their objection, and strengthen 
 their argument. The reasons they advance compel 
 attention, and are examined, and then the entire 
 code of Christian ethics, as applicable to the evil in 
 question, is brought to bear upon it. The result, 
 whether it be more or less definite, and even if the 
 first protest be overruled, is to raise the tone of 
 moral feeling, throughout the community, and to 
 bring the rule of morals into closer contact with 
 the consciences of all who are sincere in their 
 Christian profession. The Gospel of Christ has 
 thus won another triumph, in preparation for that 
 which shall be universal ; and to the eye of an in- 
 telligent observer these successive evolutions of 
 Christian morality, are clearly predictive of such a 
 triumph. 
 
 If Christianity be yet upheld in its purity ; and if 
 it be permitted to work its way forward, a time must 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 153 
 
 come, when the acceleration of its progress shall 
 attract all eyes, and shall begin to date its periodic 
 advances, not by centuries, but by years ; or even 
 by months and days. The world is governed, less 
 by the direct influence of known and fixed truths, 
 than by variable feeling, reverberated from all sides ; 
 just as the temperature of the atmosphere is main- 
 tained, not by the full sunshine, but by the radiation 
 of heat from all surfaces on earth. Men individual- 
 ly or at least those who are open to moral influ- 
 ence at all, act in a manner which represents, not 
 their individual acquaintance with what is right, but 
 that diffused sense of right which a few, who in- 
 tensely feel it, have shed around them. 
 
 Thus it is that every powerful impulse communi- 
 cated to the social mass by energetic minds repro- 
 duces itself, until even the few almost lose their 
 distinction of feeling more than others, and of think- 
 ing more justly ; because they have brought the 
 many to think and feel with them. This has hap- 
 pened several times within the last fifty years. 
 
 How much soever there may be still to lament in 
 the moral condition of this country ; yet those who 
 are able to recall, with distinctness, the state of 
 opinion, of feeling, and of manners, in particular 
 respects, about the close of the last century, must 
 acknowledge that great progress has been made, 
 if not in reforming the mass of the people, yet in 
 
154 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 bringing better modes of thinking, and purer and 
 more humane sentiments into credit, and in securing 
 for them an undisputed influence. Much has been 
 done within the compass of forty years, having the 
 aspect of a preparatory work, and the full effect of 
 which may be expected to appear, like the sudden 
 verdure and fertility of a northern summer, at the 
 moment when a new promulgation of great truths 
 an uncontradicted expansion of evangelic doctrine, 
 shall throw fresh life into the Christian body. 
 
 The grievous evils which affect the mass of the 
 people their ignorance, recklessness, and misery, 
 have so been made the subjects of anxious con- 
 sideration of late, and have so, in their frightful 
 details been explored, and attested, and so mea- 
 sured in their vast extent, and so spread to view in 
 their particulars, that, without an hour's delay, the 
 remedy would be applied, and the true means of 
 renovation zealously employed, were but the middle 
 and upper classes through the Divine mercy to 
 awake to a Christian feeling in this behalf. May 
 we assume that the preparation foreshows such an 
 awakening to be at hand ? 
 
 The contributions, labours, sacrifices, demanded 
 by a Christian care of the mass of the people, and 
 which it must seem extravagant to expect, while 
 whatever is needed for such purposes is to be 
 wrung, by the importunities of a few, from the in- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 155 
 
 difference or reluctance of the many such aids 
 would flow in as a mighty river, if an accordant 
 evangelic feeling were to spread itself among those 
 who already come within the influence of Christian 
 instruction. Great truths once recognised cordially 
 by a Christianized community, and then the ardent 
 benevolence which lately was the distinction of 
 those who are benevolent by constitution, becomes 
 the common sentiment of many ; and a generous 
 glow of charity which had appeared like a hectic 
 spot, now gives the colour of florid health to the 
 social body. Sentiments of justice and kindness 
 (hardly to be distinguished when both are vivid) 
 kindling from heart to heart, and lit up by inter- 
 changed sympathies, whatever is well proved to be 
 just, kind, and reasonable is borne forward, as by 
 a tide ; whereas, while the mass of society is stag- 
 nant, things good and just, if carried at all, are car- 
 ried as by the force of a hurricane ; and in such 
 instances, although the triumph of humanity is joy- 
 fully hailed, the result disappoints the hopes it had 
 excited. 
 
 When not springing from great truths and 
 therefore not truly Christian in principle, the best- 
 intended reforms of morals have not merely failed 
 of effecting their object ; but have brought upon 
 society the most terrible reactions ; as if to compen- 
 sate the Patron of evil for some temporary re- 
 
156 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 straints, by a wild outbreak of licentiousness, not to 
 be repressed in a century ! 
 
 This in fact has been the melancholy story, again 
 and again, of attempted reformations in morals, 
 through the successive periods of Christian history ; 
 and surely this mass of experiments, prompted 
 often by benevolence, but unwisely contrived, and 
 unhappily concluded, should avail to teach some 
 caution to those who are zealously labouring to 
 effect the suppression of flagrant evils by factitious 
 means ; or if by means lawful, yet not in accord- 
 ance with the first principle of Christianity, con- 
 sidered as a scheme of ethics. Christian morality 
 knows nothing of reforms that do not spring from 
 an inner impulse even the impulse of a Christian 
 faith ; nor admits such as are imposed by a power 
 acting upon the surface of human nature, and work- 
 ing on toward the centre. 
 
 There is too much reason to fear that, when 
 Christian energies are set to work in this introverted 
 direction, which is not proper to them, the mischief 
 intended to be removed, is pent up only, and gath- 
 ers both heat and expansive force during its short 
 season of compression, which shall teach us our 
 error by the tremendous impetuosity of its explo- 
 sion. 
 
 As on the present occasion we at once challenge 
 entire independence, and disdain every ambiguity, 
 
CHRISTIANITY 
 
 we cannot do less than plainly express' 
 that the benevolent, and no doubt greatly successful 
 endeavours now making to repress the use of 
 intoxicating liquors we must not say to promote 
 temperance ; for temperance is altogether another 
 matter these endeavours, involving pleas and pre- 
 texts which common sense resents, might well bear 
 to be seriously reconsidered ; and placed on a 
 basis of principles truly and distinctively Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 Two courses are highly dangerous in morals ; 
 nay, we must say, are of fatal tendency, and are 
 sure to turn virtue back upon itself, with loss and 
 discredit. The first is to teach men, either direct- 
 ly, or by a clear implication, that it is vain for 
 them, such as they are, to hope to become virtuous, 
 or to control their passions, with a uniform and 
 religious governance of the lower nature by the 
 higher. The second error is to suggest to them 
 the belief, or to teach it, that they may become 
 virtuous on some other than the highest principles. 
 
 The first error promotes the sordid ethics of 
 interest or expediency ; the real meaning of which 
 is, that, if a man can but by any dexterity evade ill 
 consequences to himself, it matters nothing whether 
 his bosom be the residence of an angel, or the cage 
 of seven demons, 
 
 The second of these errors, should it pervade a 
 14 
 
158 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 community, would have the effect, if we might use 
 the figure, of bleeding Truth to death ; for it would 
 bring about such a contempt of principle, as must 
 end in leaving society to be governed by the most 
 frivolous of all motives those of conventional de- 
 cency courtesy, heartless honour, and a varnished 
 selfishness. 
 
 But Christianity, as a system of morals, while it 
 rejects any partial and interested concession to vir- 
 tue, implying disaffection to virtue's self, and com- 
 mands every man to be religiously virtuous, not 
 factiously abstinent ; opens to all the means of be- 
 coming so, by surrendering themselves to its own 
 efficacious truths. Not only is a conventional or 
 arbitrary morality incomplete, as Compared with 
 Christian morality ; for it is Unlawful it is pro- 
 hibited it is condemned, as an insult, at once to 
 the Law, and to the Mercy of Heaven. 
 
 Here then we make our stand in behalf of Spiri- 
 tual Christianity, considered as a means of pro- 
 ducing genuine virtue ; and we affirm this to be its 
 first characteristic THAT IT ATTACHES A SOVE^ 
 
 REIGN IMPORTANCE TO TRUTH, AS FURNISHING THE 
 ONLY SOLID SUPPORT FOR THE MOTIVES OF SELF- 
 dOVERNMENT, PURITY, AND CHARITY. 
 
 Every other notion of Christianity every scheme 
 of piety and virtue which we must think ourselves 
 bound to except against as unchristian, or as 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 159 
 
 Christian only in a mutilated sense, has either pre- 
 sented a lifeless body of precepts and prohibitions ; 
 or, if it has rested upon motives and principles, these 
 have not been those of the Gospel, which are at 
 once deep, serious and happy. There have been 
 systems of morality, called Christian, some of them 
 indulgent, and gay in their aspect ; and others aus- 
 tere ; but Christian morality, springing as it does 
 from its own truths, is at once far more profound 
 than the severe scheme, and far more happy than 
 the lax and frivolous scheme. 
 
 But at this point an acknowledgment must be 
 made which is due to the thorough impartiality we 
 profess. When we speak, as we are compelled to 
 do, of two parties, now ostensibly opposed, one to 
 the other ; the one promoting what we cannot but 
 condemn as superstitious, and deficient in evangelic 
 feeling ; and the other party as maintaining evan- 
 gelic principles of the highest importance ; it must 
 by no means be thence inferred that we mean to 
 represent the one party as altogether to be reprobat- 
 ed, and the other party, as altogether to be approved, 
 in matters of Christian practice. Truth and virtue, 
 we do not hold to be chartered to companies : they 
 are possessed only in part by those who possess the 
 most of them ; and they are possessed in some good 
 measure, even by many who must yet stand con- 
 demned as capitally wrong in theology, 
 
160 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 Men, serious and upright, cannot easily be thought 
 altogether to have failed while labouring to give 
 prominence to some one element of Christian virtue, 
 which their opponents may have too little regarded ; 
 and concerning which these, their opponents, might 
 do well to take lessons at their lips. 
 
 It is so, as we presume, in the great controversy 
 which now agitates the Church. Assuredly we be- 
 lieve the revivers of the mongrel divinity, and dan- 
 gerous practices of the ancient church, to be pursu- 
 ing a course in the last degree pernicious ; and so 
 far, those who oppose them in this endeavour are 
 performing an urgent and important duty, and in the 
 discharge of which we could only wish them suc- 
 cess. Yet should it be regarded as an ominous 
 triumph, even of evangelic principles, if they were 
 so to prevail as to drive the chariot of controversial 
 war over the field, at once crushing their antagonists, 
 and demolishing what these may have done in re- 
 freshing particular branches of Christian morality. 
 Rather let us put on a Christian humility, and be 
 sincerely willing to learn, even from those whom we 
 strenuously oppose, to think anew of whatsoever 
 things are pure, grave, seemly, just, and of good 
 report : whatsoever things give evidence of self- 
 command, self-renunciation, stern assiduity, and 
 patient endurance of evil. 
 
 While devoutly desiring to see the corruptions of 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 161 
 
 the ancient church warded off from the protestant 
 pale, far should we be from desiring to witness, either 
 the personal discomfiture, or disparagement of the 
 restorers of these errors ; or such a reckless extinc- 
 tion of their endeavours as should leave room for no 
 salutary reaction to take effect upon evangelic bo- 
 dies. Such a corrective influence, it ought to be 
 acknowledged, has long been greatly needed ; and 
 should be welcomed as seasonable. 
 
 A willingness to receive correction in matters of 
 Christian morality from our theological opponents, 
 may well be founded upon a consideration of the 
 fact, that, while the unhappy divisions which distract 
 the Christian commonwealth are in part redeemed 
 by their tendency to preserve, and to give the greater 
 accuracy to dogmatic principles, they have a most 
 unhappy influence, as well in diverting the minds of 
 Christian men from the simple and well understood 
 elements of morality, as in lowering, on all sides, the 
 due impression of the sacred importance of these 
 simple elements. Not only are our thoughts so much 
 distracted by controversy that we become far too 
 little mindful of the tempers and virtues which 
 should recommend a Christian profession ; but the 
 solemn sanctions of morality lose their influence 
 over our minds. We become more eager than 
 conscientious more acute than sincere, and more 
 zealous than holy. 
 14* 
 
162 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 Whoever comes forward therefore, to renovate 
 any one branch of Christian ethics, even though it 
 be on defective principles, should meekly be listened 
 to, and the movement which he originates should be 
 considered, so far as it may extend, as if it were 
 which it may in fact be, an admonition from the 
 Lord, calling upon all " to do their first works," and 
 to repent of any remissness, or unfaithfulness, with 
 which they may be chargeable. 
 
 It is trite to say that, while the human mind con- 
 tinues what it is, men must differ, not merely in taste 
 and intellectual preferences, but even in some of 
 those matters of belief which should be under the 
 control of mere reason : the supposition of an age 
 of uniformity is therefore chimerical ; but the sup- 
 position nay, the positive hope of an age of Chris- 
 tian concord, and of cordial combination is not chi- 
 merical ; for it is identical with the belief of the 
 truth of Christianity itself, and of its triumph in the 
 world. 
 
 But when this era of Christian harmony commen- 
 ces, and when Christian men become " of one mind, 
 and of one heart," there will take place, as we 
 cannot doubt, a surprising reflux of feeling toward 
 the great matters of morality. The serious obliga- 
 tions of justice, temperance, purity, and charity, 
 will then be felt in another manner ; and will come 
 home to the conscience, not merely as realities, but 
 
CHRISTIANITY. . 163 
 
 almost as novelties ; and Christian men will be fain 
 to think that, heretofore, they have been dreaming. 
 Ever must it be true that Christian virtue is the 
 direct product of Christian Truths ; but then, when 
 these are no longer held in agitation, they will take 
 their effect, and produce their fruits, with an abun- 
 dance not heretofore imagined. More than two or 
 three passages of Scripture, bearing upon the exact 
 retributions of a future life, might be referred to, 
 which hitherto have, in a manner, slept on the sacred 
 page ; while eager controversies on points less nearly 
 connected with our welfare, have engaged all atten- 
 tion. It cannot be doubted that these ominous inti- 
 mations are to have their turn, and to take the place 
 due to them in the minds of Christians. When thus 
 regarded, Christian morals may assume almost a 
 new aspect. 
 
 That we have not misunderstood the Christian 
 morality, as intended to work its effects by the latent 
 operation of great principles rather than by the force 
 of precepts and prohibitions, appears from the re- 
 markable quality of our Lord's method of teaching 
 morals namely, that of enouncing principles of 
 conduct in such a form as absolutely to exclude the 
 supposition that he intended to deliver positive 
 
 enactments. 
 In each instance some principle of his divine 
 
164 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 morality is presented to us, so stated or so exem- 
 plified, as that it can be available for our guidance, 
 only as illustrating a principle ; and so as to imply 
 what would be incompatible with other precepts, or 
 even plainly immoral, if it were understood in any 
 other manner. " Unless a man hate his father and 
 his mother, he cannot," says Christ, " be my dis- 
 ciple." Who can for a moment imagine that this, 
 and many similar injunctions, are positive laws, or 
 statutes absolute ? As well give a literal import to 
 his injunction to " eat his flesh, and drink his blood." 
 
 If it were objected that, in thus reading our Lord's 
 system of morals, we are lowering the import of his 
 commands, we reply that we are not lowering, but 
 rather heightening it ; for we give these precepts a 
 far more comprehensive interpretation, by this 
 means ; and send them in upon the centre of the 
 moral faculties upon the conscience, instead of 
 leaving them to rankle, as otherwise they must do, 
 upon the surface, where they can effect no good. 
 
 In all sincerity, and inasmuch as, without intend- 
 ing offence to any, we must allow our argument to 
 take effect where it may, we should here advert to 
 that error in ethics which has been the besetting 
 fault of many seriously-minded persons, in every 
 age ; we mean that of frittering down the evan- 
 gelic principles of morality, into specific precepts , 
 which, in that form, are either impracticable, or 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 165 
 
 frivolous. What is the consequence ? Thus un- 
 derstood or rather misunderstood, the law of 
 Christ is made to stand opposed, not to the bad 
 customs of the world, but to the very constitution 
 of society ; and is made to forbid, with equal stern* 
 ness, what is indifferent or innocent, and what is 
 unquestionably vicious. But nothing tends so 
 certainly to merge the distinction between good 
 and evil, as to prohibit things indifferent, or appa- 
 rently so, with a Draco's severity. In truth this 
 method of literally interpreting our Lord's moral 
 discourses, offers to the world so grotesque a 
 portraiture of Christianity, that it is likely to be 
 regarded as nothing better than a system of punc- 
 tilious scrupulosities, and frivolous evasions. 
 
 " The words that I speak unto you," said our 
 Lord, " are spirit and truth." And have not all 
 facts established his conclusion that " the letter 
 indeed killeth, but the spirit giveth life ;" for in 
 every case in which men of an ardent and serious 
 temper have taken up the letter instead of the spirit 
 of Christian morality, they themselves, or their 
 immediate successors, have fallen, as we might 
 say, lifeless, into the arms of formality; each 
 generation becoming more and more forgetful of 
 vital truths. 
 
 But now, if Christianity, as a scheme of morals, 
 is intended to produce its effect rather by principles 
 
166 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 than precepts, we reach our second position; 
 namely, that it does so by its ONENESS OF PRIN- 
 CIPLE ; or its CONCENTRATION or MOTIVES. Chris- 
 tian morality is an emanation not from two or 
 more centres, but from one. 
 
 Is it not a fact, well understood in the philosophy 
 of human nature, that, wherever we find a high 
 degree of moral energy, of any kind, and whether 
 it be good or evil in itself, it is always the energy 
 of concentration 1 Force, in conduct and character, 
 whether it be benevolent or malignant, is the force 
 of Unity, or the sovereignty of a single motive, or 
 of a balance of motives, well combined. True is 
 it in morals, that " a double-minded man " a man 
 acting, now from the impulse of one motive, now 
 from that of another " is unstable in all his ways " 
 easily diverted from his path, or as easily over- 
 thrown upon it. Ought we not therefore to look for 
 this same concentration in the morality of Christ? 
 If it is to be full of force if it is to be a principle 
 of power, and equal to the services and sacrifices 
 of the Christian life, it must possess this charac- 
 teristic. 
 
 What remains then is to seek the true centre of 
 Christian morals ; to find its law of concentration. 
 Having found it, we shall do better to leave it full in 
 view, and boldly expressed in a few words, than to 
 dilate it in a lengthened discussion, This then 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 167 
 
 must be the characteristic of Christian morality 
 That it springs all from one centre ; and that centre 
 the same which is the centre of all light and warmth 
 in the scheme of Christian doctrine. 
 
 If indeed man be capable of generous and happy 
 emotions, and if it be only when acting under the 
 influence of such emotions that he puts forth what- 
 ever energy his individual constitution may admit 
 of, then it is certain that no principle of duty which 
 does not deeply touch the emotions of love and 
 gratitude, can become a principle of concentration, 
 or be of avail to bring forth the entire power of the 
 character, 
 
 It is thus that a generous motive, ruling the mind, 
 even if it be a very faulty one, and liable perhaps 
 to the condemnation of the moralist, nevertheless is 
 found to carry men further in arduous and perilous 
 services than they are ever carried by a mere sense 
 of duty. What sort of 4 virtue is that which springs 
 from, and is always regulated by a calculation of 
 consequences, turning in upon the man's insulated 
 welfare or upon what he supposes to be his wel- 
 fare ? This is not morality but arithmetic ; Nor 1 
 do we hesitate to affirm that a community would 
 have more to fear, in which such a principle were 
 to prevail, and to be openly and generally recog- 
 nized and formally taught, than one in which morals 
 were actually at a very low ebb, while yet the true 
 
168 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 principle of virtue was in theory admitted ; for it is 
 clearly better that men should still be men, even 
 though bad, than that they should have become 
 mere automatons of selfishness. 
 
 There may be other, and loftier motives of virtue, 
 less to be condemned than the atheistic doctrine of 
 expediency, and which may in fact go far in car- 
 rying men through the duties of common life 
 unblamably ; but, failing in warmth and animation, 
 and not so springing from the centre of the moral 
 faculties as to embrace and harmonize its emotions, 
 they are little to be accounted of ; they are morali- 
 ties, not virtue ; for virtue is one ; nor can it be 
 such, if it allow any principal element of our nature 
 to remain in a dormant condition, or if it repress 
 the free exercise of any. 
 
 The Truths, which in the preceding Lecture were 
 affirmed to be of the very substance of Christianity, 
 being assumed as certain, how can they be regard- 
 ed otherwise than as the ground or reason of the 
 motiyes of Christian morality ? they must, if they 
 are believed to be true. Can they be cordially ad- 
 mitted, and yet take any other position than the 
 highest in our regard, or affect us in any other than 
 the most sovereign manner ? 
 
 Christian virtue then, can be nothing less than 
 a concentrated love, or devotion of the soul to the 
 service of Him to whom we owe, not natural life 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 169 
 
 merely, but spiritual life. Christian morality is an 
 affectionate loyalty to Him who, besides that he is 
 our rightful sovereign, has acquired every claim to 
 our duty and affection by having exchanged posi- 
 tions with us, when we were " without help," and 
 under condemnation. 
 
 Unless we had been guilty and helpless, no such 
 intervention as that which the Christian scheme 
 supposes, could have had place. But if the ruin 
 of man, and his recovery by the personal interven- 
 tion of the divine Saviour be both true, then must 
 it be granted that thenceforward genuine Chris- 
 tian virtue, while it is deepened and chastised by 
 a recollection of the misery whence we have been 
 rescued, is warmed, and receives a boundless im- 
 pulse from an affection, directed with the distinct- 
 ness of personal love, toward the Saviour, and who 
 is now become, by every title, the sovereign of the 
 heart. 
 
 By the most direct inference, the one motive of 
 affectionate loyalty, and a humble expectation of 
 winning the approval of Him who is supreme in 
 our regards, must be held sufficient to sustain our 
 constancy in any service, which that Sovereign is 
 known to approve, or which we believe will be gra- 
 ciously accepted by Him at our hands. And not 
 only services, but sufferings " for Christ's sake," 
 even to the endurance of fiery trials, and death, have 
 15 
 
170 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 often, from the same motive, been stripped of their 
 terrors. 
 
 What more then can we need in behalf of the 1 
 most comprehensive, or of the most refined scheme 
 of morals, than is fully secured by this motive of 
 loyalty to a sovereign such as is the Saviour of 
 the world ? 
 
 From the evangelic history is drawn the IDEA of 
 all that is beautiful in virtue ; and from the precep- 
 tive parts of the Scriptures the explicit rules of 
 morality ; and from the doctrinal parts, the impul- 
 sive principle of affectionate obedience. With a 
 system of ethics, itself faultless as a definite rule, 
 may it not be affirmed, that a loving loyalty to such 
 sovereign, at once Teacher and Saviour, embraces 
 every motive that can tend to secure a correspond- 
 ent moral harmony and completeness, in the conduct 
 and temper of his subjects and disciples ? The 
 Christian ethics, thus made to relate to the personal 
 character and will of Christ, has in a high degree 
 that concentration and oneness of motive, which is 
 needed to give force and simplicity to virtue. A 
 generous animation, and a tender affection, a well 
 defined personal sentiment, fixed on one whose own 
 moral elevation leaves nothing that is great, pure, 
 or beautiful, to be added to it or even imagined, 
 give to Christian morality a power and warmth, to 
 which no other system makes any approach. 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 171 
 
 The simplest possible test may be applied to the 
 motive and rule of Christian morality as thus stated. 
 Let any one, after furnishing his mind with a dis- 
 tinct conception of the personal character of Christ, 
 compel himself to bring his own conduct, disposi- 
 tions, and converse, throughout any one day, to this 
 gauge, namely, its supposed conformity, in prin- 
 ciple, with what we may call the style of our Lord's 
 behaviour. This criterion will be found to reach to 
 the extent of the most arduous and unusual duties, 
 as well as to fit the most ordinary. If we are com- 
 pelled to grant that the application of such a test 
 would carry us forward always toward whatever 
 is pure, and just, and kind, have we not virtually 
 granted that Christianity is divine ? 
 
 What then remains is to give impulse to the rule 
 we acknowledge to be good. And this must be by 
 admitting into the heart, in all its power, that faith 
 which connects the soul with the Saviour, by the 
 vital agency of the Spirit of grace. Then it is that 
 abstract virtue becomes embodied, and lives. The 
 office of the Holy Spirit, as we learn by the apos- 
 tolic word is " to take of the things of Christ" 
 whatever is his distinctively, and " to reveal them 
 to us." In other words, to expand the divine pat- 
 tern of all perfection before our contracted faculties, 
 part by part, as we are able to receive it ; to con- 
 vey to us the lesson of perfection, in morsels, and 
 
172 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 to render us, by a gradual process of assimilation, 
 " new creatures in Christ Jesus." 
 
 But this office of the Holy Spirit has its own 
 peculiar tendency to promote the purification of the 
 heart. How impressive is the apostolic appeal to 
 Christians, "What ! know ye not that your bodies 
 are the temples of the Holy Ghost which dwelleth 
 in you ?" and again, the injunction not " to grieve the 
 Holy Spirit." It is when Christianity is spiritually 
 understood, and when whatever tends to substitute 
 symbols for realities is rejected, that a trinitarian 
 faith is brought to bear with effect upon the under- 
 standing, the heart and the life. If this faith be 
 doubtingly or distrustfully held, is it any wonder 
 that it is found to be ineffective ? or if it be held in 
 conjunction with notions which either oppress the 
 heart, or which favour the propensity to rest in for- 
 malities, then ought we to suppose it can exhibit its 
 proper influence ? 
 
 But we are speaking of a spiritual and cordial 
 trinitarian faith, and then we affirm it to be the 
 basis of the only virtue which deserves the name a 
 serious, reverential, happy, and affectionate devo- 
 tion of the whole nature to God the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Spirit. Christian virtue is the habit, 
 the motive, and the act of the soul meditating upon 
 " the love of God," and " the grace of the Lord 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 173 
 
 Jesus," and enjoying " the communion of the Holy 
 Spirit." 
 
 Let it be remarked, that apostolic trinitarian doc- 
 trine so utterly unlike the crabbed definitions of a 
 wrangling and unevangelic age, brings the inscruta- 
 ble mystery of the divine nature to bear immediately 
 upon the affections, under an aspect of pleasurable 
 emotion. How little has this been regarded by 
 angry disputants ! How grievously have those mis- 
 understood apostolic orthodoxy, who have pursued 
 each other to the death, because not consenting to 
 the same jargon as themselves ! We cannot too 
 attentively regard the apostolic method of teaching 
 this great truth of shedding it into the heart. Our 
 CREED, if derived from the Scriptures, speaks to 
 us of " the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of 
 the love of God, and of the communion of the Holy 
 Ghost." This is the orthodoxy which, when cor- 
 dially entertained, impels Christians to love each 
 other and all men, and to abound in good works, 
 at sacrifices and offerings, with which " God is well 
 pleased." 
 
 But it is reasonably asked if such be the in- 
 tensity and excellence of the motives which you 
 affirm to spring from an evangelic faith, how do 
 you explain the frequent and lamentable instances 
 in which those who adopt these motives, and talk 
 of them perpetually, are found wanting in the first 
 15* 
 
174 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 duties of morality, and guilty even of outraging its 
 plainest requirements ? Nothing is more simple ; 
 such persons, and the number of such is never small, 
 and in times of formality or of controversial agita- 
 tion, like the present, it will be large such per- 
 sons, unhappily, while they have surrendered their 
 hold of the common, or as they would term them, 
 of the worldly and unevangelic motives of virtue, 
 are very far from having come into any real com- 
 munion with those motives of which they so fluent- 
 ly speak. They are in fact unprovided with any 
 efficacious motives of conduct ; and they fall, while 
 those less doctrinally enlightened than themselves, 
 stand : they are, in fact, the easiest of all the vic- 
 tims of temptation : if the first assault upon virtue 
 be repelled from fear of shame, or from mere habit ; 
 the second, or the third, prevails over the feeble 
 resistance of a mortality which has no basis, and 
 no vitality. But when we speak of the efficacy of 
 the principles of Christian morals, we must mean, 
 assuredly, nothing less than the actual possession 
 of that motive, which we affirm to be the impulse 
 of all virtue. A thousand instances of failure and 
 delinquency, among the professors of evangelic prin- 
 ciples, prove only that the profession was all that 
 had been attained by the individual. 
 
 It is manifest that a principle of morals so specific 
 and peculiar as the one we have named, cannot exist 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 175 
 
 in power apart from a clear recognition of that prime 
 truth of Christianity whence immediately it springs. 
 Any doctrine, therefore, the tendency of which is 
 to throw obscurity upon this first article of belief 
 Justification through faith in the propitiatory 
 work of Christ ; or any religious practice 2 the 
 effect of which is to mingle what is human with 
 what is divine, in the matter of our acceptance 
 with God, must operate, so far, to chill the reli- 
 gious affections, and to bring Christian morality, 
 in the same proportion, down to the level of that 
 morality which is unchristian whether philosophic, 
 or superstitious. It is on this ground, therefore, 
 that we claim, without hesitation, the ethical beauty 
 of Christianity, as proper and peculiar to an evan- 
 gelic faith ; because every element of Christian 
 virtue bears relation to a correspondent element of 
 Christian doctrine ; and whatever darkens the one, 
 enfeebles the other. 
 
 A motive of virtue, so far as it may be peculiar, 
 will express itself in its own manner. The results 
 of two motives, themselves differing greatly, will 
 not be the same. Now the Christian morality, 
 specified as such in the New Testament, has this 
 very peculiarity, which we should look for, if 
 indeed its principle be the one we have named. 
 Most remarkable is it, that though our Lord, before 
 his having accomplished the work of redemption, 
 
176 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 refers but incidentally to the great evangelic truth 
 which was to be ratified by his death and resurrec- 
 tion ; yet precludes all misunderstanding as to the 
 principle of the system of morals which he was 
 giving to the world, by very clearly resting the 
 validity or acceptableness of even the most ordinary 
 act of kindness or humanity, on the fact of its having 
 been performed from a motive of affection toward 
 himself ; and by declaring that he regards any want 
 of sympathy toward his suffering members, in this 
 peculiar light, as being an affront to himself. 
 
 As is the principle of virtue, so are its expres- 
 sions. All benevolence toward mankind at large, if 
 it be Christian benevolence, is the love of man, for 
 Christ's sake, even as of those who are redeemed 
 by his precious blood. Can it be doubted then that 
 the Christian's affection toward his Christian breth- 
 ren must have the same peculiarity, and possess it 
 in the most decisive manner ; or that any want of 
 this specific affection, or any backwardness in the 
 expression of it, toward Christ's disciples, is a 
 grave fault, a fault rendering very ambiguous, to 
 say the best, our personal Christianity ? 
 
 And now let us remember that although Chris- 
 tianity be a religion of principles rather than of pre- 
 cepts yet it has its precepts ; it has a law a law 
 summarily containing all law the royal law of love, 
 and of love among Christians, as such. " If any 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 177 
 
 man love God, let him love his brother also." 
 "This is my command," said the Saviour a com- 
 mand given before his sufferings, and issued anew 
 from his throne in the heavens, " that ye love one 
 another." 
 
 He who abstained from prohibiting some things 
 which we cannot doubt he intended to exclude from 
 his church, and who left many things unsaid which 
 we are forward to put into his lips, He has said - 
 That those who are wanting in love to their Chris- 
 tian brethren are not to be accounted his disciples. 
 
 Under every code of law and system of morals, 
 however well defined it may be in its principles, or 
 skilfully expounded in its particular applications, 
 occasions must frequently be presented, by the ever- 
 varying aspects of human affairs, in which some 
 single enactment seems to contravene another ; or in 
 which a general principle of law is apparently inter- 
 cepted in its operation by some positive prohibition. 
 Now this being an inconvenience to which every 
 institution wherein man acts a part must be liable, 
 a universal necessity arises for admitting a rule of 
 adaptation, by the aid of which the social machine 
 may be exempted from ruinous collisions of part 
 with part. Such a rule must have respect to the 
 manifest intention, or the spirit, of the code or insti- 
 tution, considered as a whole ; or to the known and 
 
178 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 recorded mind of the legislator ; or to some broad 
 principle of expediency. 
 
 In any such instance it is to be assumed that 
 some things are of supreme importance ; while 
 some are important relatively only, or conditionally ; 
 and that whatever comes under this latter descrip- 
 tion should give way, rather than that a sovereign 
 axiom, or an absolute and wide-extending precept 
 should be dishonoured. 
 
 The application of these unquestionable princi- 
 ples to the Christian Institute, and to the conduct of 
 Christians, one toward another, is obvious. The 
 law of Christ, which enjoins his followers first to 
 love each other fervently, and without reserve or 
 disguise ; and then to recognise each other as Chris- 
 tians, and to abide in communion one with another, 
 is the most explicit of all his commands ; it is the 
 law the most solemnly promulgated ; it is the law 
 that is reiterated oftener than any other. It is a law 
 announced as a universal rule of the Christian insti- 
 tute ; and therefore always to be respected, rather 
 than any enactment, less comprehensive, which 
 may at any time seem to clash with it. 
 
 Moreover this law, not only of love, but of com- 
 munion, or of visible fellowship, is declared to be 
 the one CHARACTERISTIC of the Christian institute ; 
 and submission to it is made the condition at once of 
 Christ's promised presence with his church, and of 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 179 
 
 the conversion of the world by the means of the 
 church. 
 
 Ought not those then to look well to the course 
 they are pursuing, who, on the plea of a conscientious 
 regard to some special enactment, or of the adhe- 
 rence to some institution which, at the most, is but 
 a means to an end, are, and in a deliberate manner, 
 putting contempt upon Christ's first Law his uni- 
 versal and sovereign will ; and on such ground are 
 either refusing to recognise and to consort with 
 other Christians ; or are even denying the very 
 name to those whose only alleged fault is their 
 error (if it be an error) on the particular in ques- 
 tion? 
 
 Whoever it is that pursues such a course, we 
 cannot hesitate to speak of it as in the highest de- 
 gree culpable and perilous. It is the fault of these, 
 our times ; a fault from which, however, multi- 
 tudes of Christians individually stand clear, by the 
 warmth and expansiveness of their personal senti- 
 ments, and the (genuine) liberality of their modes 
 of action. But as to communities, not one can well 
 claim exemption from some blame on this behalf. 
 
 But if the most absolute of Christ's laws be pub- 
 licly dishonoured by Christian bodies ; and if, in 
 the eye of the world, the mark of unity and love be 
 wanting, the serious question presents itself, Wheth- 
 er it may be allowable to claim for any body of 
 
180 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 Christians, as such, the praise of possessing and of 
 "holding forth" that Spiritual Christianity of which 
 we are speaking ? 
 
 We shall excuse ourselves from the task of dis- 
 tinctly replying to so weighty a question content 
 to know that, in whatever way it might be answered 
 by the champions of parties, Christ's law of love is 
 in fact cordially accepted, and visibly honoured too, 
 by no small number of individual Christians, within 
 each department of the orthodox and evangelic com- 
 monwealth. Even if the visible, or ecclesiastical 
 condition of the Christian community be not aus- 
 picious, happily its interior condition (as we fully 
 believe) is of a far more cheering character : and is 
 such as may safely be held to indicate the approach 
 of a better exterior, as well as interior mode of com- 
 bination. 
 
 A decisive improvement of this sort, or a reno- 
 vation of the visible, as well as of the interior con- 
 .dition of the Christian body, giving open honour to 
 Christ's great command, is what remains to be ex- 
 pected as the final development of the energies of 
 the Gospel ; and which must precede, and would 
 bring in, its general triumph in the world. 
 
 To have undertaken to speak of the ethical char- 
 acteristics of Spiritual Christianity with an inten- 
 tion to abstain from all allusion to that great charac- 
 teristic of Christian morals Christian love, would 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 181 
 
 have been to compromise momentous truths in a 
 most culpable manner. Or to have brought forward 
 this leading subject, yet with a timid determination 
 to be blind and deaf as to what is passing around 
 us ; and by all means to avoid the peril of offending 
 any prejudices, would have been to put to shame 
 the profession we have more than once made of 
 independence and conscientious impartiality. 
 
 But it would have been in a very peculiar sense 
 blameworthy to adopt any such temporizing rule of 
 discretion in the present instance, when the task 
 which w r e are engaged to attempt, is, to exhibit 
 the glory and beauty of Christianity as it is found 
 in the inspired writings ; not as it may happen to 
 be represented, at a particular time, by this or that 
 community. Moreover we are to perform this task 
 with an especial view to the feelings and opinions 
 of those who are presumed not hitherto to have so 
 fully considered the momentous subject of the divine 
 origin of the Gospel, as would give it its due influ- 
 ence over their convictions. 
 
 Now there can be no doubt that, with very many 
 persons of this class intelligent, observant, and 
 candid, who yet are not intimately acquainted, and 
 perhaps not in any degree acquainted with the per- 
 sonal sentiments of Christian people, the scandal of 
 those religious dissensions which of late have be- 
 come so obtrusive, operates to excuse them to them- 
 16 
 
182 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 selves from the duty of seriously considering the 
 claims of the Gospel. If we could only bring to 
 view the secret causes of that infidelity which it is 
 to be feared, prevails among the educated classes, 
 this now named the scandal arising from religious 
 dissensions, would probably appear to be one of the 
 most frequent and determinative. 
 
 The advocates of Christianity are no doubt enti- 
 tled to the argument they so often resort to, in their 
 controversy with its opponents, when they affirm 
 that the religion of Christ is rejected because it re- 
 proves a vicious course of life. This is true, but it 
 is only a partial truth ; and it would be well if, 
 whenever it is advanced, a candid acknowledgment 
 were made of the unquestionable fact, that it is the 
 " envy, wrath, strife, malice," and ambition, seen 
 to attach to religious bodies, quite as much as the 
 pride, or covetousness, or sensuality harbouring in 
 the bosom of the infidel, that prevent his submission 
 to an argument which he finds himself unable logi- 
 cally to refute. 
 
 Such persons we mean the intelligent, observ- 
 ant, and candid, who hold out against the Christian 
 evidences on the plea of the unseemly discords of 
 professed Christians, are invited to take a wider 
 grasp of this particular subject. 
 
 Let such persons maturely consider, first, the 
 obvious fact that Christianity itself condemns as 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 183 
 
 decisively the evil tempers generated by religious 
 disagreements, as it condemns any other immorali- 
 ties : clearly itself is a religion of love and meek- 
 ness ; and moreover it contains (however little they 
 have hitherto been regarded) sufficient and very 
 precise provisions, securing to Christians liberty of 
 conscience, while cordial fellowship is not disturbed. 
 The religion of Christ should therefore bear none 
 of the blame accruing from religious strifes. 
 
 But the persons now intended are especially re- 
 quested to give attention to those views of Chris- 
 tian history which have several times been referred 
 to in the course of these Lectures. Church history 
 is the story of the perpetually renewed struggles of 
 Truth, Justice, Purity, Love, not merely with the bad 
 passions of men individually, not merely with false 
 and immoral principles, in the abstract ; but with 
 the definite and visible forms under which those bad 
 passions, or these immoral principles have, from 
 time to time, appeared, as digested and conven- 
 tional evils, attaching to the social system. 
 
 With several of these prescriptive mischiefs 
 Christianity has wrestled, and has prevailed over 
 them ; nor ever again, probably, shall it meet these 
 its antagonists, erect. With some others slavery 
 for instance, and the hateful prejudice of colour, it 
 is now, and before our eyes contending, nor can 
 any who have attentively watched its preceding vie- 
 
184 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 tories over the most formidable and deeply in- 
 trenched evils, doubt what must be the issue of the 
 contest which is now in progress. 
 
 We come then to our immediate subject. It is 
 clear that, unless the natural course of human 
 affairs were miraculously diverted ; or, in other 
 words, unless a direct administration of whatever 
 relates to religion, by Heaven's infallible agents 
 such as the papal system assumes for itself, were 
 supposed the conservation of dogmatic truth, and 
 the clear definition of it, in all its details, could not 
 well be secured otherwise than by the free opposi- 
 tions of minds differently constituted, and differently 
 schooled ; and by the unchecked collisions of bodies, 
 independent and separately powerful. Truth has 
 miserably suffered whenever such oppositions and 
 collisions have been successfully prevented by the 
 hand of despotic spirtual power. Absolutely ex- 
 cluded they have never been, nor can be ; but they 
 go on with little advantage to truth, and with incal- 
 culable damage to the social system, and with great 
 disturbance to civil affairs, when the two contend- 
 ing parties are in the relative positions of tyrants 
 and martyrs. Who can wish this inevitable con- 
 'flict, by which truth is conserved, to be maintained 
 under conditions so terrible, so precarious, and so 
 costly ? 
 
 But the other form of this contest is that which 
 attaches to the present condition of civil society 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 185 
 
 and under which the deep religious convictions of 
 minds, diversely constituted, and more diversely 
 trained, are suffered to work and to heave, exempt- 
 ed from any external restraints. This then is the 
 dispensation through which we are now passing ; 
 a dispensation indeed of peculiar trial to the con- 
 stancy and temper of Christian men, as well as of 
 sad scandal toward the irreligious many. Yet it is 
 to a great extent, as we have said, remedied, or its 
 ill effects obviated, by the individual piety and de- 
 vout sentiments of multitudes of private Christians. 
 These individuals are so many, and the feeling 
 among them so decisively tends toward a happier 
 condition which should allow of an unintercepted 
 fellowship of love, that the actual approach of it 
 seems to be more than dimly indicated. 
 
 The season of unrestrained dissension, with all 
 its evils, when it shall have had its time and ful- 
 filled its purpose, in the elucidation and establish- 
 ment of dogmatic truth, shall pass away, and the 
 great and characteristic principle of the Gospel its 
 law of love, shall then just as the other moral 
 energies of the same Gospel have successively ex- 
 panded their forces, and have triumphed triumph 
 also itself, as well in the bosoms of Christians in- 
 dividually, as in the Christian commonwealth, and 
 visibly exhibit on earth the pattern of the order and 
 unity of heaven. 
 16* 
 
FOURTH LE CTURE 
 
 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY THE HOPE OF THE WORLD AT THE 
 PRESENT MOMENT. 
 

THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 WHILE showing, as we propose now to do, that 
 the principles of Spiritual Christianity, Doctrinal 
 and Ethical, and which have been advanced in the 
 preceding Lectures, furnish the ground of a bright 
 hope of a much improved moral condition of the 
 human family, we shall carefully abstain from rest- 
 ing our argument upon questionable anticipations of 
 any kind, whether political, philosophical, or such as 
 might be derived from interpretations of unfulfilled 
 Scripture prophecies. 
 
 What we now propose is very simple, and our 
 argument is direct, and our conclusions scarcely to 
 be disputed, if only those principles are granted to 
 be true, which already we have insisted upon as 
 sufficiently established. 
 
 We take up then, in turn, three or four of those 
 elements of Spiritual Christianity which attach to it 
 as an impulse of action ; and after briefly exhibiting 
 each, in its connexion with the truths whence it 
 
190 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 springs, shall ask whether, supposing such motives 
 or principles powerfully to affect the hearts of Chris- 
 tians, throughout a community, they would not afford 
 a ground of the very happiest anticipations which 
 the philanthropist can entertain for the world at 
 large ? 
 
 We shall advance into the midst of our argument, 
 after briefly adverting to two subjects, directly relat- 
 ed to it, and which at the present moment are of 
 urgent importance. The first of these is the slender 
 and very questionable value of any other hope than 
 that which Christianity furnishes, of seeing the wel- 
 fare of the human family materially promoted, either 
 in a physical or a moral sense. 
 
 Does it appear that Civilization alone, with its 
 intercourse and trafic its arts, and its "useful" 
 sciences its town-crowding industry, and its disor- 
 derly peopling of wildernesses its hurry, and im- 
 patience of restraint its intensity of individual will, 
 and its contempt of authority its uncontrollable 
 sway of the masses its unlooked-for upturns and 
 reverses its passionate pursuit of momentary ad- 
 vantages, and its appetite for such gratifications as 
 may be snatched in all haste ; does it appear that 
 civilization alone (Christian influence not consider- 
 ed) is likely much to promote the personal and home- 
 felicity of the millions it is summoning into life ? 
 Judging of what is future, from what we see 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 191 
 
 around us, dare we look to mere civilization as wor- 
 thy to be trusted with the moral, or even with the 
 physical well-being of the human family ; and with 
 the guardianship of the generation next coming up ? 
 Dare we, if we had the infant human race in our 
 arms dare we turn ourselves to that care-worn 
 personage, our modern Civilization, sitting at her 
 factory gate, and say to her " Take this child, and 
 nurse it for me ?" 
 
 It is indeed by no means easy, either to define cor- 
 rectly what we mean by civilization, a term vaguely 
 embracing a vast assemblage of heterogeneous 
 elements ; or completely to sever, in our minds, the 
 notion of mere civilization, from that of those moral 
 and religious influences which, in fact, are, in this 
 country, so intimately blended with every thing 
 around us. 
 
 The nearest approach, perhaps, which we could 
 make to a distinct conception of what civilization is, 
 as severed from all Christian influences, would be 
 effected by going into the heart of some of the con- 
 tinental communities ; might we, without offence, 
 say France, where, while all the elements of national 
 improvement, in wealth, science, literature, refine- 
 ment, are in high activity, the concomitant influence 
 of Christianity, though not absolutely wanting, is 
 reduced to the smallest dimensions imaginable, if it 
 is to exist at all. 
 
192 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 In looking then to mere civilization as exhibited in 
 a country like France, we must affirm that the issue 
 of the social movement, considered as tending to 
 promote the personal and domestic well-being of 
 the mass of the people, is altogether ambiguous, and 
 such as may give ground, with an equal appearance 
 of reason, to the darkest, as to the brightest antici- 
 pations. And then if we were to look to such a 
 country as a centre of benevolent endeavours for the 
 diffusion of happiness through the world, could we 
 name any definite grounds of hope, whatever, in 
 this respect ? Or is it not nearly as reasonable to 
 suppose that light, truth, peace, humanity, should 
 emanate from China, as from France, and thence 
 cover the earth ? 
 
 In referring to this particular instance, we are 
 influenced by no national prejudice ; and in truth 
 would entertain the hope that France, admitting at 
 length Christian Truth, may yet awake, to run 
 abreast with England as in wealth, philosophy, 
 literature, so in the enlightened labours of universal 
 philanthropy. But if so, it will not be as a civilized, 
 but as a Christianized country, that she will do it. 
 
 Mere Civilization is too likely to ally herself to 
 that atheistic and sensual philosophy which com- 
 ports so well with the temper and aims of a commer- 
 cial people. We mean the philosophy which regards 
 man simply as one of the mammalia, and as distin- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 193 
 
 guished from others of his order only by a loftier 
 facial angle, by some ounces more of the cerebral 
 mass, by the jointing of his thumb, and by the pos- 
 session of a heel bone. But how is such a union 
 such a conspiracy, to be deprecated ! Too soon 
 might busy Civilization, bent on gain, take Animal 
 Philosophy into her establishment, as the most com- 
 pliant and serviceable of her creatures ; and this 
 shrewd minion, teaching her mistress to blush at no 
 well calculated and undoubtedly profitable cruelty, 
 would undertake to prove that those who draw prizes 
 in the lottery of life are unwise if they spoil their 
 peace by any compunctious sympathies toward the 
 less fortunate millions of the species. 
 
 If we imagine all Christian feeling and Christian 
 truth to be withdrawn, the present is a time of high 
 intensity indeed, in the social system ; but of very 
 low moral temperature ; nor can we confide in any 
 disposition which is the proper growth of such a 
 time, as an impulse of benevolence, or as affording 
 any ground of hope for the melioration of the lot of 
 man. 
 
 But we turn to the second of those subjects which 
 we mentioned as incidental to our argument. This 
 is the altogether peculiar position which we, the 
 people of England, at this passing moment occupy, 
 in relation to the human family. Has not the part 
 of an Elder Brother of this great family actually 
 17 
 
194 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 fallen upon the English race ? and have not the soli- 
 citudes of such a relationship actually become ours ? 
 Are we not by many interests, and by motives higher 
 than any interests, compelled, in some measure, nay 
 to a great extent, to think for all, to care for all, to 
 defend the weak, to forefend the strong ; and is there 
 not now pervading the people of this country, even 
 as a temper which has become characteristically 
 British, a kindly sympathy in what affects the wel- 
 fare of each race of the human family ; such a 
 feeling, at least, as has never belonged to any other 
 people, in any age ? If many partake not at all of 
 any such feeling, they are fewer than those who are 
 alive to it in a good degree. 
 
 With all the paths of the world now mapped be- 
 fore us, and with means of communication which, 
 for practical ends, condense the population of the 
 earth, as if the thousand millions were crowded upon 
 a ball of one third the diameter ; and with actual 
 colonial possession of a large portion of the earth, 
 and with moral possession, by high character and 
 repute, of almost the whole of it ; and with all these 
 uncalculated and untried means of influence now 
 ripened, and presented afresh to our hands, who is it 
 that can altogether control those mingling emotions 
 of patriotism and of expansive benevolence, which 
 become us, occupying as we do a position whence 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 195 
 
 we may go forth to conquer the world, not for am- 
 bition, not for wealth ; but for Truth and Peace ! 
 
 And as we do stand in this position, and as we do, 
 in so great a measure, entertain the feelings proper 
 to it ; so is there a reciprocity of feeling widely dif- 
 fused among the nations. British political influence 
 or national supremacy apart, the British feeling 
 its honour, its justice, and its humanity, are in fact 
 understood in the remotest regions, and are trusted 
 to by tribes whose names we have not yet learned 
 to pronounce. The several designations by which 
 English benevolence, in its various forms styles 
 itself, have, as watch-words of hope, traversed the 
 ocean, and have pervaded wildernesses ; and these 
 titles of our organized philanthropy have already 
 wakened the dull ear of half-civilized continents, and 
 are reverberated from the hill-sides of the remotest 
 barbarism. 
 
 It is true that England is looked to, as the helper, 
 guardian, guide, of the nations. And assuredly it is 
 the CHRISTIANITY of England which gives depth, 
 substance, life, to her repute through the world, as 
 the lover of justice, and the mover of good. 
 
 But whatever England may yet do, or may fail 
 to do, for the world ; it is to Christianity itself that 
 we look as containing the only impelling motives 
 of an effective philanthropy. 
 
 Neither the vastness of the field that is before 
 
196 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 us in this instance, nor the variety of the objects it 
 embraces, should be allowed to confuse our appre- 
 hensions of what is in itself very simple. In relation 
 to any hope of amendment, or to the principles 
 which should be relied upon in our endeavours to 
 effect it, the human family is but as a single 
 family ; the community of nations is but as a 
 numerous household ; or, that we may exclude 
 objections, let it suffice to say, that whatever is 
 true, and whatever would be practically advisable, 
 if our intention were only to bring about a reform 
 within some small and insulated settlement which 
 had fallen into disorder, is also true, and would be 
 in a practical sense wise to recommend, when it is 
 the millions of this insulated world that we are 
 thinking of. 
 
 Human nature is one, whether we take it by fif- 
 ties, or by millions. Neither fifties nor millions, 
 when fallen from a condition of social order and 
 purity, will renovate themselves spontaneously. 
 But whether it be a smaller or a larger community 
 that is wisely cared for, and taught, and aided, the 
 fruit of such labours will in due time appear. 
 
 To simplify then, as much as possible our present 
 course of inquiry, let us imagine that we have before 
 us a colony of very limited extent the two or three 
 hundred families of a remote settlement ; and that, 
 in visiting them, we find some of these families to 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 197 
 
 have sunk, through neglect, and untoward events, 
 into the most abject state of destitution, ignorance, 
 and vice ; while those less degraded, and who are 
 enjoying the comforts of wealth, seem in a very 
 slight degree conscious of the wretchedness which 
 surrounds them ; or at least are little disposed to 
 attempt any methods of remedy. 
 
 Now, putting out of view the political or legal 
 provisions we might wish to introduce, for effecting 
 the restoration of such a colony ; let us imagine a 
 doctrine which, if we could but give it universal 
 currency and credit, would at once operate as an 
 invigorating medicine, administered to a languishing 
 patient, in restoring vital energy to the social body. 
 We find a large portion of this community fallen 
 into a condition of wretchedness which renders 
 them the objects of scorn, and of consequent ill- 
 treatment, from others ; and which breeds, in their 
 own bosoms, a desponding apathy, and robs them 
 of all self-respect and healthful activity. 
 
 As the remedy of these evils, we preach a doc- 
 trine which, without flattering self-love or inspiring 
 insolence, confers upon every individual of this 
 community young and old, and however degraded, 
 a hitherto unthought of importance ; and which 
 challenges every soul as the rightful claimant by 
 birth of certain high prerogatives. Let but this 
 doctrine be received by all as undoubtedly founded 
 17* 
 
198 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 in fact ; and then, although the inequality of condi- 
 tions is not merged, the rich and the powerful learn 
 to respect their less fortunate brethren ; while these 
 learn what is indispensable to any reformation to 
 respect themselves. The promulgation of this 
 doctrine introduces a new era, and will probably be 
 of more efficacy in dispelling abject poverty and vice, 
 than any political reforms that can be thought of. 
 
 I. 
 
 What we need then for the renovation of the 
 human family is the spread of that life-giving doc- 
 trine which we find in the Scriptures, and which 
 challenges the abject and the wretched, universally, 
 and unexceptively, as the heirs of immortality, and 
 as individually embraced in the intention of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 It follows from this doctrine that men, even the 
 vilest, are no more to be contemned ; for the Al- 
 mighty does not contemn them : they are no longer 
 to be forgotten, or despotically abused, or selfishly 
 despaired of; for the Son of God has redeemed 
 them. On the contrary ; they must now singly, 
 and at whatever cost, be sought out, instructed, 
 cared for, and succoured. 
 
 We ask only that a doctrine such as this should 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 199 
 
 be heartily embraced by Christian nations, and 
 should be carried out wherever such nations are 
 coming in contact with barbarous and semi-bar- 
 barous races : must it not become a mighty energy, 
 tending directly and certainly, to the renovation of 
 the world ? 
 
 With the eye steadily fixed upon some loath- 
 somely abject or ferocious race, the veriest outcasts 
 of the human family, let us suppose ourselves to 
 listen to the proclamation of Heaven, issued in 
 such terms as these 
 
 " God so loved the world, that he gave his only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life." Or 
 thus " God our Saviour will have all men to be 
 saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth ;" 
 he having " given himself a ransom for all, to be 
 testified in due time." 
 
 We might well be content to leave our argument 
 upon the ground of this single evangelic principle ; 
 and, in affirming our position to be certain, that the 
 Redeemer of the world has thus opened the path 
 of life to every child of man, attempt no more. If 
 this be true, the motive of benevolence measures 
 every occasion ; nor can its obligations be dis- 
 charged so long as any of our brethren are unblessed. 
 If this be true, we virtually destroy those whom 
 
200 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 we do not visit and instruct. No bosom can admit 
 this truth, and remain either abject or selfish. 
 
 But let it be understood, that we are neither, at 
 this moment, going about to prove the truth of the 
 principle we name, nor endeavouring to show that 
 this or that zealous endeavour, now on foot to 
 spread the Gospel, must prosper. All we are say- 
 ing is this That the Gospel, thus understood, and 
 if warmly embraced, as a motive of conduct, does 
 contain a reason and an impulse, tending directly to 
 carry forth Christianity, and all its present blessings, 
 from land to land, until the human family is every- 
 where happy ; and it does this by its solemn chal- 
 lenge of every human being, as its own : how vile 
 soever by actual condition, every human being is 
 yet precious and honourable as redeemed. In virtue 
 of this great truth, let us find man loathsome as he 
 may be, we yet may not despise, nor abhor, nor 
 neglect him. As a member of the family, he is 
 indeed " dead in Adam ;" but yet is he " alive in 
 Christ." In respect of every child of man, lost as 
 he may seem, and visibly despicable, the Redeemer, 
 stretching forth his hand in caution, says, " Take 
 heed that ye despise him not." 
 
 Those therefore who give the greatest promi- 
 nence to the doctrine of redemption, and who hold 
 it and proclaim it in the freest manner, are the 
 truest benefactors to their species. The doctrine 
 
CHRISTIANITY . 201 
 
 which attaches infinite importance to human nature 
 singly, and which declares the condition of each to 
 be yet hopeful, is the effective impulse of philan- 
 thropy. Let it only be believed, and the outcasts 
 will be reclaimed. Can philosophy imagine a dog- 
 ma more auspicious in its tendency than this which 
 confers the highest, and let us grant it, a fearful 
 dignity upon every human being, as immortal, and 
 as responsible ; and which opens to him, without a 
 plea of exception, the brightest hopes ? It must be 
 a doctrine such as this, if there be any, that will at 
 once recover him from degradation, and defend him 
 from oppression. 
 
 Instead of imagining, or of teaching any such 
 benign doctrine as this, the mood of philosophy 
 has always been contemptuous toward the degraded 
 races of mankind. Or whatever philanthropy it 
 may have professed, it has set on foot no endea- 
 vours to recover the lost. Too often has it con- 
 nived at the atrocities of which these have been the 
 victims. 
 
 The Christian's axiom That men are individu- 
 ally to be respected, and to be cared for, and that 
 human life and well-being must not be trifled with, 
 is not the maxim of the Despot, whose palace is un- 
 dermined with dungeons ; nor of the founder of 
 empire and the conqueror of kingdoms, who rears 
 pyramids of human skulls. It is not the maxim of 
 
202 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 the rapacious trafficker, who amasses mountains of 
 gold by dealing in a drug that poisons the body and 
 soul of millions. Nor is the Christian doctrine, on 
 this head, in any favour with the lovers of pleasure, 
 or with cold sensualists, who never ask at what cost 
 of human misery their gratifications may have been 
 provided. All these parties love to think of men as 
 despicable singly, and despicable in the mass ; and, 
 whether to be counted by tens, or by millions, as 
 nothing better than the dust in the balance, when 
 weighed against the desires of pride, or the lust of 
 power, or of animal indulgence. 
 
 Not so the Gospel ; and if we only assume it to 
 be believed as true, by any one who, at the impulse 
 of selfish passions, may be prompted to trample 
 upon the well-being or comfort of his fellows, he 
 hears that awful warning, directed to himself " It 
 were better for a man that a mill-stone were hanged 
 about his neck, and he cast into the depths of the 
 sea it were better for a man never to have been 
 born, than that he should despise or offend one of 
 the least of those for whom Christ died." This 
 may not indeed stay the oppressor in his course ; 
 but it tends to do so ; and it will, if opinion around 
 him be free, and Christian-like. 
 
 Inasmuch as contempt for himself is at once the 
 parent and the offspring of misery to the individual, 
 so is contempt for others the prompter of all crimes. 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 203 
 
 But convey into the heart of the wretched this Gos- 
 pel truth, which shows him his own religious dig- 
 nity, and he starts from the earth ; or lodge it in 
 the conscience of the oppressor, and he is staggered 
 in the execution of his purpose. 
 
 But we may easily make proof of the tendency and 
 efficacy of our principle, by applying it to instances 
 always near at hand. Governed by an undoubting 
 belief of what Christianity affirms concerning every 
 human being, let us penetrate some of those ca- 
 verns of woe which undermine (literally and meta- 
 phorically undermine) our great towns. And, when 
 pleasure and business have had their dues, let us 
 enter the home home, alas ! can it be called ? of 
 our brother, whom hitherto we have not thought of 
 as such. Let us learn from his own lips, what he, 
 and his, endure from day to day ; and have endured 
 through the round of our smiling years. And let 
 us listen, either while he recounts his dull variety 
 of present miseries, or while he tells of the utter 
 neglect of his infancy, of the destitution, and the 
 thoughtless crimes of his childhood, of the infamy 
 of his youth, of the wild desperation and enormity 
 of his manhood ; and now of the sullen anguish of 
 his last years of utter wretchedness. And yet this 
 our brother, whom we find as a broken vessel, cast 
 forth and abhorred, was formed like ourselves, capa- 
 ble of enjoyment, which he has never tasted but as 
 
204 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 poison ; and capable of virtue too, of which he has 
 known nothing but such a rumour as remorse may 
 have whispered in his tortured ear. It is true that 
 even he was formed for happiness, and for virtue ; 
 and if the Gospel be true, he is still capable of 
 both ; and even now might his ear be wakened by 
 the alarms of mercy ; and even now might he hear 
 the voice that speaks from heaven " Arise thou 
 that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee life." Even 
 might this, our abject brother be regained, and be 
 taught to set out in our company on the road to 
 Heaven. If the Gospel be true, all this is true ; 
 and moreover, if we believe it to be true, it will 
 impel us thus to seek him that was lost, and to 
 soothe his withered soul with the sounds of grace 
 which ourselves have listened to. 
 
 Whether true or not, is not now our question ; but 
 we affirm that, if thoroughly believed to be true - 
 this evangelic principle, which confers dignity upon 
 the meanest of the human race, and opens hope be- 
 fore the most sunken eye, does include a substan- 
 tial, efficacious means, directly and powerfully tend- 
 ing to raise the fallen, and to diffuse happiness. 
 
 The same religious regard to the welfare of who- 
 ever shares with us the hopes of immortality, and 
 which impels the missionary to follow the track of 
 savage hordes, and prompts labours of charity 
 nearer home, yet hardly less arduous this feeling, 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 205 
 
 if brought into the family circle, imparts a new and 
 more serious conviction of duty to the course we 
 pursue in promoting the highest good of our chil- 
 dren ; for if it be reasonable to send missionaries to 
 the opposite hemisphere, at so great cost and risk, 
 how unreasonable to be remiss in training those 
 most dear to us, in " the nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord !" And the same principle forbids our 
 regarding our servants as the mere instruments of 
 our convenience ; nor, if we admit it, shall we 
 dare to compromise the religious welfare of any 
 whom we employ, from motives of personal advan- 
 tage or comfort. 
 
 Let it now be granted us that this axiom, which 
 puts the seal of God upon the forehead of every 
 human being, does most convincingly prove the 
 Gospel itself to be from Heaven. Is it not herein, 
 a clear expression of infinite goodness ? Many 
 who have rejected the authority of the Scriptures 
 have yet been ready to acknowledge the benign 
 tendency of the ethical system they teach ; but few 
 have discerned that still more striking evidence of 
 its divine origin which arises from a consideration 
 of the characteristic article we have here adverted 
 to. Christ commands us " to love our enemies ;" 
 but more than this, and of weightier import is the 
 principle which leads the Christian to remember 
 that even his most inveterate enemy may, should 
 18 
 
206 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 God grant him repentance, become his companion 
 through a happy immortality. The mere rule of 
 love, or the verbal precept is almost lost in the 
 depth of the motive which such a belief inspires. 
 Whoever has acquired the habit of thinking of those 
 around him, individually, as the heirs of immor- 
 tality, has little more to learn in that department of 
 morals which relates to our duty toward our neigh- 
 bour. 
 
 II. 
 
 If we are thus taught to entertain a religious 
 reverence in regard to the welfare of every member 
 of the human family, it remains to ask, What the 
 quality of those emotions is with which, as Chris- 
 tians, we should labour to promote that welfare ? 
 
 We reply that these emotions, and in a degree 
 far surpassing any others, are profound and intense ; 
 and they are so in proportion to the firmness of our 
 confidence in the reality of the Gospel itself or, in 
 other words, to our personal piety. 
 
 Much and habitual meditation on the vast theme 
 of our own immortality, cannot but bring with it a 
 solicitude, even painfully intense, for the spiritual 
 welfare of others. And as is the personal religious 
 feeling, so is the relative feeling which expresses 
 itself in Christian zeal. The waste places of the 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 207 
 
 world will not be made to blossom, nor will the 
 mephitic dens of superstition ever be fearlessl 
 entered, nor the horrors of savage life encountered, 
 merely because it is abstractedly right that such 
 perils should be met, and such labours undergone. 
 But both the danger and the toil are contemned, 
 when Christian men, who are happily conscious of 
 the divine truth and power of the Gospel, think of 
 their fellow-men as ignorant of it. It is then that 
 benevolent zeal burns with a steady flame, when 
 evangelists, with the animation of a personal experi- 
 ence of the truth, go forth saying, " We have seen 
 and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be 
 the Saviour of the world !" 
 
 There is however a peculiarity attaching to the 
 emotions of Christian benevolence, which claims to 
 be noticed. These feelings seem, in truth, to in- 
 volve a paradox, which we should not leave unex- 
 plained. 
 
 It might have been thought that a religion the 
 very purport of which is to teach the comparative 
 insignificance of the interests of the present tran- 
 sient life, would almost inevitably induce, so far as 
 it takes effect, an apathy and indifference toward 
 them ; and especially so, when it is the temporal 
 welfare of others, not of ourselves that is thought 
 of. How natural to suppose that the adherents of 
 such a religion would be distinguished from other 
 
208 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 men by their callous disregard of the brief suffer- 
 ings and wants of those around them ! Why 
 should we bestow our pity upon the sorrows of an 
 hour, or employ our hands in relieving necessities 
 which end so early ? Much less should we sacri- 
 fice our personal religious enjoyments by labours 
 of this kind ; or care for the bodily comfort of 
 others, when spiritual contemplation might fully 
 engage us. 
 
 In truth, no such cold reasonings of spiritual 
 selfishness have ever been the characteristics of 
 genuine Christian piety. The very contrary is 
 true. This is a fact which needs not to be proved. 
 The vast difference between the ancient civilized 
 world, and the modern, turns very much upon it ; 
 and in comparing the two states of society, nothing 
 is more remarkable than the incalculably greater 
 extent of that regard which is paid to the bodily 
 sufferings and wants of men in modern, than was 
 paid in ancient times ; and this difference is a direct 
 consequence of the influence of Christian motives. 
 It is the believers in a life hereafter who have done 
 almost all that has ever been attempted for assuag- 
 ing the sorrows, and for enhancing the comforts of 
 men in respect of the life now passing. 
 
 The Christian, like his Master, not only has a 
 larger, and a more long-sighted compassion than 
 other men ; but a more sensitive compassion also 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 209 
 
 a pity more quick and prompt a pity of nicer tact, 
 and a more generous and gentle sympathy, employ- 
 ing itself, not merely upon those evils which are 
 ominous of remote ruin ; but upon those which 
 must become extinct in the grave. 
 
 What are the facts which every day exemplify 
 these assertions ? The very persons among us who 
 think with mournful alarm of the spiritual destitu- 
 tion of the heathen world these persons are those 
 who witness, with the most sensitive indignation, the 
 bodily miseries of oppressed races. The very same 
 hearts which beat with the hope of bringing pagan 
 nations to the knowledge of salvation, these same 
 bosoms thrill with delight while listening to the 
 traveller, who describes the decent happiness of the 
 once ferocious savage, and the petty comforts and 
 embellishments of his home ! In explanation of 
 these facts it is obvious to point to the check which 
 is given to selfishness by the Christian code ; and 
 to notice the general warmth which is diffused 
 through the moral faculties by the devout affec- 
 tions. But beyond this, we are to remember that 
 Christian piety very much promotes, and indeed 
 consists in, the habit of connecting the incidents 
 of the present life, from hour to hour, with the 
 well-being of the life to come ; and involves a 
 constant recollection of the moral bearing of the 
 present, upon the future. This habit having 
 18* 
 
210 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 been formed a sort of pulsation is maintained a 
 vital throb, beating forward, every moment, from 
 time into eternity. But then there is a return in 
 this flow it is a circulation of life ; and thus it is 
 that eternity sends back upon the interests of time 
 an undefined, yet weighty sense of its own powers 
 communicating a serious intensity, and imparting 
 a value, even to the good or ill of an hour. What- 
 ever therefore, belonging to this life, which is not in 
 itself frivolous, or sensual, or sordid and no human 
 suffering is frivolous, no gentle affection of the 
 heart indifferent whatever is not so, instead of its 
 exciting less sympathy through its relationship to a 
 future life, excites so much the more. The mind, 
 fully penetrated by the deeply-working affections 
 which are its preparation for taking part in the feli- 
 city of heaven, and finding them to be pent up with- 
 in the narrow limits of earth, applies them with 
 might we say it a disproportionate spring and 
 force to whatever around it is of a quality naturally 
 to excite them. 
 
 The more piety, therefore, the more compassion ; 
 and the quick sympathies of a Christian heart apply 
 themselves, in easy alternation, now to the spirtual, 
 and now to the temporal necessities of men ; and 
 with a oneness of force, or momentum, and with 
 almost the same earnestness of zeal, administer 
 relief, either to the body or to the soul. 
 
CHRIST IAN IT Y , 211 
 
 There is a depth of meaning in this fact, con- 
 sidered in connection with the movements now in 
 progress, for evangelizing barbarous and half-civil- 
 ized races. We invite attention to it from any who, 
 although they may not choose to class themselves 
 with " the religious," would not wish to be thought 
 indifferent to the happiness of their fellows. 
 
 Why such persons should not aid Christian mis- 
 sions, on the obvious ground that Christianity car- 
 ries the blessings of civilization along with it does 
 not appear. Let us however for a moment admit 
 the plea which such might advance " That these 
 evangelizing projects are fanatical in principle, and 
 are injudiciously managed ; and are therefore very 
 likely to come to a speedy termination." Neverthe- 
 less if it were so, it is certain that, under this very 
 agency those regions are being explored where the 
 most horrid usages prevail, by men whose very 
 characteristic it is (whether we think them fanatics 
 or not) to feel more sensitively than others, and 
 much more so than traders or philosophical travel- 
 lers ever do, the miseries and oppressions which 
 they there witness. From whom is it that we have 
 derived, during the last thirty years, a competent 
 and specific knowledge of the vilifying influence of 
 the superstitions of India, and of the foul and cruel 
 practices which attach to them ? Is it not mainly 
 from Christian missionaries ? Even then if it were 
 
212 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 granted that the overwrought sensibility of some of 
 these reporters has exaggerated the descriptions 
 they have sent home, yet, taken in the mass, such 
 narratives are authentic, and they remain uncontra- 
 dicted by those from whom we should never have 
 received any such accounts. It is none but men 
 whose feelings have been rendered keen by the re- 
 ligious affections, that could collect these reports : 
 irreligious men, though they have eyes to see, do 
 not see, though they have ears to hear, do not hear, 
 these things ; nor have they hearts seriously to be 
 affected by the miseries of their fellows. 
 
 It should therefore be regarded as a circumstance 
 of very peculiar importance we mean it should so 
 be regarded by all who would be numbered among 
 philanthropists and philosophers, that at this mo- 
 ment, the world is everywhere set about, or senti- 
 nelled with warm-hearted men, and with tender- 
 spirited women too, whose personal benevolent dis- 
 positions have impelled them to undertake such a 
 part ; and who are always observing and reporting 
 whatever is cruel, ferocious, impure, and wretched, 
 in those regions where, through a long course of 
 ages, no check whatever has restrained the worst 
 passions of human nature. But at length these 
 " dark places of the earth" full as they are of " the 
 habitations of cruelty," are opened to the inspection 
 of men governed by happier dispositions. We ask 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 213 
 
 then and we invite a reply to the question Is not 
 this fact of the mere inspection of such regions, by 
 such persons, a great point gained for humanity 1 
 and have not the reports which are thus continually 
 furnished, and presented to the civilized world, a 
 direct tendency to bring to bear upon the evils so 
 reported, whatever reliefs or remedies it may be 
 possible to administer to them ? Where then are 
 the philanthropists who are backward to hail this 
 modern system of Christian visitation, or to aid in 
 sustaining it ? 
 
 At the present moment, and with the hearty con- 
 currence of philosophers, scientific establishments 
 are formed in several latitudes, and in both hemis" 
 pheres, for noting and recording the synchronous 
 pulsations of the magnetic fluid. A worthy engage- 
 ment we grant. But after all, if what concerns the 
 happiness of man be an end not unworthy of serious 
 regard, do we do well to forget the labours and per- 
 ils of those who, during the past forty years, have 
 been noting and reporting (what, since the world 
 has been peopled, none have thus reported) the ex- 
 treme degradations of the human family ? 
 
 The thus accumulated knowledge of the actual 
 condition of the several races of mankind, consti- 
 tutes a fund of benevolent excitement, acting always 
 upon sensitive Christian hearts ; and so tending to 
 recruit the ranks of evangelic labour. The purely 
 
214 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 religious desire " to convert the heathen," and the 
 conviction of duty in this behalf, may be regarded 
 as a constant force, acting upon Christian minds in 
 an equitable manner ; but the vivid impression of 
 present miseries to be relieved, acts intensely upon 
 the class of minds best adapted to the arduous work 
 of breaking up the barbarism of untutored nations. 
 Thus it is that Christian compassion for bodily 
 sufferings, and a Christian zeal for the propagation 
 of Truth, tend in conjunction to diffuse every spe- 
 cies of good. 
 
 Let it now be imagined that a human eye were 
 suddenly endowed with a microscopic power, 
 reaching far and wide, and embracing at once earth 
 and sky and the myriads of every inch, and the 
 organs and faculties of each living thing, in all. 
 Nothing in such a prospect would be exaggeration : 
 nothing more than mere truth would be presented, 
 even by so multiform and vast a revelation of the 
 organized and conscious world ; and, if there were 
 any inference properly arising from such a spec- 
 tacle, and bearing upon our personal conduct, with 
 what force would it come home to us ? 
 
 What then are Christian sympathies, and what 
 are the quick sensibilities, and the far-extending 
 anticipations of a Christian heart; and what is 
 this habit of feeling as to things present, with a 
 force which borrows impulse from the weight of 
 
OF THE 
 CHRISTIANITY^ ~ 215 . 
 
 eternity, what are these habits and sensibilities, as 
 applied to the wide compass of the moral world, 
 but a sort of microscopic power, revealing, at a 
 glance, whatever that circle embraces both present 
 and future ? All that may be suffered, and all that 
 might be enjoyed, by our brethren of the human 
 family, opens itself to our consciousness, and if our 
 personal agency may be thought to stand in any 
 manner related to this vast range of good or ill, the 
 motives of benevolence admit all the depth and 
 intensity which our feeble nature can at all sustain. 
 It is not to be supposed that all minds, or that 
 many, could surrender themselves to sensibilities 
 such as these : but some do in fact thus feel ; and 
 some do thus think of what surrounds them ; and 
 although they can by no means so govern the emo- 
 tions of which they are conscious as to be able to 
 give them intelligible expression ; yet they do, if 
 well constituted, and if ruled by Christian maxims, 
 so resolve, and so act as to draw many in their train, 
 and to lead forth bands of Christian philanthropy. 
 In every age there have been a few thus to feel ; 
 and in an age like the present, which favours the 
 active employment of these deep energies of the 
 soul, men, so moulded, who otherwise might either 
 have smothered their emotions, or have misdirected 
 them toward some purpose of fanaticism, will go 
 
216 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 forth to carry blessings, wherever man is yet igno- 
 rant and unhappy. 
 
 III. 
 
 We have seen that Christianity rescues every 
 member of the human family, singly, from con- 
 tempt, oppression, and wretchedness, by attaching 
 to each an infinite importance, as responsible, and 
 immortal, and as entitled to the benefits of redemp- 
 tion. We have seen moreover that, to give practical 
 effect to this principle, the Gospel generates senti- 
 ments of humanity and compassion, peculiarly 
 vivid, whether excited by the bodily sufferings, or 
 the spiritual destitution of our fellows. But these 
 two distinctions of the religion of Christ are con- 
 nected with 
 
 A LAW OF DIFFUSION ; 
 
 and we must, in this instance, use the word law in 
 both its customary senses, as intending a statute, 
 or sanctioned command ; and an impulse, or force, 
 or an established mode of action ; as when we speak 
 of the laws of nature. 
 
 Our religion must be carried out into all the world ; 
 for its Author has formally and solemnly enjoined 
 his ministers so to promulgate it ; and it would be 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 217 
 
 thus propagated ; because those in whose bosoms it 
 resides with power, feel impelled to communicate 
 the happiness they derive from it. 
 
 The great fact, several times adverted to in the 
 course of these Lectures, of the slow development 
 of the powers of Christianity, is most signally 
 illustrated in the instance of this, its Law and Im- 
 pulse of Diffusion. Both took full effect in the 
 apostolic era ; and within a century from the ascen- 
 sion of Christ, his doctrine had been carried, with 
 effect, throughout the area of the Roman world ; and 
 even far beyond it. But from the time when nefa- 
 rious means were resorted to for grasping a still- 
 pagan population within the arms of the church, by 
 bringing Christianity itself to the nearest resem- 
 blance possible, to the ancient polytheism from that 
 time onward, little or nothing deserving to be named 
 as an extension of the Gospel, took place during a 
 long series of ages. Nations were varnished with 
 Christian rites but were not evangelized. 
 
 And most remarkable is the continued torpor of 
 this expansive force during the great awakening 
 season of the Reformation. Other principles were 
 then to be developed ; this was to wait its hour. 
 But its hour has come ; and England is the theatre 
 of its expansion. 
 
 Those who can free themselves from the thrall of 
 irreligious prejudices (and no prejudices are more 
 19 
 
218 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 firm in their texture, or more narrow) and who are 
 accustomed to read the future in the past, will not 
 find it easy to resist the belief that a Christianizing 
 of the world is to be the consequence of that singular 
 conjuncture of circumstances which makes this 
 country, at the same moment, the centre of colo- 
 nization, and the centre of the long inert, but now 
 active Law of evangelical diffusion. 
 
 It is but incidentally that the evangelizing zeal of 
 these times has sprung out of the commercial and 
 colonial greatness of England. There has indeed 
 been a connexion of causes, running from the one 
 into the other ; but the main causes have had an 
 altogether independent origin. 
 
 We must be blind to the most conspicuous facts, 
 if we fail to observe so remarkable a combination 
 of tendencies as that to which we now advert. 
 
 After sixteen or seventeen hundred years of an- 
 abeyance of the first law of the Christian code, and 
 of the lethargy of its diffusive impulse, that law has 
 at length fixed itself in all consciences, and the im- 
 pulse has affected all hearts ; and this has happened 
 among the most expansive and enterprising of civil- 
 ized communities, and at a moment when, in various 
 modes, the British stock, name, language, literature, 
 feeling, habits, institutions, are taking possession of 
 every unclaimed area upon the surface of the earth. 
 And it should be observed that pure Christianity, as 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 219 
 
 connected with this national outspread, is, in a very 
 remarkable manner, justifying its characteristic as 
 the " salt of the earth " or true conservative prin- 
 ciple of the social system, the operation of which, 
 is, by a silent but efficacious process, tending to 
 secure the highest benefits which the philanthropist 
 can desire. Christianity, felt to be indispensable to 
 what may be called colonial health, and to the 
 actual preservation of settlements existing under 
 precarious circumstances, will be cherished and 
 sustained, wherever the habits of the settlers are of 
 the kind most likely to render a colony permanently 
 prosperous ; while simultaneous settlements, not 
 governed by Christian principles, and within which 
 all the vices of old civilization collapse with the 
 ferocities of savage life, will work their own ruin ; 
 for this mixture of the worst elements of the two 
 forms of society, cannot but be self-destructive. 
 Such settlements must run their course take their 
 fate and always pressing as they do toward dis- 
 order, dispersion, decay, must ere long become 
 extinct. Colonies which, by renouncing the Gospel 
 and contemning its forms, abandon themselves to 
 the miasmas of those swamps, whereinto the old 
 world drains itself, shal-l die out ; leaving the dese- 
 crated wilderness to enjoy its sabbaths, until a 
 company fearing God, comes to redeem the desola- 
 tion which atheism has left as her most significant 
 
220 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 monument. Tims by what may be regarded as a 
 natural process of colonial purification, and espe- 
 cially if aided, as it should be, by the paternal 
 discretion and Christian-like feeling of the govern- 
 ment of a Christian country, the wastes of the earth 
 must gradually be Christianized ; until, the world 
 itself having become at once Christian and English, 
 the very names shall almost be convertible. Can 
 we then refrain our happy and hopeful feelings as 
 Christians, as patriots and as philanthropists, at a 
 moment when Britain sits at home, like a watchful 
 mother of a rising world ; at a time when, by her 
 direct, or by her moral influence, she keeps in awe 
 many whom she does not rule, and when the sceptre 
 of England has become a symbol of safety, and a 
 pledge of justice to many nations ; and when the 
 hand that holds that sceptre is screening from 
 wrong the hut and hearth of savage tribes, on both 
 sides the equator ; at such a time, how does every 
 motive, secular and religious, combine to enhance 
 the earnestness of the desire, that a bright triumph of 
 Spiritual Christianity at home its purification from 
 ancient corruptions its diffusion among the neg- 
 lected heathen of our great towns, and not less, its 
 taking anew a firm hold of the convictions of the 
 upper and educated classes that by all these means, 
 the Gospel the only hope of man, may, even in 
 our times, plant its banner of love on every shore ; 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 221 
 
 and moreover that, by the means of England, 
 and through her influence, the " multitude of the 
 islands " may rejoice, and howling wildernesses be 
 reclaimed, until the old civilized world, hemmed in 
 on all sides by a new and better social order, shall 
 itself be reclaimed and regenerated ! 
 
 Far are we from speaking of such events in the 
 language of confident anticipation. All we affirm 
 is, That the Gospel of Christ tends to bring them 
 about ; and that it will do so, should its influence in 
 this country be much extended and refreshed. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We have to name a fourth, and a most important 
 distinction of Spiritual Christianity, fitting it to be 
 regarded as the true and only effective instrument 
 of universal good to the human family. In naming 
 what we have now in view, we must ask that candid 
 attention, which may exclude the probability of a 
 misunderstanding of our real meaning. 
 
 We affirm that Spiritual Christianity is peculiarly 
 adapted to the purpose of diffusing truth and virtue 
 through the world, because, as a spiritual system, 
 
 IT IS ALWAYS SUPERIOR TO EVERY VISIBLE INSTITU- 
 TION. Such institutions, subject as they are to the 
 control of man, and liable therefore always to perver- 
 19* 
 
222 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 sion and overthrow, must often obstruct, or utterly 
 forbid the progress of the Gospel, if it were inextri- 
 cably connected with them ; or unless it were held 
 to be separable from them, and of far higher import- 
 ance than any, even the best of them. What then 
 is our principle on this ground ? assuredly not that 
 such institutions, whether more or less strictly eccle- 
 siastical, are of little importance ; or that they may 
 be safely contemned, or hastily and recklessly over- 
 thrown, or dismantled, or despoiled. Certainly we 
 have no such meaning as this. Assuredly we hold 
 no such loose doctrine as this. On the contrary, if 
 the present were a fit occasion on which to express 
 our opinion on questions of ecclesiastical polity, we 
 might perhaps carry our doctrine much further than 
 would be likely to meet the concurrence of many 
 here present. We may therefore think ourselves 
 free from any fair imputation of laxity of belief in 
 regard to the high importance of existing religious 
 institutions. 
 
 But surely such institutions, at the best, are only 
 means to an end ; and the end must be greater than 
 the means, always. Such institutions moreover, 
 inasmuch as they have a local limitation, and are 
 more or less intimately interwoven with whatever 
 belongs to the civil and social existence of the peo- 
 ple among whom they are found, and as they are 
 administered, from year to year, by men not in- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 223 
 
 spired, they are liable to sway, on this side and on 
 that ; and do in fact partake of the dangerous heav- 
 ings by which all human affairs are so often brought 
 into jeopardy. It cannot therefore be wise to put 
 our Christianity, without reserve, on board even the 
 fairest and best navigated ecclesiastical institution 
 that has ever braved the storms. 
 
 What are the lessons which history teaches us on 
 this point ? What has come of the experiment to 
 entrust a visible universal church with the spiritual 
 welfare of the human race ? How has the church 
 of Rome acquitted herself of this usurped trust ? 
 The foulest corruptions, the most extraordinary bias* 
 phemies, the most atrocious crimes, and the darkest 
 errors, doctrinal and moral, and all perpetuated 
 through a long course of ages, these have been the 
 fruits of the theory which would lodge an irrespon- 
 sible and absolute power over Christianity with 
 fallible man. 
 
 Christianity we must believe to be greater, and 
 more permanent, and of wider extent, than any means 
 that can be devised for maintaining, or for diffusing 
 it. And in proportion as the Gospel is understood, 
 in its purity and in its power in proportion as it is 
 felt to be a spiritual religion, this independence of 
 whatever is local and visible will the more appear ; 
 not indeed to the disparagement of visible institu- 
 
224 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 tions ; but to the higher glory of the spiritual 
 reality. 
 
 The warmest supporters of those associations for 
 the propagation of religious truth, which distinguish 
 our times, are not so fond as to imagine that the 
 Gospel is all risked in their bark ; or that the decay 
 or dispersion of these societies, how much soever to 
 be lamented, would seal its fate in the world ! 
 
 Christianity, which has survived all empires, and 
 all forms of opinion, and all human institutions, not 
 only will survive all, but is at every moment supe- 
 rior to all, and must be allowed to take its high 
 course, whether these institutions move with it, or 
 are broken on their way. 
 
 We must therefore, in connexion with this im- 
 portant topic, once again, and finally, allude to those 
 lately revived opinions to which we have several 
 times adverted, as being peculiarly opposed to the 
 progress of spiritual of genuine Christianity. 
 
 It seems scarcely to need proof, that any system 
 of opinions, the purport and tendency of which is to 
 give an unusual prominence, and a paramount im- 
 portance to visible institutions, and especially as his- 
 torically transmitted and geographically defined, and 
 which, with a severe consistency, denies the very 
 name of Christian to whatever may be found beyond 
 its pale, or may not acknowledge its jurisdiction, 
 that such a system, so far as it takes effect, stands 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 225 
 
 opposed to whatever is the most auspicious in the 
 present age ; and if permitted to work its will, must 
 turn back the current of human affairs a thousand 
 years, and would confine the blessings of the Gospel 
 within limits narrower than those of ancient Juda- 
 ism. These exclusive opinions, so fondly embraced 
 by many, are indeed a "discipline of the secret," 
 likely enough to bury the Gospel in a cloister, along 
 with the last hopes of happiness for mankind. 
 
 Whoever does not admit the independence of 
 Christianity, as to the visible means of its mainte- 
 nance, and its superiority to all such means, reduces 
 himself to the sad necessity of rejecting, even the 
 most convincing evidence which may attest the tri- 
 umphs of the Gospel under forms which he does not 
 allow to be legitimate. The consequence must be, 
 not indeed that such successes of "unauthentic zeal" 
 are stayed in their course till he approves them ; 
 but that he himself is driven further and further from 
 whatever is substantial, whatever is benign, what- 
 ever is reasonable in the Christian system, until he 
 finds a gloomy home, not in a church but in a 
 sepulchre. 
 
 No position can be imagined more undesirable, 
 or indeed fearful, than will be that occupied by 
 very many, should pure Christianity rapidly spread 
 in the heathen world, under what they are pleased 
 to call " irregular ministrations," Such persons, ren- 
 
226 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 dered only so much the more obdurate by the 
 copious evidence that is reaching ' them of the 
 falseness of their theory, would be driven, not im- 
 probably, in desperation, to take part with the open 
 enemies of all truth. 
 
 Christians better taught, are prepared to hail with 
 unfeigned, and with unmixed pleasure," every in- 
 stance, let it be found where it may, in which the 
 lives and tempers of men are reformed on the 
 Christian model ; and, in perfect consistency with 
 their principles, they will always think it their duty 
 and privilege to take part in any endeavours that 
 are sincerely and prudently instituted for imparting 
 to the ignorant the blessings of truth. 
 
 How many perplexities are evaded by a hearty 
 recognition of our axiom That the Gospel is 
 always more than the instrumentalities it employs ! 
 How much peace of conscience is connected with 
 a steady adherence to the belief, That the rescue of 
 immortal souls from sin and misery is a work which, 
 when effected by Sovereign Mercy, we never need 
 scruple to rejoice in ! 
 
 It cannot well be doubted that the purest forms 
 of Christianity, whatever they are, will on the 
 whole, be the most efficacious in extending it ; if 
 therefore we suppose all true Christians to be gov- 
 erned by the simple rule of aiding to promote the 
 Gospel, under whatsoever form they see it to be ad- 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 227 
 
 vancing the most auspiciously then it must hap- 
 pen that The purest form of Christianity will, in 
 the end, draw around itself all, or the greater num- 
 ber of sincere Christians ; and so by this simple 
 process, the much desired church unity would be 
 brought about, not by polemical, but by evangelical 
 triumphs. 
 
 We come then to mention the fifth of those hap- 
 py distinctions of Spiritual Christianity which 
 warrant a reasonable hope of its diffusion, with 
 all the blessings that attend it, throughout the 
 earth. 
 
 Spiritual Christianity offers a ground of cordial 
 combination, for all purposes of religious benevo- 
 lence, among its true adherents. 
 
 We have here to do with one of those frequent 
 instances in which a rule that, in theory, may seem 
 beset with difficulties, ceases to be so, when honest- 
 ly reduced to practice. While men of cold hearts 
 and narrow understandings are propounding inter- 
 minable questions, as to the possibility of giving 
 contentment to the exquisite delicacy of their " con- 
 sciencies," when they are required to aid and assist 
 in some good work Christian men, whose con- 
 sciences are informed by the instincts of love, find 
 
228 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 abundant comfort and pleasure in joining hands 
 with their brethren, whenever any labours of cha- 
 rity demand their co-operation. 
 
 We do not hold ourselves bound to attempt a 
 reply to the question of sanctimonious selfishness 
 " Who is my brother ? who is my neighbour ?" For 
 the most exact and elaborate answer must fail to 
 supply what is really wanting in the querist the 
 heart of a Christian ; and as to those in whose 
 bosoms such a heart beats, they never in fact put 
 any such question. 
 
 In giving effect to the Christian principle of co- 
 operation in works of charity, two conditions are 
 always supposed : \hzfirst is, that those who are 
 thus summoned to " strive together" for promoting 
 the welfare of their fellow-men are so far animated 
 by Christian motives, and are so far governed by 
 Christian principles, as to satisfy their brethren as 
 to their claim to be treated with cordial affection. 
 Verbal specifications of belief, on secondary points, 
 are superseded by the confidence which a truly 
 Christian deportment inspires. Nothing can be 
 more frigid, or impertinent, or arrogant, than the 
 question " Can I join hands with Christ's true 
 disciples, differing from me in points of belief ?" 
 
 The second condition of Christian combinations 
 for promoting benevolent designs, is a genuine 
 warmth of the benevolent affections, in those who so 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 229 
 
 combine. We are not afraid to affirm it as a gen- 
 eral truth that, where good men are seen withdraw- 
 ing from this, that, and the other labours of love, on 
 the plea of conscientious scruples, the moral nature 
 with them will be found to be of small dimensions, 
 or of slender proportions. If the moral tempera- 
 ment be vigorous, and the understanding not infirm, 
 great motives will overrule inferior motives, and the 
 impulses of benevolence will, with an irresistible 
 momentum, break through those snares for the con- 
 science which the Adversary, when driven to em- 
 ploy his last expedients, spreads in the way of 
 Christian enterprises. 
 
 Hitherto, although frequently alluding to them, 
 we have not distinctly spoken of those enterprises 
 of Christian zeal and benevolence which stand forth 
 as so remarkable a feature of the moral history of 
 the present age, and which are its glory. We are 
 compromised with none of these institutions ; we 
 are pledged to none, as apologists ; and yet are 
 bound to all as Christians. None commands our 
 servile or partizan-like support ; each commands 
 our cordial good wishes, and the utmost aid we 
 could give. 
 
 These pious and charitable associations are, col- 
 lectively, the expression of a widely-diffused, and 
 Christian-like benevolence, which is indeed the praise 
 of Britain, and the admiration of the world ; and 
 20 
 
 
 
230 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 which shall be the theme of posterity. Compared 
 with any enterprises which heretofore have com- 
 bined the hearts and energies of a people, is not the 
 missionary enterprise noble and generous in its 
 conception heaven-like in its object and temper 
 unblamable in the means it adopts, and most benign 
 so far as it prospers, in its actual results ? 
 
 And why has it not prospered more ? Many 
 reasons should be assigned in reply ; but we are 
 here content to say, That, undoubtedly, and not 
 forgetting our dependence upon the divine aid, it 
 would so prosper if it commanded, to a greater 
 extent, and in proportion to its indisputable merits, 
 the resources, the influence, the intelligent co-opera- 
 tion of the upper and educated classes of England. 
 ' The laborious endeavours now making, at so 
 many points, to diffuse the blessings of the Gospel, 
 and with them the blessings of social order, peace, 
 and wealth through the world these endeavours, 
 on every principle of mere reason, of benevolence, 
 and of Christian feeling, deserve nay, demand, 
 far more support than they actually receive from the 
 noble, and the learned from those whose position 
 in society, or whose accomplishments and talents, 
 would render their cordial co-operation incalculably 
 important. 
 
 What, if some of these societies may have erred? 
 What if we relish not their style, or distaste their 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 23 1 
 
 proceedings, or question some of their averments ? 
 We must not look at any human agencies in so 
 sickly a manner, as would lead us to abandon what 
 is great and good, on the plea of blemishes from 
 which nothing human is exempt. Posterity, we 
 may be sure, will not thus look at the missionary 
 zeal of the nineteenth century ; but will rather re- 
 gard the broad intention, and the prominent pur- 
 port of these labours of love. If these labours 
 fail of their desired success, yet the facts of such 
 an endeavour having been made, will not be blotted 
 from the page of history ; and let us think of it as 
 certain, that those who shall read that page, will 
 deal, not very gently, with any by whose immediate 
 fault so bright a hope of renovation for the world, 
 was suffered to expire. But on the contrary, if 
 this endeavour succeed, and if, as we firmly believe, 
 the present evangelic labours of this country are as 
 the dawn of day in the world's history if indeed 
 we are now standing, as on the very confines of 
 light and darkness if long centuries of moral de- 
 solation are to be followed by far longer eras of 
 truth, virtue, peace, let us take care that we our- 
 selves be not fixed upon those confines, as " pillars 
 of salt" the monuments of unbelief and selfish 
 infatuation ! 
 
 There is one aspect of the evangelizing associa- 
 tions now referred to, which does not seem to have 
 
232 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 attracted the attention it deserves ; and which, as 
 we venture to affirm, might not improperly be seri- 
 ously considered at the present moment by the 
 upper and educated classes. We refer to the re- 
 flex influence of these combinations upon the classes 
 to which mainly they owe their support, and by 
 which they are governed. 
 
 The great extent and depth of this reflected in- 
 fluence can be estimated only by those (and but im- 
 perfectly even by such) whose position in society, 
 and whose habits have enabled them, at leisure, to 
 become acquainted with the sentiments and intel- 
 lectual condition of the masses from which Mis- 
 sionary Societies draw four-fifths of their revenues. 
 These contributors, ranging from the artisan class, 
 and upward toward the higher grades, and including 
 a fair proportion of the moderate opulence and 
 average intelligence of the country, are doing for 
 themselves, full as much, in every sense, as they are 
 doing for the heathen world ; and we say this 
 without intending any disparagement of the mis- 
 sionary work abroad. 
 
 We could not easily over-rate the extent or im- 
 portance of that moral and intellectual advancement 
 which, in the course of the last thirty or forty years, 
 has resulted directly from the diffusion of the mis- 
 sionary spirit in England. It has carried with it, 
 and has conveyed to many thousands of the middle 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 233 
 
 orders, a large amount and variety of general know- 
 ledge, geographical, historical, statistical ; it has 
 vastly expanded the modes of thinking usual with 
 these orders ; it has ennobled their sentiments ; it 
 has habituated them to generous, and, in a true 
 sense, to liberal courses of behaviour ; it has 
 thrown into discredit many frivolous or sensual em- 
 ployments, or amusements ; it has trained thousands 
 of young persons in the inestimably important habit 
 of caring, in a sensitive and active manner, for the 
 welfare of others ; and has much diverted from the 
 channel of sordid selfishness, the ordinary current 
 of thought. If we will hear and believe it, the 
 missionary temper, diffused as it is on all sides, 
 although attaching but to a portion of the people, 
 has at length educated a class of citizens which, 
 from its breadth of feeling, its fair intelligence, its 
 familiarity with the course of events throughout 
 the world, and its high feeling of whatever is just, 
 humane, and Christian-like, may prove itself, in 
 future perils of the state, the principal stay of a 
 wise and religious government. 
 
 The influence of the missionary work in sustain- 
 ing and extending some religious communities 
 which, years ago, were threatened with extinction, 
 is not one of the least remarkable of its effects ; 
 and if, at an early period of these evangelizing in- 
 stitutions, the several evangelic bodies had so seen 
 20* 
 
234 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 their corporate interests, as to have amalgamated, on 
 this ground to have dismissed their differences as 
 frivolous to have consolidated their resources, to 
 have distributed the work before them on some con- 
 sistent principle of the division of labour ; and in 
 a word to have chalked their path of benevolent 
 universal conquest, from east to west, from north 
 to south if these things had happened, statesmen 
 might have seen, with amazement, the government 
 of the world in some measure taken out of their 
 hands, by a moral power of continually increasing 
 energy. 
 
 No such concentration or condensation of the 
 evangelic zeal has had place. But it is not certain 
 that it may not in future. Whether it does or not, 
 it is unquestionable that this benevolent care for 
 the world, now exercised almost exclusively by the 
 middle classes this effective, and morally real 
 colonial administration, cannot but confer a force, 
 real also, upon those in whose hands it rests ; and 
 therefore it does not leave the social balance be- 
 tween them and the upper classes altogether un- 
 affected. 
 
 Whatever inference these considerations might 
 suggest, it is abundantly certain that there can be 
 but one mode in which an influence so wide and 
 important can be shared by those who might think 
 a good portion of it their due. The power we are 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 235 
 
 speaking of is a moral and religious power ; and 
 if we except some very transient participation of it, 
 it can be wielded only in the mode of a sincere, 
 ingenuous, and religious sympathy with the great 
 purposes that are the objects of it. 
 
 No factitious zeal, no politic compliances, no 
 stooping to conquer, could avail for the purpose 
 intended, or beyond the term of a few months. 
 The evangelic work, inseparable as it is from 
 Christianity when not curbed by despotism, would 
 quickly fail, and reach its end, unless carried for- 
 ward by a genuine religious impulse. 
 
 There is then a vast movement going on near to 
 us : it embraces the earth : it throws back upon 
 its originators a proportionate moral power, a power 
 not very remote, in some of its bearings, from po- 
 litical power ; and yet it is such as can be exercised 
 by none but those whose religious convictions are 
 sincere and vigorous by none but Christian men ! 
 The glare and glitter of life may conceal these 
 realities from our view ; but the more they are 
 considered, and the better they are understood, the 
 more will they seem to deserve the serious regard 
 of those who would not choose to be ignorant of 
 what may even suddenly come to press itself upon 
 their attention. 
 
 At the commencement of these Lectures we 
 affirmed, what we most fully believe to be a fact 
 
236 ON SPIRITUAL 
 
 the inseparable connexion of Christianity with 
 the welfare, nay, with the political existence of the 
 British empire, and its cherished institutions. A 
 course of events rapidly evolving, and tending to- 
 ward some unknown issue, is convincing all parties 
 That a merely secular, or political and heartless 
 Christianity, will neither subserve the purposes of 
 religion, nor even be able to sustain itself against 
 the pressure of many hostile forces. It is proved, 
 it is understood it is admitted, that our Christianity 
 must have a firm hold of our most sincere con- 
 victions that it must be deeply seated in our affec- 
 tions that it must command us as an independent 
 power, as a positive authority, superior to secular 
 influence, and as a PRINCIPLE which we may neither 
 modify, nor compromise ; but which we must 
 honour by an implicit, yet reasonable homage. 
 
 This understood, as it seems to be on all sides 
 among those who seriously think on the subject, a 
 choice is to be made between those two forms of 
 Christianity which alone are positive, authoritative, 
 independent, and in a word potent, or which possess 
 any intrinsic energy. 
 
 These two competing systems, utterly incompa- 
 tible one with the other, as they are, and founded 
 upon principles exclusive one of the other, and 
 which have never consisted the one with the other, 
 even for a day, have been brought into vehement 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 237 
 
 collision by the controversies of the last seven years. 
 It is a collision for which all things, although we 
 saw it not beforehand, were ripe ; and the issue of 
 which must speedily bisect the professedly Christian 
 world ; and at no very remote period after this 
 partition has been effected, one of the two must 
 meet its fate. 
 
 We shall not incur the risk of being accused of 
 misrepresentation in attempting any definition or 
 description of that one of these forms which we 
 regard as antichristian. But how imperfectly so- 
 ever our task in the present instance may have been 
 performed, we can scarcely have altogether failed 
 to convey, in an intelligible manner, what we regard 
 as essential to that other form of our religion which 
 we assume to be alone genuine, apostolic, and 
 spiritual ; the Christianity which, as we believe, 
 will be found in the inspired pages, by those who, 
 in humble reliance upon the teaching of the Holy 
 Spirit, give themselves to the serious perusal of the 
 only authentic Rule of Faith. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 51. 
 
 EVEN if we were to apply the phrase " Moral 
 Evidence" in the vague manner in which it is often 
 applied to human testimony, under whatever circum- 
 stances rendered ; it must be granted, in very many 
 instances, to reach the highest point of certainty. If 
 many hundred persons, in dismay and disorder, pass 
 my gate during the day, and all affirm the same thing 
 That London has been destroyed by an earthquake ; 
 if some of these homeless persons coolly and par- 
 ticularly describe the catastrophe, while the phrenzied 
 shrieks of others attest the fact in another manner is 
 this amount of testimony to be held as still questiona- 
 ble, because it is nothing more than " moral evidence ?" 
 At the moment when the first band of these wanderers 
 came up, I might have been employed in following a 
 mathematical demonstration. In turning from Euclid 
 to listen to these tales of woe, I do indeed turn from 
 one species of proof to another ; but do I also descend 
 from certainties to mere probabilities ? None would 
 say this. 
 
 As to facts transmitted by books, the certainty of 
 them may be of the very highest kind, even when the 
 
240 NOTES. 
 
 mass of evidence, or its apparent bulk, is very small. 
 In such instances certainty results from the circum- 
 stances of the case ; and it is to be remembered 
 that it is in no degree liable to be lessened by mere 
 lapse of time. The existence of Shakspeare's Rich- 
 ard III., in the time of James I., may now be ascer- 
 tained without a doubt; but, supposing our litera- 
 ture to pass down entire to a distant age, the proof of 
 this fact will be as good then, as it is to-day. Or 
 otherwise to state the same case, we may now be 
 as sure of the antiquity of the " Clouds" of Aristo- 
 phanes, as we are of the date of the " Merry Wives 
 of Windsor." And if a question relate to the genu- 
 ineness of a single verse, a very small amount of sat- 
 isfactory critical proof, may be enough to exclude all 
 reasonable scepticism, and to warrant the decision 
 " It is absolutely certain that this verse was from the 
 hand of the author." 
 
 We greatly misjudge historical questions 
 
 When we assume them to be not susceptible of 
 conclusive proof because established by Testimony, 
 or Moral Evidence : 
 
 When we hesitate to receive them as certain on 
 account of the mere lapse of Time ; or 
 
 When we suppose historical certainty to depend 
 upon the larger or the smaller amount, or bulk of the 
 evidence adduced. Good proof is good, whether it 
 fill half a page, or a volume ; and whether it have 
 stood on a page fifty, or two thousand years. 
 
NOTES. 241 
 
 NOTE TO PAGB 58. 
 
 THAT corruption of the Christian religion which its 
 inspired teachers predicted as immediately to follow 
 its first promulgation, is in one of these prophetic pas- 
 sages called a "mystery of iniquity," which is the 
 inspired designation also of the ripened " abomina- 
 tions" of the Papacy ; and it is remarkable that this 
 endeavour to hold back the Truth to " reserve" the 
 principal elements of Christianity for a privileged class, 
 has been the characteristic of each successive form of 
 the apostasy from the second century to the nineteenth. 
 Not less remarkable is the progression of these en- 
 deavours from what was a very natural imitation of 
 the philosophic economy of the same age, to its con- 
 summation in the stern spiritual despotism which 
 lodged the key of knowledge in the hands of the 
 " Vicar of Christ." 
 
 Instead of " preaching the Gospel" to the people, 
 without reserve, and in all simplicity, as the Apostles 
 had done, the Rulers of the Church, ambitious of the 
 dignity belonging to the teachers of a profound enig- 
 matic doctrine, drew a line around themselves and the 
 favoured few the " initiated," to whom the depths of 
 this new philosophy were to be opened. But this pro- 
 ceeding, was alone enough to vitiate, the Christian 
 ministry, compelling, as it did, the Teacher to impart 
 to the mass of the people something less than the 
 Truth, and to the initiated something more. The 
 21 
 
242 NOTES. 
 
 great principles of the Gospel were regarded as too 
 sacred for the populace, and were felt to be too sim- 
 ple or too little in the style of the philosophy of the 
 age, to satisfy the " itching ears " of those who ex- 
 pected profundities. 
 
 When the gnostic infection was admitted by the 
 Church, it brought with it a rule of caste still more 
 injurious in its effects ; for it assumed the fact of a 
 natural inequality among men as " spiritual," or as 
 " physical" and animal, by destination of birth. The 
 mass of men could never be taught " the Truth." 
 This doctrine, directly opposed as it is to the first 
 principle of the Gospel, could not consist with even 
 an approximation to apostolic simplicity and evangelic 
 zeal. From the time that it gained ascendancy in the 
 Church, little was seen within it but spiritual arro- 
 gance, on the part of the few, and the most abject 
 prostration of the many at the feet of the clergy and 
 the monks. 
 
 Under the ascetic discipline, which reached its ma- 
 ture condition in the fourth century, the gnostic princi- 
 ple of reserving " Truth" as the distinction of a class, 
 assumed the distinctness proper to the rules of a visible 
 institute. The monks were the only Christians, in 
 the full sense of the term ; while the herd of mankind 
 might be allowed to gather the crumbs of instruction, 
 that fell from their master's table. 
 
 The last step of this doctrine of darkness was that 
 which confided all knowledge to the keeping of " the 
 
NOTE S. 
 
 Church," that is to say of the hierarchy, governed 
 by a single will, and armed with absolute and terrible 
 powers, secular and spiritual. It is not easy to fix the 
 moment at which this empire of night dates its com- 
 mencement ; but the early part of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury may be named as the hour of the most pitchy 
 blackness. 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 100. 
 
 THE PROTESTANT Church of England does not 
 simply affirm the " Romish doctrine " concerning 
 " worshipping and adoration, as well of Images as of 
 Relics, and also Invocation of Saints," to be " a fond 
 thing ;" but that these superstitions elsewhere point- 
 edly and universally reprobated, had been " vaitily 
 invented" By whom then invented 1 It is not the 
 usage of ingenuous writers or speakers, when they 
 would designate those who may have given the last 
 finish to a work which others had long before origina- 
 ted, to call them its inventors. Whatever absurdities 
 may have attached to the " Romish " doctrine of the 
 invocation of saints, or to the " Romish " practice of 
 the adoration of relics the doctrine, in its plenitude 
 of impiety, and the practice, with all its shocking 
 enormities, are at least as ancient as that age from 
 which it is said we should do well to learn our divinity, 
 and our modes of worship, rather than from the age 
 of the Reformation. 
 
244 NOTES. 
 
 This now professed preference can mean nothing, 
 if it does not mean that the invocation of saints, and 
 the worshipping of relics which the Reformers indig- 
 nantly rejected, and which the Nicene divines as 
 sedulously promoted, should be, by ourselves, reli- 
 giously restored. 
 
 Finding the intended limits of this volume already 
 exceeded, I am compelled to refer the reader for the 
 evidence bearing on this point, to the SIXTH Number 
 of " Ancient Christianity," in which a sample of the 
 frightful idolatries of the fourth century is furnished. 
 These, I think, will bear out the assertion, "That, if 
 the Christianity of the Nicene Church were restored 
 in England, the difference between England, and 
 Spain, Italy, or Belgium, would be perceptible only to 
 the keenest eyes. Antiquity and Romanism differ not 
 so much as the Religion of English Roman Catholics 
 differs from the Popery of Irish Roman Catholics. And 
 in truth the gross superstitions and shocking abuses 
 of the fourth century far more nearly resemble Irish, 
 than they do English Catholicism. It were therefore 
 better for us to accept these same doctrines and prac- 
 tices in their modern, than in their ancient guise. 
 Both however are absolutely exclusive of- apostolic 
 Christianity. 
 
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 ir the best style. Complete in two handsome volumes, octavo, about five hundred pages each. 
 This LIFE OF NAPOLEON, which is now offered to the public, is built up and composed from the samr- 
 original authorities as those consulted by previous historians and biographers; with the assistance, 
 also, of the substantive works of the latter, and of all important works since published, or now in 
 course of publication. From careful abstracts and references ; from a dispassionate balancing of the 
 single and collective facts, statements, opinions and conjectural probabilities, orcRtinnnlly found in 
 direct opposition among authorities of equal influence and validity, the author tins sought to attain a 
 fixed equilibrium of general truth. It has not been attempted to give a History of France in the stormy 
 time of the Revolution, or in the successive periods of the Directory, the Consulate, or the Empire. 
 The violent feelings of the English public having- now passed awny, a period has already commenced for 
 the exercise of a temperate judgment. The author has also endeavoured not to forestall time, broach 
 theories, or dispense censure or praise. The deep-searching and far-spreading- investigations, into 
 which :in attempt to form an opinion concerning the consequences and results of his actions would lead, 
 could lint be undertaken without a comprehensive study and voluminous exposition of the moral and 
 political world and its various mutations ; they consequently form no part of the p.esent design. 
 
 PICTORIAL ROBINSON CRUSOE. 
 
 The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, by DANIEL DE F,OE, with a Memoir of the Author, 
 
 and an Essay on his Writings, illustrated with three hundred spirited Engravings by the celetffated 
 
 French artist GRANDVILLE, forming one elegant volume, octavo, of 500 p.-. 
 
 "Was there ever any thing written by mere man that thf> reader wished longer, except Robinsa* 
 Crusoe, Don Quixotte, and the Pilgrim's Progress?" Dr. Johnson. 
 
 " How happy that this, the most moral of romances, is not only the most charming of books, bat the 
 most instructive." A. Chalmers. 
 
 " No fiction in any language was ever better supported than thrse Adventures of Robinson Crwoe." 
 Dr Blair. 
 
 " Crusoe has obtained airady passport to the mansions of the rich, nnd th*> cottages of th<> poor, and 
 communicated equal delight to all ranks and classes of the community. Few works have been morr 
 generally read, or more justly admired ; few that have yirldrd swh inn-ssjiiijt anms. ment, and, at th 
 same time, have developed so many lessons of practical instruction." Sir \\'. Xcott. 
 
 PICTORIAL VIC/>R OF WAKEFIELD. 
 
 The Vicar of Wakefield, By OLIVER GOLDSMITH, elegantly illustrated with 108 Engravings, making a 
 
 beautiful volume, octavo, of about 350 pages. 
 
 "This tale is the lasting monument of Goldsmith's genius, his great legacy of pleasnr* to genera- 
 tions past, present, and to come." Examiner. 
 
 "Goldsmith, both in verse and prose, was one of the most delightful writers in tin 
 verse flows like a limpid stream. His ease is quite unconscious. Every thine in bii 
 unstudied, unaffected, yet elegant, harmonious, graceful, and nearly faultless. Ha: 
 
 GEMS FROM TRAVELLERS. 
 
 Illustrative of Various passages in Holy Scripture, with nearly one hiiu-lrrd r^iiisil* EnfTmvrap. 
 
 Among the authorities quoted will be found the following distinguished name. : I 
 
 Lane, Mndden, Clarke, Pococke, Chandler, Malcom. Hartley. Russell, Jowitt, Carn, SI 
 
 Tie-, Neibuhr, Bruce. Calmet, II. Blunt, Belzoni, Lord Linds.iy. A-.-. *r. 
 
 This exquisite volume, so beautiful as an ornament to the centre table, will assist t 
 tion of the beauty, propriety and truth of the Holy bcripture, Uiun m.y uil 
 
D. APPLETON & CO.'S 
 
 
 INCIDENTS OF A WHALING VOYAGE. 
 
 To which is added Observations n the Scenery, Manners, arid Customs, and Missionary Stations 0f 
 the Sandwich and Society Islands, accompanied by numerous plates. By FRANCIS ALLYN OLM- 
 STED. One handsome volume, J2mo. 
 
 The various publication* before the public, illustrating' our marine and naval history, have never, 
 we believe, as yet entered into the jjiinutiae of a whaling voyage a whale ship, its equipments, dis- 
 cipline, and course of operations m the internal economy and varied contingencies, until the appear- 
 ance of the present volume, by one who has some pretensions to science, both in the philosophy of 
 nature and education. The work indeed only presents the events of a single voyage, but is blended 
 with so much of incidental history, abounding in facts relative to the Islands of the Pacific, the Mis- 
 sionary stations there, and the effects of civilization upon the untutored natives of the South, together 
 with the illustrations of the whale fishery, as to embody a muss of intelligence, interesting to the 
 ordinary reader as well as t the philosophical inquirer. The author is a son of Professor Olmsted, 
 of Yale College, who, in the pursuit of health, in a long voyage, has noted the observations to which 
 we refer." JV. Y. Courier. 
 
 MRS. AUSTIN'S GERMAN WRITERS. 
 
 Fragments from German Prose Writers, translated by Mrs. Austin. Illustrated with Biographical 
 
 and Critical Notes. 1 vol. 12mo. Elegantly printed on fine white paper. 
 
 " Those who wish to close a book with the comfortable feeling that no new idea has been suggested, 
 and no old one disturbed, will regard this as very questionable praise ; but those who read in order to 
 be made to think, will, I hope, derive some satisfaction from the fragments thus thrown together. 
 The choice of these passages has been determined by considerations as various as their character and 
 their subjects. In some it was the value of the matter, in others the beauty of the form that struck 
 me ; in some the vigorous, unaffected good sense, in others the fantastic and mystical charm. Some re- 
 called familiar trains of thought which meet us in a foreign literature like old friends in a fax country, 
 others altogether new and strange." Vide Preface. 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SOCIETY, 
 
 IN THE BARBAROUS AND CIVILIZED STATE. 
 
 An Essay towards discovering the Origin and Course of Human Improvement. By W. COOKE TAY- 
 LOR, LL.D., &c., of Trinity College, Dublin. Handsomely printed on fine paper. 2 vols. 12mo. 
 " A most able work, the design of which is to determine from an examination of the various forms 
 in which society has been formed, what was the origin of civilization, and under what circumstances 
 those attributes of humanity, which in one country be9ome the foundation of social happiness, and in 
 another perverted to the production of general misery. For this purpose the author has separately 
 examined the principal elements by which society, under all its aspects, is held together, and traced 
 each to its source in human nature. He has then directed attention to the development of these prin- 
 ciples, and pointed out the circumstances by which they were perfected on the one hand, or corrupted 
 on the other." 
 
 " We perceive by the preface that the work has had throughout the superintendence of the very 
 learned Archbishop Whately." Literary Gazette. 
 
 PALMER'S TREATISE ON THE CHURCH. 
 
 A TREATISE oh THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. Designed chiefly for the use of Students in Theology 
 By the Rev. William Palmer, M. A., of Worcester College, Oxford. Edited, with Notes, by the 
 Right Rev. W. R Whittingham, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese 
 of Maryland. 2 vols. 8vo., handsomely printed on fine paper. 
 
 " The treatise of Mr. Palmer is the best exposition and vindication of Church Principles, that we 
 have ever read ; excelling contemporaneous treatises in depth of learning and solidity of -judgment as 
 much as it excels older treatises on the like subjects in adaptation to the wants and habits of the age. 
 Of its influence in England, where it has passed through two editions, we have not the means to form 
 an opinion ; but we believe that in this country it has already, even before its reprint, done more to 
 restore the sound tone of Catholic principle and feeling than any other one work of the age. The author's 
 learning and powers of combination and arrangement, great as they obviously are, are less remarkable 
 than the sterling good sense, the vigorous and solid judgment, which is everywhere manifest in the 
 treatise, and confers on it its distinctive excellence. The style of the author is distinguished for dig- 
 nity and masculine energy, while his tone is everywhere natural ; on proper occasions, reverential ; 
 and always, so far as we remember, sufficiently conciliatory. 
 
 "To our clergy and intelligent laity who desire to see the Church justly discriminated from Roman- 
 ists on the one hand, and dissenting denominations on the other, we earnestly commend PALMER'S 
 TREATISE ON THE CHURCH." N. Y. Churchman. 
 
 HARE'S PAROCHIAL SERMONS. 
 
 Sermons to a Country Congregation. By Augustus William Hare, A.M. late Fellow 01 New Cohege, 
 
 and Rector of Alton Barnes. 1 vol. royal 8vo. 
 
 " Any one who can be pleased with delicacy of thought expressed in the most simple language 
 any one who can feel the charm of finding practical duties elucidated and enforced by apt and varied 
 illustrations- will be delighted with this volume, which presents us with the workings of a pious aud 
 .Uighly-gifttd miud." fiuarterly Review. 
 
VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS. I 
 
 MAQEE ON ATONEMENT AND SACRIFICE. 
 
 Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonrinrn: :u,.; s u rifloc, and on the Pn- 
 cipal Arguments advanced, and the Mode of Reasoning employed by the Opponent* of thaw dw 
 trines, as held by the Established Church. By the late Most Rev. William Magee, D.D., Archbnhop 
 of Dublin. 2 vols. royal 8vo., beautifully printed. 
 
 "This is one of the ablest ciitical and polemical works of modern timet. Archbishop Maf M 
 truly a malleus kereticolum. He is an excellent scholar, an ami if; n-ajumer. anil i fMM<wmd of mot 
 extensive acquaintance with the wide Held of argument to which h; volumes are devoted the pro- 
 found Biblical information on a variety of topics which the Archbishop bring! forward, nut eMMCT 
 his name to all lovers of Christianity." Oiine. 
 
 DEVOTIONAL LIBRARY. 
 
 The greatest care is taken in selecting the works of which this collection is com- 
 posed. Each volume is printed on the finest paper, elegantly ornamented, and 
 bound in a superior manner, and uniform in size. Bishop Doanc says of thU 
 collection, " I write to express my thanks to you for reprints of the Oxford 
 Books ; first, for such books, and secondly, in such a style. I sincerely hope 
 you may be encouraged to go on, and give them all to us. You will dignify the 
 art of printing, and you will do great service tq the best interest of the country. 
 In a letter received from Bishop Whittingham, he says, " I had forgotten to 
 state my very great satisfaction at your commencement of a series oi 
 tional Works, lately rcpublished in Oxford." The publishers beg to state while 
 in so short a time this library has increased to so many volumes, they are encou- 
 raged to make yet larger additions, and earnestly hope it may receive all the 
 encouragement it deserves. 
 
 The following volumes have already appeared : 
 THE EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH. 
 
 Or Christian History of England in early British, Saxon, and Norman Times. By the Rev 
 
 Churton, M.A. With a Preface by the Right Rev. Bishop Ives. 1 vol. 16no. elegantly oruanMnUd 
 
 LEARN TO DIE. 
 
 DLsce Mori, Learn to Die : a Religious Discourse, moving 1 every Christian man to enter into m s^rioos 
 Remembrance of his End. By Christopher Sutton, D.D., late Prebend of Westminster. 1 vol. 
 16mo., elegantly ornamented. 
 
 SACRA PRIVATA: 
 
 The Private Meditations, Devotions, and Prayers of the Right Rev. T. Wilson. D.D., Lord Bishop of 
 Soder and Man. First complete edition. 1 vol. royal IGmo., elegantly ornamented. 
 
 MEDITATIONS ON THE SACRAMENT. 
 
 Godly Meditations upon the most Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. By Christopher 8ttw, 
 D.D., late Prebend of Westminster. 1 vol. royal 16mo., elegantly ornamented. 
 
 HEART'S EASE; 
 
 Or a Remedy against all Trouble*, 
 WITH A CONSOLATORY DI8COUR:- 
 
 Particularly addressed to those who have lost their friends and dear relations. By Strnow Patrict, 
 D.D., sometime Lord Bishop of Ely. 1 vol. royal 16mo., elegantly ornamented. 
 
 A DISCOURSE CONCERNING PRAYER 
 
 And the frequenting Daily Public Prayers. By Symon Patrick. D.D.. sometime Low! Bishop at EJf. 
 Edited by Francis E. Paget, M.A , Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Oxford. 1 tol royal l6mo., ! 
 gantly ornameated. 
 
 THOUGHTS IN PAST YEARS. 
 
 A beautiful collection of Poetry, chiefly Devotional. By the Author of "The Cathedral." 1 d. 
 royal 16mo., elegantly printed. 
 
 *#* These volumes will be followed by other* of fqual i 
 
D. APPLETON & GO'S 
 
 
 SCHLEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. 
 
 The Philosophy of History, in a course of Lectures delivered at Vienna, by FREDEIUCX VON SCHLB- 
 GEL, translated from the German, with a Memoir of the Author, by J. B. ROBERTSON. Handsomely 
 printed on fine paper. 2 vols. 12mo. 
 
 "A masterly production written in that flowing, elegant style, so characteristic of the German 
 school. In fact, diligent investigation, accurate discernment, sound judgment and elegant taste, will 
 to found employed in every page. Our readers may rely upon our word that a perusal of these pagei 
 A ill yield them an ample harvest of pleasure ami advantage." Quarterly Review. 
 
 THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 Edited by his son, John C Hamilton. 2 vols. royal 8vo. 
 
 " We cordially recommend the perusal ?.nd diligent study of these volumes, exhibiting, as they do, 
 much valuable matter relative to the Revolution, the establishment of the Federal Constitution, and 
 other important events ^n the annals of our country." New-York Review. 
 
 THE METROPOLITAN PULPIT; 
 
 '>: Sketches of the most Popular Preachers in London. By the author of Random Recollections, Th 
 Great Metropolis, &c. &c. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 CARLYLE ON HISTORY AND HEROES. 
 
 1 > Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the Heroic in History. Six Lectures, reported with Emendations aad 
 Additions, by Thomas Carlyle, Author of the Fuch Revolution, Sartor Resartus, &c. Elegantly 
 ;>rinted in 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 ' A masterly production. Even the single lecture to which we shall confine our office, is, we feel, 
 t greater theme than can be sufficiently illustrated at our hands. We have elsewhere noticed a nevr 
 uition of Sartor Resartus, by the same author. It is a very remarkable work, though we must con- 
 jV-ss somewhat too German and transcendental for our taste. We rejoice to say that we find no such 
 liifficulties besetting us in these disquisitions on hu/oes. They are in truth philosophical enough, 
 :.brupt enough, tearing enough ; but their philosophy is clear, distinct, and intelligible ; their abrupt- 
 ness is the vigor of Demosthenes ; their tearing the acts of a giant who has a wilderness to burst 
 through and open to the rest of mankind," Literary Gazette. 
 
 GUIZOT'S HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 General History of Civilization in Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revo- 
 lution. Translated from the French of M. Guizot, Professor of History to la Faculte des Lettres 
 of Paris, and Minister of Public Instruction. 2d American, from the last London edition. 1 vol. 
 
 ISaa 
 
 >( We hail with pleasure the republication of this able work. It is terse and full, and adverts to 
 the most interesting topic in the social relations of mankind, the progressive improvement of the Eu- 
 ropean nations from the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the Goths, and Huns, and Vandals, in th 
 Fifth Century." N. Y. American. 
 
 SOUTHY'S POETJCAL WORKS. 
 
 The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southe-y, Esq. LJL.D, The ten volume London edition in 
 one elegant royal 8vo. volume, with a fine portrait and vignette. 
 
 *** This edition, which the author has arranged and revised with tho same care as if it were in- 
 :r.ided for posthumous publication, includes many pieces which either have never before been collect- 
 ed, or have hitherto remained unpublished. 
 
 Preliminary notices are affixed to the long poems, the whole of the notes retained, and Such 
 additional ones incorporated as the author, since the first publication, has seen occasion to insert 
 
 Contents : 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. THE CURSE OF KEHAMA. 
 
 JUVENILE AND MINOR POEMS. RODERICK THE LAST OF THE GOTHS 
 
 THALABA THE DESTROYER. THE POET'S PILGRIMAGE TO WATEBLOO. 
 
 MADOC. LAY OF THE LAUREATE. 
 
 BALLADS AND METRICAL TALES. VISION OF JUDGMENT, &e. 
 
 "At the age of sixty-three I have undertaken ta collect and edit my poetical works, with the last 
 'orrections that I can expect to bestow upon them. They have obtained a reputation equal to my 
 
 ~vish.es Thus to collect and revise them is a duty which 1 owe to that part of the public by whom 
 
 they have been auspiciously received, and to those who will take a lively concern in my good name 
 when I shall have departed." Extract from Author's Preface. 
 
 " The critic has little to do but to point out the existence of the work, the beauty of the type and 
 embellishments, and the cheapness of the cost ; the public has long ago acknowledged its merit and 
 
 established its reputation The author of the 'Life :>f Nelson' must live as long as our history 
 
 and language endure. There is no man to whom the latter owes a greater obligation no man who 
 .has done more for literature by his genius, his labours, and his life." Times. 
 
 " We are very glad to see the works of a poet, for whom, we have always felt the warmest admira- 
 tion, follected, and in a shade which will ensure their popularity." Literary Gazette. 
 
 il Southey's principal poetical works have beeu lojia before the vrotld, extensively read and highly 
 
VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 appreciated. Their appearance in a neat and uniform edition, with the final corrections of the atbor 
 
 ill afford unfeigned pleasui 
 
 ire to those who are ' married to immortal verse.'" __ 
 
 The beauties of Mr. Southey's poetry are such that this edition can hardly (Ail to find a place ift 
 the library of every man fond of elegant literature." EcUctic Rrvitio. 
 
 SCRIPTURE AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 On the Relation between the Holy Scriptures and some parts of Geological Science. By JOB* 
 PYE SMITH, D.D., author of the Scripture Testimony of the Messiah, <tc. Ac. 1 TO!, l&no. 
 " The volume consists of eight lectures, to which are appended seventy pages of tupplrtnf ntarr 
 notes. The first lecture is introductory ; the second is scientifically descriptive of the principal topics 
 of geological science ; the third includes a research into the creation of our globe ; the fourth and fifth 
 lectures comprise an examination of the deluge ; the sixth discusses the apparent dissonance hetwera 
 the decisions of geologists, and the hitherto received interpretation of Scripture, with ait additional 
 exposition of the diluvial theory ; the seventh is devoted to illustration of the method U> int- 
 Scriptures, so that they may harmonize with the discoveries of geology ; the eighth is the peroratum 
 of the whole disquisition " 
 
 TOUR THROUGH TURKEY AND PERSIA. 
 
 Narrative of a Tour through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia, and Mesopotamia, with an Introduction and 
 Occasional Observations upon the Condition of Mohammedanism and Christianity in those countries 
 By the Rev. HORATIO SOUTHQATE, Missionary of the American Episcopal Church. 8 Tols. llmo., 
 plates. 
 "An exceedingly interesting book of travels, which no reader will be very likely to lay by /or good 
 
 till he has seen the end of it. It contains a vast amount of information, religious and general, aad is 
 
 written in a style of perfect case and simplicity. It deserves, and we doubt not will gain, an extensive 
 
 circulation." Albany Advertiser. 
 
 SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTCH. 
 
 Or the Western Circuit 
 By CATHERINK SINCLAIR, author of Modern Accomplishments, Modern Society, Ac. Ac. 1 TO!. 12mo 
 
 SHETLAND AND THE SHETLANDERS. 
 
 Or the Northern Circuit. 
 
 By CATHERINE SINCLAIR, author of Scotland and the Scotch, Holiday House, Ac. Ac. 1 rol. IJroo. 
 " Miss Sinclair has already proved herself to be a lady of high talent and rich cultivated wind. She 
 thinks with precision and vigor, and she possesses the quality of seizing the objects of her thoughts IB 
 the right place and at the proper time, and of presenting them to the muni's eye of her rtrftdei* in the 
 most clear and captivating light. Her style is characteristic of her mind, transparent, piquant, aad 
 lively, yet sustained by pure, moral and religious feeling." New- York American. 
 
 LIMITATIONS OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 By Francis Wayland, D D. 2d edition. 1 rol. 18mo. 
 
 THE FLAG SHIP; 
 Or a Voyage round the World, 
 
 In the United States Frigate Columbia, attended by her consorl, the Sloop of War John Adams, and 
 bearing the broad pennant of Commodore George C. Read. By FITCH W. TATLO*, Chaplain to the 
 Squadron. 2 vols. 12rno., plates. 
 
 " This work has been some time before the public ; but if in consequence of our lst notice, it shall 
 afford to any reader the very great pleasure and profit wh.ch its peruml has jrjYf n us, we are snr. he 
 will think it better late than never. The recoWs of a voyage around the world, made by a .*** 
 in miiifflme- with the various and wonderful scenes it must present, ha* hud : 
 
 ai o e n. ^ 
 
 this work has a far higher claim to regard. Its literary character is certainly ery respectable, and the 
 benevolent "spirit and Christian interest with which the v:med incidents ,,f * T.sit to alroort "try**- 
 on the Sobe were regarded, give the book an unwuni - ab.l.l.ty to mmr IheiaeMl 
 
 aspect" of the world, a qualifica.,n of which the far frejUer Part of traveller, are utterlj 
 Probably since the valuable journal of Tyi-rman. and Bennett there ha. be. , no other 
 which exhibits so satisfactory a view of the Chi ist.un missions of the world as this, 1 
 to interest its readers not only, but greatly to instruct then, ami e,p,c,.lly to awakea a deep ud 
 lively sympathy for the moral wants and miseries of the world. 
 
 WORKS BY ISAAC TAYLOR. 
 
 HOME EDUCATION. 
 
 By Isaac Taylor, author of " Natural History ^Enthusiasm," Ac. Ac. Second edit 
 
D. APPLETON &, CO.'S 
 
 >nited to the circumstances of a country residence ; at the same time, hints are offered of a kind to b 
 tv;iilable under any circumstances for carrying on the culture of those of the intellectual faculties thaS 
 \rr the earliest developed, and on the due expansion of which the force and efficiency of the mature 
 jiii.ifl depend. 
 
 ' A very enlightened, just, and Christian view of a most important subject." American Bib. Rep, 
 
 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Lectures on Spiritual Christianity. By Isaac Taylor, author of " Spiritual Despotism," &c. &c. 
 
 1 vol. 12iuo. 
 
 "This work is the production of one of the most gifted and accomplished minds of the present age. 
 It* some of his former productions may have been thought characterized by too much of metaphysical 
 iljstraction, and in some instances, by speculations of doubtful importance, the present volume is, we 
 hiuk, in no degree liable lo this objection. It is indeed distinguished for deep thought and accurate 
 discrimination ; and whoever would read it to advantage, must task his faculties in a much higher de- 
 -.free than in reading ordinary books ; and yet it contains nothing which an ordinary degree of intelli- 
 gence and application may not readily comprehend. The view which it gives of Christianity, both as 
 ,t system of truth and a system of duty, is in the highest degree instructive; and its tendencies are 
 Mot less to quicken the intellectual faculties, than to direct and elevate the moral sensibilities. We 
 nave no doubt that it will be read with great interest by those who read to find materials for thought, 
 md that it is destined to exert a most important influence, especially on the more intellectual classes, 
 in the advancement of the interests of truth and piety." Albany Evening Journal. 
 
 PHYSICAL THEORY OF ANOTHER LIFE. 
 
 Sy Isaac Taylor, author of " Natural History cf Enthusiasm." Third edition. 
 I vol. 12mo. 
 
 MINIATURE CLASSICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 tireat pains have been bestowed in the selection of this unique Library; it will 
 comprise the beet works of our venerated authors, published in an elegant form, 
 with a beautiful frontispiece, tastefully ornamented. The following are now 
 ready ; 
 
 GOLDSMITH. Essays. By Oliver Goldsmith. 
 GOLDSMITH. The Vicar of Wakefield. By Oliver Goldsmith, 
 
 JOHNSON. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, a Tale. By Samuel 
 Johnson, LL.D. 
 
 OOTTIN. Elizabeth ; or, the Exiles of Siberia. By Madame Cottin. 
 The extensive popularity of this little tale is well known. 
 
 TOKEN of Affection. Do. of Friendship. Do. of Remembrance. 
 
 Each volume consists of appropriate poetical extracts from the best writers of the day. 
 PURE GOLD from the Rivers of Wisdom. A collection of short extracts on Religious 
 
 subjects from the older writers. Bishop Hal!, Sherlock, Barrow, Paley, Jeremy Taylor, &c. 
 
 ST. PIERRE. Paul and Virginia. From the French of J. B. H, De St. Pierre. 
 
 ** These volumes will be followed by others of attested me'-jt. 
 
 EVENINGS WITH THE CHRONICLERS; 
 
 Or, Uncle Rupert's Tales of Chivalry. 
 By R. M. Evans. With many illustrations. 1 vol. 16tno., elegantly bound. 
 
 u This would have been, a volume aflc.r our own hearts, while we were younger, and it is scarcely 
 M>now when we are somewhat older. It discourses of those things which charmed all of us in 
 early youth. The daring deeds of the Knights and Squires of feudal warfare. The true version of 
 the "Chevy Chase," the exploiis of the stout and stnlwsirt Warriors 01' England, Scotland and Ger- 
 many'. In a word, it is an attractive book, nnd rendered more so to young readers by a series of wood 
 .engravings, beautifully executed, illustrating the letter-press descriptions. There are seventeen of 
 'htse plates in the volume, and the whole book is so excellently printed, and upon such good paper^ 
 -th*t it is in. all respects valuable." Courier 4- Enquirer. 
 
VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS. 7 
 
 APPLETON'S TALES FOR THE PEOPLE AND 
 THEIR CHILDREN. 
 
 The greatest care is taken in selecting the works of which the collection la com- 
 posed, so that nothing either mediocre in talent, or immoral in tendency, u ad- 
 mitted. Each volume is printed on the finest paper, is illustrated with an elc- 
 gan? frontispiece, and is bound in a superior manner, tastefully ornamented. 
 The following have already appeared, uniform in size and style : 
 
 THE POPLAR GROVE ; 
 
 Or, Little Harry and his Uncle Benjamin. By Mrs. Copley, author of " Early Friendhip," 
 &c. &c. 1 vol. 18mo., beautiful frontispiece. 
 
 . , 
 
 "An excellent little story this, showing how sound sense, honest principles, and intelligent in'lat- 
 try not only advance their possessor, but, as in the case of TJiicI* Benj:miin the gardener, enable h,m 
 to become the benefactor, guide, and fneud of relations cast down from a lofuer sphere in life, and, 
 but for him, witho'ii. resource. 
 
 " It is a tale for youth of all classes, that cannot be read without profit." X.Y. Amt 
 
 EARLY FRIENDSHIP. 
 By Mrs. Copley. 1 vol. I8mo., plates. 
 A charming little book this for yo-ang ^iris-good counsel conveyed in the lWe of 
 
 $$St^ 
 
 JV.Y". American. 
 
 THE TWO DEFAULTERS; 
 
 Or, a Picture of the Times. By Mrs. Griffith (of New- York.) 
 "A most interesting little volume, not excelled by any one of the M 
 
 MASTERMAN READY ; 
 Or. the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young Persons, by Capt. Marry*. 1 
 
 Well, I a;u so glad it is to be continued.' "-N- Y. Amt 
 
 THE PEASANT AND THE PRINCE. 
 
 By Harriet Martineau. 1 vol. 18ino. 
 
 The versatile talent of Miss Martinean h, been employed ^ 
 their children a most inviting little history ""j^^".^ 
 e ti.iniliar thnu Scott's Tales of a Orand I. I n, , v i . -i u I 
 
 tion will, we doubt not, be s.iccesslul."- . onner. 
 
 THE SETTLERS AT HOME. 
 By Harriet Martineau. 1 vol. ISmo. 
 
 any ;i i ra |* m interest JMT- 
 
 ,,urh irmruciacru uy children as the former ; fcud they > 
 
 mss^K^ss^^^^ 
 
 WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 
 A Tale. By Mary Howitt. 1 tol. 18 
 
 - The great morallesson mcalcatcd by .hi. book i. md,cated by its 
 
8 D. APPPETON & CO.'S 
 
 enough through t.he whole volume, it comes out at the close with most impressive effect. We need 
 not say it is a lesson which every human being is the wiser and the better for learning. We cordially 
 recommend the work to all who would desire to form a sober and rational estimate of the world's en- 
 joyments." Albany Evening Journal. 
 
 SOWING AND RE APING- ; 
 
 Or, What will come of it ? By Mary Howitt. 1 vol. 18mo., plates. 
 
 "We commenced it with the intention of just looking it over for the purpose of writing a w cursory 
 notice ; but we began to read, and so we went on to the fiuis. It is very interesting ; the characters 
 are full of individuality." JVeio Bedford Mercury. 
 
 STRIVE AND THRIVE : 
 
 A Tale. By Mary Howitt. 1 vol. 18mo., plates. 
 
 " The mere announcement of the name of the authoress, will doubtless bring anv of her productions 
 to the immediate noiice of the public ; but Strive and Thrive is not a book for children only, but can be 
 read with pleasure and advantage by those of a more mature age. It fully sustains the reputation of 
 its predecessors. The style is easy and flowing, the language chaste and beautiful, and the incidents 
 of the tale calculated to keep up the interest to the end." -ZV.Y". Courier $ Enquirer. 
 
 HOPE ON, HOPE EVER ; 
 
 Or, the Boyhood of Felix Law. By Mary Howitt. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 " A very neat volume with the above title, and the farther annunciation that it may he called Tales 
 for the People and their Children, has been written by Mary Howitt, whose name is so favourably 
 known to the reading community. 
 
 " This volume, like all others "that emanate from the pen of this lady is extremely interesting : the 
 characters are naturally drawn, while the feeling arid passion displayed, give the woik a higher rank 
 than is usually allotted to nursery tales." Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 THE LOOKING-G-LASS FOR THE MIND; 
 Or, Intellectual Mirror, being an elegant collection of the most delightful little stories and 
 
 interesting tales : chiefly translated from that much admired work L'ami des Enfans; with, 
 
 numerous wood cuts. The twentieth edition. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 "The stories here collected are of a most interesting character, since virtue is constantly represented 
 as the fountain of happiness, and vice as the source of every evil : as a useful and instructive Looking- 
 glass, we recommend it for the instruction of every youth, whether Miss or Master ; it is a mirror that 
 will not flatter them, or lead them into error ; it displays the follies and improper pursuits of youthful 
 hearts, points out the dangerous paths they sometimes tread, and clears the way to the temple of 
 konour and fame. 
 
 DINING OUT. 
 Together with Confessions of a Maniac. By Mrs. Ellis, author of " Women of England," 
 
 &c. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 " T.he tendency of this little hook is one of the best and noblest. The scenes and characters are, it 
 is believed, portraits, aiming, as it does, at the correction of a too prevalent vice. It is expected that it 
 will command, among the serious and thinking part of the community, as extensive a popularity as 
 * Nicholas Nickleby,' in its peculiar circle." 
 
 SOMERVILLE HALL. To which is added, RISING TIDE. 
 
 By Mrs. Ellis. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 'This little book has much to recommend itself. It contains an interesting and lesson-teaching tale, 
 which cannot fail to impress its prominent features on many a breast." 
 
 %i* It is intended to include in this series some of the best works in our language. 
 
 A GIFT FROM FAIRY LAND. 
 
 By J. K. Paulding, Esq. Illustrated with one hundred unique original plates by Chapman ; elegantly 
 bound. 1 vol. J2mo. 
 
 PAST DAYS: 
 
 A Story for Children. By Esther Whitlock.. Square 18mo. 
 
 " It is a delightful, instructive little book ; ;ind if the child, when she closes the volume, find her 
 eyes 'red with weeping,' let her not be ashamed; one old enough to be her grandfather, caught the 
 same disease from the same source." Philadelphia United States Gazette, 
 
 SPRING AND SUMMER. 
 
 The Juvenile Naturalist ; or Walks in the Country. By the Rev. B. H. Draper. A beautiful 
 volume, with fifty elegant plates. 1 vol. square, handsomely bound 
 
 AUTUMN AND WINTER, 
 
 The Juvenile Naturalist ; or Walks in the Country. By the Rev. B. H. Draper. A beautiful 
 volume, with many plates, uniform with " Spring and Summer." 
 
VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS. 9 
 
 THE YOUNG N ATU RALI ST'S JOURN EY ; 
 
 Or, Travels of Agnes Morton and her Mamma. By Mrs. Loudon. With many beautiful plti, 
 
 THE OLD OAK TREE. 
 
 A most interesting little volume of practical instruction for youth: illustrated with nearly 
 fifty beau;;.ful plates. 
 
 WORKS BY REV. ROBT. PHILIP. 
 
 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN BUNYAN, 
 
 Author of The Pilgrim's Progress. By Robert Philip. With a fine portrait. 1 vol. 12mo. ' 
 
 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF DR. MILNE, 
 
 Missionary to China. 
 
 Illustrated by Biographical Annals of Asiatic Missions, from Primitive Protestant Times ; intended u 
 a Guide to Missionary Spirit. By Robert Philip. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 " The name of Philip has in this country, as well as in Great Britain, become a passport to public 
 favour. Though the subject of this memoir may not be surrounded with the same splendid attraction* 
 as was that of the. memoir of Bunyan, yet it is one of very great interest ; and to the Christian reader, 
 and especially to those who are deeply interested in the cause of missions, it will probably bear ac'.ni- 
 parison with almost any that have gone before it. The work is executed with great skill, and emlnxlies 
 a vast amount of valuable missionary intelligence, besides a rich variety of personal incidents, adapted 
 to gratify not only the missionary or the Christian, but the more general reader." Albany Adc. 
 
 YOUNG MAN'S CLOSET LIBRARY. 
 
 By Robert Philip. With an Introductory Essay by Rev. Albert Barnes. 1 vol. 12mo 
 
 LOVE OF THE SPIRIT, Traced in his Work : a Companion to the Experimental Guide*. 
 By Robert Philip. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 DEVOTIONAL AFD EXPERIMENTAL GUIDES. By Robert Philip. With an Intro- 
 ductory Essay by Rev. Albert Barnes. 2 vols. 12mo. Containing : 
 
 Guide to the Perplexed. I Guide to the Doubting. 
 
 Do do Devotional. Do do Conscientious. 
 
 Do do Thoughtful. Do do Redemption. 
 
 LADY'S CLOSET LIBRARY. 
 
 AS FOLLOWS I 
 
 THE MARYS ; or Beauty of Female Holiness. By Robert Philip. 1 vol. l^mo. 
 
 THE MARTHAS ; or Varieties of Female Piety. By Robert Philip. 1 *ol. 18mo. 
 
 THE LYDIAS ; or Development of Female Character. By Robert Philip. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 The MATERNAL SERIES of the above popular Library is now ready, entitled 
 
 THE HANNAHS ; or Maternal Influence of Sons. By Robert Philip. 1 vol. ISmo. 
 " The author of this work is known to the public as one of the most prolific writers of the day, and 
 scarcely any writer in the department which he occupies, has acquired so extrusive and well-niente 
 a popularity The present volume, as its title denotes, is devoted to an illustration of the in 
 of mothers on their sons ; and the subject is treated with the same originality and hmuiy which char- 
 acterize the author's other works. It will be found to be a most delightful and uselul con,; 
 the nursery, and its influence can hardly fail to be felt ; first, in quirkeninsr the sens* of respon.i 
 lity on the part of mothers ; and next, in forming the character of the riuug genermt.oa to a higher 
 standard of intelligence and virtue." Evangelist. 
 
 WORKS BY THE REV. JOHN A. JAMES. 
 
 PASTORAL ADDRESSES. 
 By Rev. John AngeU James. With an Introduction by the Rev. Wm. Adam*. 1 
 
 "We opine that the publishers of this volume made an accurate calculation- *J" *|*y '*" 
 these .Pa.tol Add, -esses '-stereotyped ; ^^^^1^^ 
 
 si 
 
10 D. APPLETON & CO.'S 
 
 ality of Mind ; Heavenly-Mindedness ; Assurance of Hope ; Praotiral Religion seen in every thing ; 
 A Profitable Sabbath ; Christian Obligations ; Life of Faii.ii ; Influence of eider Christians; Spirit of 
 Prayer; Private Prayer, and Self-Examination/" Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 "Simple in their sljle, and evangelical in their spirit, these addresses embody most of those desire- 
 able influences which u zealous pastor wishes to see operating amongst his people, and they are such as 
 cannot fail to be of great practical utility to all who will bestow upon them a serious and thoughtful 
 attention. The introduction is by the Rev. William Adams, of New-York, and is of itself alone a suf- 
 ficient guarantee of the intrinsic quality of the addresses, stamping at once their value and genuine- 
 ness." Boston Transcript. 
 
 THE YOUNG- MAN FROM HOME. 
 In a senes of Letters, especially directed for the Moral Advancement of Youth. By the 
 
 Rev. John Angell James. Fifth edition, 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 " This work, from the able and prolific pen of Mr. James, is not inferior, we think, to any of its pre- 
 decessors. It contemplates a young man at the most critical pft-iod of life, and meets him at every 
 
 as a guide in the paths of virtue, as a guard from the contagious influence of vice. Every young 
 man who desires to form a virtuous and useful character, should possess himself of this admirable 
 work ; and every Christian parent, whose sons are leaving the paternal mansion for another home, 
 should take care that they carry away with them this rich treasury of Christian counsel and instruc- 
 tion." Albany Advertiser. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSOR 
 Addressed in a series of Counsels and Cautions to the Members of Christian Churches. By 
 
 Rev. John Angell James. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 " The author remarks in this excellent volume : 'When I look into the New Testament, and read 
 what a Christian should be, and then look into the church of God, and see what Christians are, I am 
 painfully affected by observing the dissimilarity ; and in my jealousy for the honour of the Christian 
 profession, have made this effort, perhaps a leeble one, and certainly an anxious one, to remove it) 
 blemishes, to restore its impaired beauty, and thus raise its reputation.' 
 
 " ' It is not my intention to enter into the consideration of private, experimental, or doctrinal reli- 
 gion, so much as into its practical parts ; and to contemplate the believer rather as a professor, than a. 
 Christian, or at least, rather as a Christian in relation to the world, than in his individual capacity, or 
 in his retirement.' 
 
 " The following are the divisions under which he treats his subject, viz. : What the Christian pro- 
 fession imports : its Obligation and Design ; the Dangers of Self-Deception ; the Young Professor ; 
 an attempt to compare the present generation of Professors with others that have preceded them ; the 
 necessity and importance of Professors not being satisfied with low degrees of Piety, and of their seek- 
 ing to attain to eminence ; the duty of Professors to avoid the appearance of evil ; on Conformities to 
 the World ; on the Conduct of Professors in reference to Politics ; on Brotherly Love ; the Influence 
 of Professors ; their Conduct towards Unconverted Relatives; the Unmarried Professor ; the Profea- 
 sor in Prosperity ; in Adversity ; the Conduct of Professors away from Home ; the Backsliding Pro- 
 fessor ; on the necessity of the Holy Spirit's Influence to sustain the Christian Profession ; the Dyimj 
 Professor." New- York Observer. 
 
 THE ANXIOUS ENQUIRER AFTER SALVATION 
 Directed and Encouraged. By Rev. John Angell James. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 Twenty thousand copies of this excellent little volume have already been sold, which fully attests 
 the high estimation the work has attained with the religious community. 
 
 HAPPINESS, ITS NATURE AND SOURCES. 
 
 By Rev, John Angell James. 1 vol. 32mo. 
 
 "This is written in the excellent author's best vein. He has, with a searching fidelity, exposed th 
 various unsatisfying expedients by which the natural heart seeks to attain the great end and aim of 
 all happiness, and with powerful and touching exhortations directed it to the never-failing source of 
 all good. The author does not engage himself in speculations or theories. The results of extended 
 observation, the testimony of well-attested experience, are arrayed, in the light of which the true way 
 and the false are clearly se'en. It is eloquently and pointedly written. A better book we have not in 
 u long time seen." Evangelist. 
 
 THE WIDOW DIRECTED 
 
 To the Widow's G-od. By the Rev. John Angell James. 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 " If any thing more were necessary to give this book currency with the Christian community than 
 the name of its author, we should have it in the peculiarly tender and interesting nature of the subject 
 on which he writes. He has written many good books, and all belong to the same general class ; and 
 though some of them are more generally applicable than this, yet in no one, perhaps, has he discover- 
 ed a more skilful hand, or a more tender and devout spirit. The book is worthy to be read by others 
 besides the class for which it is especially designed ; and we doubt not that it is destined to come as a 
 friendly visiter to many a house of mourning, and as a healing balm to many a wounded heart."- ff.Y. 
 Observer, 
 
VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS. 11 
 
 WORKS BY THE REV. DR. SPRAGUE. 
 
 TRUE AND FALSE RELIGION. 
 
 Lectures Illustrating the Contrast between True Christianity and various other systems. By 
 William B. Sprague, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 LECTURES ON REVIVALS IN RELIG-IOINT. 
 By W. B. Sprague, D.D. With an Introductory Essay by Leonard Woods, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo 
 
 LETTERS TO A DAUGHTER, 
 
 On Practical Subjects. By W. B. Spragae, D.D. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged. 
 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 LECTURES TO YOUNG- PEOPLE. 
 
 By W. B. Sprague, D.D. With an Introductory Address. By Samuel Miller, D.D. Fourth 
 edition. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 The writings of Dr. Sprague are too well known, and too highly estimated by the Christian com- 
 munity generally, to require any other encomium than is furnished by their own merits ; for this rea- 
 son it is thought unnecessary to subjoin the favourable testimonies borne to their utility and excel- 
 lence by the whole circle of the periodical press of this country, arid the fact that they have each 
 passed through several editions in England, sufficiently attests the estimation in which they are held 
 abroad. 
 
 WILLIAMS'S MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES. 
 
 A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises and Triumphs in the South Seas, with Remarks upon 
 the Natural History of the Islands, Origin, Language, Tradition, and Usages of the Inhabi- 
 tants. By the Rev. John Williams, of the London Missionary Society. 
 
 Numerous plates. 1 vol. large 12mo. 
 
 " We have been greatly delighted with this work. And if asked, why 'J we answer, because it 
 furnishes the most full and satisfactory account of Polynesia, the isles of the Pacific, we have any 
 where met with. 2. Tt relates facts, occurrences, and incidents, of which the author was eye and ear 
 witness. 3. It inckiently gives a full-length portrait of the missionary character of the present age ; a 
 portrait, that even Satan must admire, though ' he cannot love.' 4. It fairly developes the true spirit 
 of the Christian missions, arid the principles on which they are successfully conducted. 5. It exhibits 
 the astonishing power of the gospel in the transformation of the most degraded class of human beings. 
 6. It evinces the inseparable connexion between Christianity and civilization ; between the gospel re- 
 ceived, and man's present happiness, 7. It illustrates the grace of God, as displayed in the triumphant 
 death of heathen converts. 8 It exposes the ignorance and wickedness of those who misrepresent the 
 design and operations of Christian missions. 9. It demonstrates that the ' isles of the sea' are waiting 
 for God's law, and that God's time has come for their conversion. 10. It urges powerfully to greatly- 
 enlarged effort for the ' immediate emancipation ' of all the slaves of Satan from the bondage of thou- 
 sands of years. 
 
 " Besides these, we might state many other reasons for our high satisfaction with this transatlantic 
 volume. It is written in a style of great simplicity, in a spirit of great meekness, in a tone of candour 
 and modesty, that we much admire. It conveys no small amount of valuable geographical and geolo- 
 gical information ; much of it new to us, and probably to others. It is replete with distinct references 
 to the hand of Divine Providence, and with devout reflections, that render it valuable, even as an * aid 
 to devotion.' It is throughout highly attractive for the variety of its matter, for the fairness of its 
 occasional discussions on some mooted questions of natural history, &c., for the light it throws on tha 
 social condition of different tiibes of savages, and their intellectual character, and for the continuity 
 of the whole story. 
 
 " Other minds may not be affected like our own. But if the practised reader of novels and romances 
 finds the charms of fiction working as powerfully to withdraw his mind from all things around him, as 
 we have found the charms of these authentic ' Missionary Enterprises ' working on ourselves, we won- 
 der not at his attachment to them, however unjustifiable it may be. After once entering fairly into 
 the spirit of the narrative, it is hardly possible for us to conceive of a pious mind that can ' let it go ' 
 till it shall have been ' devoured.' "Evangelist. 
 
 MISSIONARY'S FAREWELL. 
 
 By the Rev. John Williams, author of " Missionary Enterprises," &c. 
 1 vol. 18nio. 
 
 THE MARTYRED MISSIONARIES. 
 
 Memoirs of the Rev. Samuel Munson and the Rev. Henry Lyman, late Missionaries to the 
 Indian Archipelago, with the Journal of their Exploring Tour. By the Rev. William 
 Thompson. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 DISCOURSES ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
 
 Select Discourses on the Functions of the Nervous System, in owosition to Fhrenoiogy, 
 Materialism and Atheism ; to which is prefixed a Lecture on tho Diversities of the ^"man 
 Character, arising from Physiological Peculiarities. By John Augustine Smith, M.D, 
 
 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
MODERN ARCHITECTURE 
 
 
 AND HAND-RAIL CONSTRUCTION 
 
 . 
 
 Villas. Fifteen Plates. 1 vol. large 8vo. 
 
 HODGE ON THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 .nd construct a machine oi any re , .-endenn" the reference from the letter-press to ihe 
 
 JUS alications of steam, tor the , o e Me "- tne g ale vol in the fo ij form. 
 
 SEiSH:5lS^:^^s^ 
 
 fully tested." Courier 4- Engwtrfr. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF DIAGNOSIS. 
 
 Bv MarshaU Hall, M D. F.R.S., &c. Second edition, with many improvements, By U 
 John A. Sweet. 
 
 Th , s * , M p, ; . 
 
 who were anxious that it should be bnm|tt w Him i tne su bject, and as being calculated 
 
 deplored. 
 
 half bound. 
 
 HAZEN'S SYMBOLICAL SPELLING-BOOK. 
 The Symbolical Spelling-Book, in two parts. By Edward Hazen. 
 
 Containing 288 engravings. 
 
 MY SON'S MANUAL. 
 of the Studies, Accomplishments, and Principles of Conduct, best smt, 
 
 ^ e 18 ff antly eusraved frontispiece - 
 
 MY DAUGHTER'S MANUAL. 
 
 Compvisin, a Summary View of Female Stud.es, Accomplishments, and Principles of Conduct. 
 tiful frontispiece. ' Ivol.lSmo. 
 
 ELLA V -- 5 
 
 Or the July Tour. By one of the party,. Ivol.l2mo. 
 He can form a moral on a glass of chanipa ? ne."-I-e Roy. 
 
 CRUDEN'S CONCORDANCE. 
 Containing all the Words to be found in the large Work relating to the New Testamer 
 
 1 vol. 18mo. 
 
 THE POLYMICRIAN NEW TESTAMENT. 
 Numerous References, Maps, &c. 1 vol. 18mo, 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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