The reality of faith

Preface

M. Taine, in his description of the transition from the classic to the modern age of English literature, informs us that " when Eoland, being made a minister, presented himself before Louis xvi. in a simple dress-coat and shoes without buckles, the master of the ceremonies raised his hands to heaven, thinking that all was lost. In fact, all was changed/'

Marked changes of late years have fallen over the modes of religious thought and speech, and some among us, too easily alarmed, like the master of ceremonies, have thrown up their hands to heaven as though all were lost. In fact, there prevails in the religious world a strong and growing desire to escape from the artificial, the mechanical, and the formal, and to find the natural, the living, and the real in Christian faith and practice. Among the laity there is noticeable an honest impatience with continued theological controversy, and an increasing concern in those pressing problems of real life which wait, around the very doors of our churches, for their solution in social righteousness and peace. Among the vi Preface.

better educated and more thoughtful clergy, there is evident a genuine and often intense desire to go behind the Protestant traditions, to avoid professional phrases and judgments, and to study theology afresh in the first facts and actual processes of revelation and life, and in the real spirit of Christianity. They see that the popular reaction from all theology, although justly provoked by weariness of theological abstractions and strife, threatens to cut life loose from the divine truth which is the motive-power of social morality ; and they are anxious, therefore, to keep the vital truths of faith in efficient contact with the thoughts and purposes of men. They see clearly, and feel strongly, that we need, not so much a new theology, but a real theology.

One of our easily besetting sins as religious thinkers and teachers is the sin of nominalism in theology. Athanasius saw occasion to warn contending theologians in his day not to strive about words. This caution of the great theologian of the early Church is always in order. It is easy for us to forget the supreme realities in our zeal for the phrases and forms which have come to stand for the living elements of our faith. Often it is easier for us to rest satisfied with some scientific definition of a truth than it is for us to seek humbly and patiently for the real, and perhaps larger fact of revelation. It is easier sometimes for us to follow the short cut of our own logic straight through the Bible than it is to pursue the longer, and often winding way of God's

Preface. vii

thought and God's patience in the history of revelation and redemption. The questions, however, which of late the clergy have been called to meet, are not chiefly questions about particular words of doctrine, but they concern the reality of all faith. Present religious issues are not formed around some special system of Christian doctrines ; religion itself is confronted with unbelief. The religious question is between practical atheism and real faith in the living God. We are compelled, therefore, by the providence of the hour to return to the first, commanding principles of the Christian revelation ; and we should not regard with suspicion, but welcome with friendly ecclesiastical hospitality, all inquiries, and especially any new Biblical studies, which may enable us to stand more intelligently and securely upon the final facts of the work of the Spirit of God in human consciousness and in the history of redemption.

The present spirit and quiet determination of the independent evangelical clergy do not threaten further divisions and strife among brethren. On the contrary, only in the humble, yet fearless desire to discover and to acknowledge the real and the vital in every form of belief, and in all the historic creeds, can any of us hope to win the blessing of the peacemaker in modem thought and life. This spirit and desire are the opposite of sectarianism and individualism ; — as it was a real faith in truth, and a living sympathy with men, which enabled Maurice to write of himself these words : " I feel that viii Preface.

I am to be a man of war against all parties, that I may be a peacemaker between all men."

Some among us, indeed, fear that the religious history of New England is about to repeat itself, and they warn us of the danger of another schism like that which, in the early years of this century, rent our churches in twain. It is true that incidental evils which we have suffered from that separation are passing away. We are out-living the harm and hurt to faith from a too selfcontained and disputatious divinity in our theological schools and our pulpits. It is true that theological dogmatism is somewhat sobered by the responsibilities of modern thought. But they who fear a repetition of the divisions of the past, fail to discern the better spirit which already pervades, and is moving, the whole religious community. They need to lift up their eyes and to behold the evident signs of the working in our own day of that higher Power which one of the pilgrim fathers called, "Zion^s Wonder-working Providence in New England.'' The conservatism of providence appears, not in our cries of alarm and separation, but in the gain of a more real and catholic Christianity in all denominations of believers. The manifest destiny of religious thought and life is not further ages of persecutions and controversies, but a growing fulfillment of Christ's prayer for the oneness of his disciples that the world may believe that the Father hath sent him. The present missionary oi)portunity of the Church is a signal and

Preface. ix

commandiDg providence, calling us all away from unseemly contentions and needless oifense.

The pulpit has rightly been made in New England the last court of appeal in the trial of theological teachings and tendencies. Calvinism has already been largely modified in this country by the practical demands of the pulpit. Any friction of our forms of doctrine, and loss of power, in the work of the pulpit, betray some mal-adjustment of our theology to the actual requirements of the world upon faith, and indicate the necessity of some further improvement of our methods, or reconstruction of our system of beliefs. We must have in every age good working creeds, if we are to keep the faith. The doctrine of the Son of man was always life for life.

The following sermons are taken from those which I have had occasion to preach, during the past tw^o years, in a pulpit whose liberty has been won by others before me, and to a congregation whose thoughtful attention has been a constant encouragement. The title, under which I have gathered them, expresses a conviction and a desire which will be found, I trust, pervading them all. I certainly have not attempted in this volume of sermons to construct any complete and closed system of divinity — I have not sought even to formulate anew a single doctrine of grace ; still less have I been anxious to state, or to defend, any " new theology." " Alas for me," said that most daring of speculative theologians, Richard Rothe, " if Christianity be not more than my

X Preface,

system of iiP Our thought is never more than a cupful of God's truth. Yet there is a blessing promised to him who brings a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple. And many souls are thirsting for some living truth from our pulpits.

It should not need to be said that these sermons represent no party in the Church, and no school in theology : no views of mine should be imputed to any of those honored theological teachers and professors with whom I am glad to claim fellowship in the general sympathies of a profound religious movement for the more thorough Christianization of theology, and with whom, also, I rejoice in the belief that we have in the Word made flesh a real revelation, from the real God, to the real life of the world.

The Last Judgment the Christian Judgment, .... 283