Christianity and Modern Thought

The character of Christ stands in very intimate relations with the miraculous powers attributed to him by the Gospels. Those powers, it is needless to say, have been seriously called in question, as actual facts of history, by the critical investigations of recent times. Many persons, it may be, cannot see, and will not admit, that their value has been affected by the inquiries alluded to. To such persons the miracles will naturally retain whatever efficacy they may be conceived to possess as evidence of the divine, that is, supernatural, claims of him who is recorded to have wrought them. They are entitled to their own judgment in the case, as well as to whatever support to Christian faith they think they can derive from such a quarter. At the same time other inquirers may be permitted to think differently. If the lapse of time and the increasing grasp and penetration of critical knowledge necessarily tend to lessen the certainty of the miraculous element of the Evangelical history, may not this too be a part of the providential plan – contemplated and brought about for great and wise ends? May it not be that now the spiritual man shall be left more entirely free to discern for himself the simple excellence of the Christian teaching and example? left increasingly without that support from the witness of outward miracle which has usually been deemed so important, and which is unquestionably found to be the more commonly thus estimated, in proportion as we descend into the lower grades of intelligence and moral sensibility.24

But, on the other hand, if this be true, one who may thus think need not of necessity also hold that the miracles of the Gospels did not take place, but that the history relating to them is the mere product of weak and credulous exaggeration. For, in truth, the ends which might be subserved by such manifestations are easily understood. Occurrences so unwonted and remarkable could not fail both to secure the attention of the spectator, and make him ponder well upon the words of the miracle-worker, and also to awaken in him new feelings of reverence towards the mysterious Being who had given such power to men. Thus it is readily conceivable, that a miracle might be a thing of the highest utility to those who witnessed it and to their generation. But then, on the other hand, it is not to be alleged that such occurrences are needed now to show us that God is a living Spirit in the world; or, consequently, that religious love and veneration are in any way dependent upon them, either as facts beheld by ourselves, or as incidents recorded to have been seen by others who lived many centuries ago. And, if this be so, surely we may look with indifference upon the most destructive operations of literary or scientific criticism, being anxious only, and above all things, for the simple truth, whatever it may be.

Again, however, it is not to be denied that the possession of miraculous power may have been for Christ himself, not less than for those who saw his works, of the deepest spiritual import. The formation of a character like his would seem peculiarly to require the training that would be afforded by such an endowment. We know how, with ordinary men, the command of unlimited power is, in fact, a test of rectitude, self-government, unselfishness, of the most trying and, it may be, most elevating, kind. The temptations which necessarily accompany it are proverbial. Was Christ exempt from that kind of moral discipline, that supreme proof of fidelity to God? Allowing, for a moment, what the narratives directly intimate, that he felt within himself the force of miraculous gifts, and the capacity to use them, if he had so willed, for purposes either of personal safety or of political ambition;25 in this, we may see at once, there would be an end to be served of the greatest moment both to himself and to the future instruction of his disciples. By such an experience, the moral greatness of his example might be doubly assured. It would be made possible to him to deny and humble himself, – even, in apostolical phrase, to "empty" himself of his Messianic prerogatives, in order the better to do the Heavenly Father's will, and, preferring even the cross to a disobedient refusal of the cup which could not pass from him, to be "made perfect through suffering," thus showing himself worthy to be raised up at last to be, as he has been, the spiritual Lord of the Church.

This idea was, in fact, a familiar one to Paul, as to others of the Christian writers.26 Its literal truth is enforced by the consideration of the strange improbability that one by birth a Galilean peasant, without any special gifts or powers to recommend him to the notice of his people, should yet be acknowledged by many of them as the promised Messiah; should, in spite of an ignominious death, be accepted in that character by multitudes; and finally, in the same or a still higher character, should acquire the love and reverential homage of half the world.

And yet it may remain true that, as time passes, this consideration shall lose much of its weight, in the judgment of increasing numbers of earnest inquirers. They, accordingly, will cease to place reliance on the outward material sign. Jesus, nevertheless, may still be to them as an honored Master and Friend, whose name they would gladly cherish, for what he is in himself. To those who thus think his character and words will appeal by their own intrinsic worth. He will be Teacher, Saviour, Spiritual Lord, simply by the inherent grace and truth spoken of by the Evangelist of old.

If this be the destined end, we may gladly acknowledge the providential guiding even in this; and we shall certainly guard ourselves against judging harsh or uncharitable judgment in reference to those who on this subject may not see as we see, or feel as we feel; – who, nevertheless, in thought and deed and aspiration, may not be less faithful to Truth and Right, or less loyally obedient to all that is seen to be highest and best in Christ himself.

III

Christ, then, I repeat, thus standing before us in the Evangelical records of his ministry, is the impersonation of his religion. What we see in Him is Christianity. Or, if it be not so, where else shall we look with the hope to find it? Who else has ever had a true authority to place before us a more perfect idea, or to tell us more exactly what the Gospel is? The Church, indeed, some will interpose, has such authority! But examine this statement, and its untenable character speedily appears. The Church at any given moment is, and has been, simply a body of fallible mortals, like ourselves. If the Christian men of this present day cannot suppose themselves to be preserved from intellectual error in matters of religion, neither can we think the Christian men of the past to have been more highly privileged. In fact, it must be added, as we ascend into the darker periods of Church history, we come upon the most undeniable traces of ignorance, misunderstanding, worldliness and folly, on the part of the ecclesiastics of the early and the middle ages, such as deprive their judgments on the subject before us of all right or claim to unquestioned acceptance. Let any one read, for example, the accounts given by trustworthy historians27 of that great assembly of the Church which produced the Nicene Creed. Will any one allege that in the passion and prejudice, the smallness of knowledge, the subtlety of speculation, and narrowness of heart, pervading the majority of that assembly, the Divine Spirit was peculiarly present to dictate or guide the decision arrived at, and make it worthy of the blind adhesion of future Christian generations? And, if we cannot thus admit the peculiar idea of Christianity there approved, it will surely be in vain to look to any similar quarter, either of the past or of the present, for what shall supersede the living "grace and truth," seen in Christ himself.

This conclusion is greatly strengthened by the briefest reference to the negative results of unbelief and irreligion, so prevalent in those countries which have been the longest under the influence of the old ritualistic idea of the Church and the priesthood. Positively speaking, this idea, it is needless to add, has largely failed in almost every thing except the encouragement among the people of the grossest superstitions28– superstitions of which there is no trace whatever in immediate connection with the Christian Master. Not, however, to dwell in detail on this unpromising theme, let us rather turn to the considerations by which our leading position may be confirmed; from which too we may learn that a better future is yet in store for us.

The experience of past ages, the existing sectarian divisions of Christendom, the errors and superstitions involved in the grosser assumptions of Church authority, all unite to compel us to the conclusion of the essentially erroneous character of the old ritualistic and dogmatic conceptions of the nature of the Gospel. They show us not only that dogmas and rites about which the most earnest men are so utterly at variance cannot possibly be of the essence of Christianity, but further that the latter is nowhere to be found except in Him whom in spite of diversities all alike agree to hold in honor. And, in truth, his life, brief and fleeting as it was, may well be said to constitute the Christian revelation. That it does so, and was intended to do so, may, as already observed, be seen better in our day, than it was by the earliest disciples. Their thoughts were preoccupied, their vision obscured, by various influences which prevented them from clearly discerning the one thing needful. The temporal kingdom of their Master for which they were, many of them, so eagerly looking; his speedy return to judge the world, – an expectation of which there are so many traces in Gospels and Epistles alike; the great and urgent question of the Law and its claims, with that of the admission of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ without the previous adoption of Judaism; – such thoughts and such cares as these largely engaged and filled the minds of the disciples, within the limits of the period to which the origin of the principal New Testament books must be assigned. After the close of that period, fresh subjects of controversial interest continually arose, until these were gradually overshadowed by the rising authority of the Church and the later growth of sacerdotal power, followed in due course of time by the grosser corruptions of the primitive Gospel which marked the Christianity of the darker ages, and which have by no means as yet spent their power. Thus has it pleased the Great Disposer that men should be led forward to truth and light through error and darkness. Even as the Hebrews of old were gradually brought by many centuries of experience, and in the midst of imperfections and backslidings innumerable, to their final recognition of the One Jehovah, so have the Christian generations been slowly learning and unlearning according as their own condition and capacities allowed. Thus the great development has been running its destined course, and will doubtless conduct us eventually to yet better and truer ideas of what the Almighty purposes had, in Christ, really designed to give to the world.

To vary the form of expression, the life of Christ itself constitutes the revelation of His will which the Almighty Father has given to man by His Son. And that life does constitute a revelation, in the most full and various import of this term. It shows us, in a clear and engaging light, the One God and Father of all, the Just and Holy One, who will render to every man according to his deeds. It shows us the high powers and capacities of man himself; for, while and because it tells him to be perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect, it not only recognizes in him the capability to be so, but also abundantly affords the spiritual nutriment by which the higher faculties of his nature may be nurtured and strengthened within him. It shows us how to live a life of religious trust and obedience to the commands of duty, and, amidst many sorrows and trials, still to preserve a soul unstained by guilt. It shows us that this high devotion to the sacred law of Truth and Right is that which is well pleasing to God; and that His will is that man should thus, by the discipline of his spirit, join the moral strength and sensibility in this world which shall fit him, if he will, to enter upon the higher life of the world to come. All this we see plainly expressed and announced in Christ, constituting him the Revealer in the best sense of this term. All this we do see, even though it may be very hard to find any doctrinal creed laid down in definite words, or any system of rites and ceremonies of worship, of Church government, or of priestly functions and dignities, placed before us as constituting an indispensable part of our common Christianity.

And it is here an obvious remark that, while Christian men have so often questioned and disputed with one another about the essentials of their religion; while they have sometimes, again, been forgetful of its spirit, in their controversies as to its verbal and written forms, – all this time they have been substantially agreed as to the matters which are the greatest and weightiest of all. About the Gospel as embodying and expressing man's faith in God and in heaven, and as setting forth the highest moral law with its exemplification in an actual human life; about the Gospel in these, which are surely its most serious and interesting aspects, there has been no dispute. The great spiritual principles taught by Christ, and the power of his practical exhibition of human duty, have been constantly admitted and – may it not be added? – constantly felt in the world, among all the sects and parties of Christendom, in spite of the differences of forms and creeds which have separated men from each other.

This fact suggests a further consideration of obvious interest. Regarded as a dogmatic or an ecclesiastical system, the Gospel is one of the greatest failures which the world has seen, no two sects or churches, scarcely any two congregations, being agreed as to some one or other of what are deemed its most essential elements. Regarded as a moral and spiritual energy and instructor among men, it is and always has been a quickening power, – tending directly, in its genuine influences, to support and to guide aright, and, even amidst the worst distractions or perversions of human passion and error, whispering thoughts of hope, comfort, and peace, to many troubled hearts. This should not be forgotten in our estimates of the part played by Christianity in past times, or in the judgments sometimes so lightly uttered by a certain class of its critics, who show themselves so ready to confound the religion with its corruptions, and to include it and them in one indiscriminate condemnation. It should help to call us back to juster views of the nature and the function of Christ's religion, and lead us the better to see that these consist, not in its capacity or its success as an imposer of dogmas or of ceremonial acts to be received and carefully performed by either priests or people, but in its power to strengthen with moral strength, to guide in the path of duty, to save us from our sins, to breathe into us the spirit of Christ, and so to bring us nearer to God. Such is the true function and the real power of the Gospel, even though it may constantly have had to act in the midst of gross ignorance, or of false and exaggerated dogmatic conception; nor is it too much to say that this its highest character has not been altogether wanting to it, even in the darkest periods of man's intellectual experience, during the last eighteen centuries.

And not only is this so; but, further, it is evidently not through the peculiar doctrines of his church or sect that a man is most truly entitled to the name of Christian, but rather by his participation in what is common to all the churches and sects which are themselves worthy of that name. For let us call to mind, for a moment, some of the more eminent Christian men and women of modern times, to whatever sectarian fold they may have owned themselves to belong. Recall the names of a Fénelon, an Oberlin, a Vincent de Paul, a Xavier, a Melancthon, a Milton, a Locke, a Chalmers, a Clarkson, a Wilberforce, a Mrs. Fry, a Keble, a Heber, a Wesley, a Lardner, a Priestley, a Channing, a Tuckerman, with innumerable other true-hearted followers of him who both bear witness to the truth, and "went about doing good." In such persons we have representatives of nearly all the churches, with their various peculiarities of doctrinal confession. And must we not believe that such men and women were true Christians? If so, will it not follow that in every one of their differing communions true Christians are to be found? Probably no man, unless it be one of the most bigoted adherents of Evangelical or high Anglican orthodoxy, would venture to deny this. There are, then, good Christians, let us gladly admit, in all the various sects and parties of Christendom; men whom Christ himself, if he were here, would acknowledge and welcome as true disciples. But what is it that entitles such persons all alike to the Christian character and name? It cannot be any thing in which each differs from the rest, but rather something which they all have in common. It cannot be any thing that is peculiar to the Roman Catholic alone, for then the Protestant would not have it; nor any thing that is peculiar to the Protestant alone, for then the Roman Catholic would not have it; nor any thing that is peculiar to the Trinitarian alone, for then the Unitarian would not have it. It must be something apart from the distinctive creed of each. It is then something which all must possess, otherwise they would not be truly Christian; which they must have in addition to their several distinguishing doctrines, – in company with which the latter may indeed be held, but which is not the exclusive property of any single church, or sect, or individual, whatever.

What then do all the Christian sects and parties, of every name, hold in common, and never differ about? Is it not simply in this, that they receive and reverence Jesus as the beloved Son in whom God was well pleased? that they hold the Christian faith in the Father in Heaven, with all that this involves of love to God and love to man? that they accept the law of righteousness, placed before us in the "living characters" of Christ's own deeds and words, and strive to obey it in their conduct? that they hold the same common faith as to the presence and the providence of God, the future life and the judgment to come? This Christian allegiance, it is true, is expressed under the most different forms of statement, and in many a case it may hardly be definitely expressed at all; but yet even this, and such as this, is, by belief and practice, the common property of every Christian man; and so far as he lives in the spirit of this high faith is he truly a disciple and no further whatever may be the church or sect, or forms of doctrine and worship, to which he may attach himself. And all this, I repeat, is most plainly revealed to us in the spirit and the life of Christ, – insomuch that we feel the statement to be incontrovertibly sure, that he is the truest Christian of all whose practical daily spirit and conduct are the most closely and constantly animated and governed by the spirit and precepts and example of the Master Christ.

It seems strange, when we think about it, that men should have gone so far astray, in times past, from the more simple and obvious idea of Christianity thus laid before us. We may have difficulty in explaining how this has come to pass; how it is that so much of the weight and stress, as it were, of the Christian religion should have been laid upon obscure metaphysical creeds and dogmas, the obvious tendency of which is, and always has been, to divide men from each other, to degenerate into gross superstition, and destroy the liberty "wherewith Christ has made us free," and which, moreover, are nowhere contained in the Scriptures, and cannot even be stated in the language of the Scriptures; how it is, again, that so little emphasis should be laid in these dogmatic formulas upon that obedience which is better than sacrifice, even that doing the Heavenly Father's will, which – strange to tell! – is the only condition prescribed by Christ for entering into the kingdom.

Truly this question is not without its perplexities. But some explanation may be found. It is the obvious law of Divine Providence, it is and has been a great law of human progress, that Truth shall not be flashed upon the mind at once, either in religion or in any other of the great fields of interest and occupation to man; but that it shall be conquered and won through the medium of slow and gradual approach, even in the midst and by the help of misunderstanding and error. It is thus, doubtless, that men are trained to appreciate rightly the value of the truths and principles which they ultimately gain. In other words, past experience goes far to show us that moral excellence and the apprehension of truth, by such a being as man, can only be acquired by means of previous conflict with evil and untruth, in some one or other of their manifold forms; or, if not by an actual personal conflict for each of us individually, at least by means of the observed or recorded experience of others, more severely tried than ourselves.

Thus it has doubtless been with the reception and gradual prevalence of Christian truths and principles. Men have had slowly, by a varied and sometimes painful experience, to learn that it is not by saying, Lord, Lord, by confessing some formal creed, or being included within the limits of some visible church; not by forms and ceremonies of any kind, such as baptism at the hands of a priest, or the confession of sin into his ear, that we may become truly recipients of the light and strength of the Gospel of Christ; but much rather by personal communion with the Spirit of God, by doing the things which the Lord hath said, by striving to be like Christ, in heart and in life, active in goodness, submissive to the Heavenly Father's will, and ready to the work of duty which He has given us to do.

In proportion as this conception of Christianity comes forward into view, and assumes the pre-eminence to which it is entitled, and which is either implied or expressly declared in the principal writings of the New Testament, in the same degree must the merely dogmatic and sacerdotal idea sink into insignificance. It will be seen that moral and spiritual likeness to the Christian Head is what is all-important; and, consequently, that within the limits of the same communion, bound together by the common principle of Christian faith, – the principle of love and reverence for the one Master, Christ, – there may exist the most complete mental freedom, and even, to a very large extent, the most diverse theological beliefs.

IV

But here I may be met by certain objections which will hardly fail to occur to different classes of readers.

In the first place, it may be said, the idea of the Gospel above presented is itself dogmatic; and indeed that the conception of Christianity as involving definite forms of doctrine is not to be got rid of. This remark I am by no means concerned wholly to escape. Doubtless the Gospel, as it is given in the words of Christ, includes various clearly stated truths respecting the Divine Providence and Will, and the retributions of this world and the next, – truths, I may add, which are not only level to the apprehension of the human faculties, but also in harmony with the highest dictates of the natural conscience and reason of man. But these great truths are not dogmatically laid before us in the Gospel. The mind of each reader is left free to gather them for itself. They are so stated as to quicken and elevate, not to stupefy or render useless, the religious and moral sense of the disciple. They serve thus, in the result, to arouse in him the strength of deep individual conviction, without which they could have little practical value. The teaching function of the Gospel is of this kind, rather than dogmatic and denunciatory, in the manner of the creeds. It does not attempt to put before us a ready-made body of doctrine, in such a way as to save the disciple the trouble of inquiry and reflection for himself, as though it would make him the mere recipient of what is imposed upon him from without. Not in this mechanical way, either in the world of outward nature, or in the Gospel of His Son, does the Great Parent speak to the hearts of His children; but chiefly by awakening their higher, devouter sensibilities, and letting them feel the force of truth and right within their own secret spirits. No imposition from without could fitly accomplish this divine work; and we may be well assured that no man living, and no church or sect on earth, has a legitimate authority to define exactly the limits within which Christian belief shall confine itself, or beyond which belief shall not extend, without ceasing to be Christian. Obviously and unquestionably Christ himself has nowhere attempted to dictate his religion in such a way; neither has any of his apostles, not even the ardent and impetuous Paul. On the contrary, the latter, like his Master, constantly attaches the greatest importance to the practical virtues, and to a devout spirit, – in no case making his appeal to a dogmatic statement, or giving us to understand that he had the least idea of any dogmatic system whatever, similar, in spirit or in form, to the creeds of modern orthodoxy.