Christ in the will, the heart, and the life, discourses

Dedication

To my Parishioners, present and former, and to the many generous friends whose kindnesses I can repay only in words, these Discourses, written at various periods of my ministry, and containing imperfections, repetitions, and perhaps incongruities, to which I know they will be indulgent, — offered, as this volume is, more as a heart-token than as laying claim to intellectual merit, and intended chiefly as a slight memorial of my regard for them, — are very respectfully and affectionately inscribed by

Newburyport, May 1, 1861.

A. B. MUZZEY.

Contents

DISCOURSE I.

Page

DISCOURSE II.

II. The Foundation Of Christian Faith In Human Nature

WHICH SHOW THE WORK OF THE LAW WRITTEN IN THEIR

hearts. — Romans ii. 15.

The Apostle is contrasting the condition of the Jews with that of the Gentiles. He assures the former that the Mosaic law, written on tables of stone, will not inure to their salvation unless they obey its moral behests. " God," he continues, " is no respecter of persons. Not the hearers, but the doers of the law, are justified by him." The Gentiles are often more truly obedient to the great moral law than the Jews ; and they thus show that the work of that law is written, not upon stone, but upon the universal heart of man.

The purport of this view is, that religion does not depend for its fundamental evidence and its truth on a written book, but on the testimony of the human soul. Beyond question, the result of all true investigation must be a firm faith in Revelation ; and the importance of this faith can hardly be exaggerated. Still, it is not enough to rely on this alone. The Bible is a gift for which we can never be too grateful. The life of Jesus Christ, especially, is, of itself, proof of the everlasting depth of those great truths which he taught. His sacrifice on the cross stands out, the miracle of all miracles, bringing God, as manifested in his Son, down to earth, and lifting man up, in his sin and his plea for mercy, to heaven. The crown of thorns, set on that brow in mockery, was studded with celestial jewels ; and the mimic sceptre, placed in his hands, symbolized the unlimited and illimitable extent of his spiritual dominion. To the believer, Jesus Christ is the focus of all true light ; his hope, his confidence, his everlasting joy.

But unhappily all do not believe firmly in the Gospel. Not a few, with honest minds, and a sincere desire to have faith in spiritual things, are troubled with doubts and fears on this subject. In conversing with an intelligent layman, he said to me, " I think you preachers would do far more good by going down to the foundations of all faith, in your sermons, than by controverting the creeds and doctrines of each other. For," he added, " you do not know what multitudes in this day are troubled with doubts on the whole matter of religion."

In this inquisitive age, some imagine that, if they can invalidate the evidence of the Scriptures, they shall destroy the corner-stone of religion itself. Infidelity sometimes battens on the contradictions of the Bible, derides its miracles, flouts the clergy, and exults in the sins of church-members, and the folly and incredulity of the weak-minded Christian. And it conceives itself able thus to tear down the pillars of all religion whatever.

And some, with honest minds, and a sincere desire to believe in spiritual things, are troubled with doubts and fears lest they # may be deceived. "How do we know," ask such, " that the Bible is indeed true ? It contains many things hard to understand ; it speaks of supernatural beings, and of strange events ; it is so unlike every other book, that one hardly knows what to think of its contents. And what if the whole volume, or even any part of it, should fail to prove genuine ? It must follow, according to the ground taken by most Christians, that their faith is a delusion ; and the whole fabric of their religion then falls with a fearful crash.

" True, the preacher affirms that religion is a reality ; he never expresses a doubt on this subject. But may not his confidence, after all, be unfounded, — the result of a merely professional bias ? Is it not possible that these very prayers, and these solemn services of the Church, are a vain thing, — uttered on the empty air, heard by no being higher than man, ' the baseless fabric of a vision ' ? "

Now, it is to meet this state of mind that Paul says in our text, " The work of the law," that is, the moral law, " is written," not on an outward page alone, but " on the heart." To this interior handwriting I would now appeal. I would present it as of itself an evidence of the truth of religion.

IN HUMAN NATURE.

Faith itself, the very circumstance that the whole race, Gentile as well as Jew, have, in their inmost hearts, a persuasion of the existence of a spirit-world, is proof that that world does exist.

We are led to believe in a material world by the senses. And the entire creation illustrates the great doctrine, that our every faculty, capacity, and organ point to objects which correspond with them. The beautiful mechanism of the eye, for example, presupposes a use for that organ, that is, things to be seen. The ear implies sounds ; the sense of smell, odors ; the touch, things to be felt ; and the taste is itself evidence of objects adapted to the palate. So perfect is this law, that, where a sense is not needed, there it has not been bestowed. In the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, a region of perpetual darkness, where the eye would be useless, the fishes are destitute of sight ; and they constitute, according to Professor Agassiz, a distinct race.

The law in question holds true in the moral world. Nothing is there made in vain. Man is endowed with certain sentiments, principles, and capacities ; and they each and all point to their corresponding objects. Conscience is not a useless endowment ; it finds before it the great moral distinctions, good and evil, right and wrong, which demand its exercise. The affections are met by objects suited to call them forth. God has placed in the bosom of the mother a fountain of tenderness ; and behold its object, — the helpless babe, the prattling infant, the sturdy boy, the adventurous youth, the man in his prime. He is still, and ever, her child ; in his budding virtue, the pride of her heart ; in his wayward impulses, her dear son ; loved on, loved ever. And, though he be called away from her embrace, her affections still cling to his angel form ; so has a mother's love its appropriate object.

In the same way, the simple existence of a capacity to love God is proof that there is a God. The law which runs through the material, and through the moral worlds, is not suddenly violated when we enter the spiritual province. No, to be consistent, we must admit that faith itself is " the substance," that is, the foundation, " of things hoped for " ; that it is " the evidence of things not seen." Before we open the Bible, a light thus rays out from the human heart, which lighteth " every man," not the believer in the Gospel alone, but u every man that cometh into the world."

An idea has existed in all ages of a being, or of beings, superior to man. Every people have had this idea, more or less distinct. It has led men to worship fire, the sun, images of wood and stone, heroes, and deified men. " The invisible things of the godhead are clearly seen " on every page of human history. And what does this great universal idea indicate ? That there is an object corresponding to this conception ; that there must be an ever-living, eternal God.

The human soul, what view shall we take of that ? The unbeliever tells us that soul is a Bible word, a word which, if we obliterate that volume, loses all

IN HUMAN NATURE.

meaning. But unbelief, though it may invalidate the Scriptures, has never succeeded in blotting out the soul. You may change the word, but the thing itself — that vital, hoping, striving, world-conquering faculty — no earthly power can annihilate. It smiles on the wreck of all things else ; and lives down alike the scoffer and the doubter, the bold and the timid inquirer, — itself an evidence of the reality of the objects toward which it aspires.

In like manner we may derive proofs of a future life from the law written on the heart. Not only have those blest by revelation, accepted the doctrine of immortality, but gleams of its light have issued from every nation and people on earth. From Zoroaster and Confucius, from the classic and refined Cicero,, Socrates, Seneca, and Plato, down to the most benighted dweller on the Feejee Islands, there have been glimmerings of a world to come. The "underworld" of the Babylonian and the Chaldee, the Elysium and Tartarus of ancient Borne, the future hunting-ground of our aboriginal Indian, all point to a foundation in some grand reality. Why do men believe in a future state at all ? Why have they the capacity for that belief, if there be nothing without, and beyond, us corresponding to that capacity ? To suppose that we can be deceived and disappointed in our expectation of an hereafter, is to contend that the eye might have been created without light by which to see, or the ear all curiously fashioned, and then no sound ever uttered to call forth its power. If nature does not war 2 against herself, then must there be a life beyond the grave.

So clear, indeed, is this doctrine, that Judaism does not attempt formally to teach it, nor did our Saviour himself ever inculcate it in direct words. He everywhere treats it as an established belief, and proceeds to other and still higher truths. He relies on the instincts of the human soul for its evidence ; and regards it as so manifest, that none can rationally doubt its reality.

But here the question will be raised : "If religion be indeed so incontrovertibly true, why have there been such egregious errors in regard to it? Look at the theology even of the Christian world, — at its incongruous features, its irrational doctrines, — and say if they do not shake your faith in the whole subject of religion. Then, too, if there be anything in religion, why do not all men agree in regard to it ? These divisions and strifes and animosities between Christians bring discredit on Christianity itself."

But, I answer, these errors and controversies, instead of invalidating, do in truth confirm, the reality of religion. Men are not so interested and excited about things destitute of a foundation. There is an intense desire to ascertain something in relation to God ; and in their zeal for it, men rush into extremes and errors on the nature of that Being. The soul longs for some light on a future state ; and, in its earnest gaze, it sometimes mistakes shapes and shadows for the true vision of immortal life. In their warmth, men contend sharply on these great

IN HUMAN NATURE.

truths, and would seem, at first view, by their dissensions to nullify all evidence on the subject.

Yet this very zeal, and these diverse creeds, show that the great theme of controversy must be itself a reality. Two individuals may contend about a trifle ; two sects or parties might be wrought up by a delusion. But the whole race can never be thus deceived. What Jew and Gentile, Mahometan and Pagan, no less than Christian, all think, speak, and write upon cannot be a brain-born phantom. Sooner may the sweet notes of the vernal birds, which so thrill the spirit as they chant of opening spring and summer's approaching glory, be a delusion, and spring never to come, — nay, the ear hear no vocal presage of its coming, — than the great soul of humanity be mocked by its aspirations toward God, and its yearnings for a spirit-spring in the heavens.

Regarded, indeed, in their true aspect, there is not an error on the subject of religion, however gross, which is not a witness to its essential truth. The simple fact that men " seek the Lord," and " feel after him," if haply they may find him, is evidence clear and irrefutable that he is not far from any one of us. It must be, that he responds to these mighty throbbings of the universal heart, and that in him we do indeed " live and move and have our being." Every false doctrine is the shadow of some true one ; every error is the outcropping of a deep, underlying bed of truth.

Nay, I go further: the false not only intimates, but, better than all positive reasonings and arguments, proves the true. We have our Paleys and Lockes, our Newtons and Priestley s and Butlers, who give us what are called " the evidences of Christianity." But, strong as may be this array of evidences and arguments, there is more weight still in the fact that men, in view of conceived errors and truths in religion, set out to frame any argument at all on the subject. Whence came these notions of God and the soul's immortality ? They were on earth before Christ appeared ; and the very means used to establish a revelation through him shows that the Divine law was already written on the heart. So that the mere existence of Christianity points down to the foundations of all religion, laid in the very soul from its creation.

Natural religion may include errors ; but the mere fact that there is a, natural religion in the world proves there must be a substratum on which it rests. The faith in Divine Providence may be blended with superstition; but that does not overthrow it. The faith itself shows that there must be a basis for the doctrine. Indeed, there is no form of popular superstition that does not preach of a rational, well-founded belief in eternal things. In the thick fog of witchcraft, magic art, fortune-telling, attempts, by whatever means, to pry into the counsels of God and the future, there are tokens of great realities lying beneath these delusions. In every age, and under every degree of civilization and enlightenment, there have been beliefs like those in mesmerism and "spiritual" communications. And

IN HUMAN NATURE.

these all take the stand as witnesses for religious truth. They may be themselves illusions, some of them the grossest delusions ; but they still point to latent realities, to things higher and better than they touch, things which we are toiling all our lives to find. They intimate

" truths that wake To perish never "

Considered in this aspect, what once perhaps disturbed our faith, will serve now to strengthen and establish it. Fanaticism, and the strange deeds done in the name of religion, should not throw doubt upon it ; they only indicate the value and the trustworthiness of that which stirs the mind up to fanaticism. No light thing could drive a rational being to the frenzy of bigotry, intolerance, and persecution even to death, for his mere opinion on theological subjects. The absurd and demoralizing tenets of the Mormon, instead of destroying the credibility of all religion, bear witness to the depth and power of that mighty principle. Infidelity implies always its opposite. The very oath of the blasphemer preaches of that dread Being whose name he thus profanes. France, in the mad atheism of her Revolution, was giving testimony to the existence and the awful retributions of the ever-living God not less distinct and solemn than she does now, or ever did, by her splendid cathedrals and her thousand chapels, that chant forth his praises. The synagogue of the Israelite, the mosque of the Turk, the temple of the Hindoo, no less than the Christian sanctuary, testify to that eternal Being toward whom they all point.

Be this then our confidence, that amid all the errors and doubts and unbeliefs of the race, amid the revolutions of ecclesiastical affairs, while forms change and vanish, and rituals are now observed, and now pass into neglect, while all the institutions of religion fluctuate, religion itself does not wane, or falter. Its accidents and surroundings may waste away, its manifestations may take new and unanticipated forms, but faith itself still abides, " a presence which is not to be put by."

Amid the crumbling of its ancient pillars, the corner-stone lies firm and indestructible. As we look to the dim future, we may ask more light on its deep mysteries from Christianity, or more from nature and Providence ; and we may tremble lest we be at last " in darkness lost, the darkness of the grave." But fear not, 0 man ! for thou hast the witness in thyself. Thy very desire, thy very hope to live again, shows that over thee, now and ever,

" thy Immortality Broods like the day."

Yes, perish all else, faith is its own evidence. The gates of death shall not prevail against it. Here, in our own conscious breasts, it stands up, giving testimony for God and Christ. Silent indeed it is : no voice is heard, no noise or pomp assure its presence ; but it is a witness to eternal things, prompt, clear, unimpeachable. God help us to receive its testi-

IN HUMAN NATURE.

mony ; and so to live, that our convictions shall every day gain new strength, that heaven shall stand out to us more and more clear, our faith in Christ be dear to us as the apple of the eye, and our religion show itself to be a reality, by purifying our hearts, mastering sense and self, and working always by love !

III. Will And Desire

WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE ? — John V. 6.

When the great Messenger of God was on earth, preaching by the wayside, and doing wonderful works as he went, a throng of the diseased pressed round him, in the hope that a ray of his power would shine upon and heal them. The timid and the confident, age, manhood, and youth, however distempered, expected mercy, could they but catch the ear of this " Son of David." But not all were restored ; from individuals, and from whole cities, he would sometimes turn away, and leave them in the bonds of their malady. And why was this ? Not because he was insensible to their needs, not either because they were beyond the scope of his miraculous power. No, there was a condition on their part, without the fulfilment of which they were not to be healed. It was this : there must be faith in Jesus Christ, a concentration of purpose ; in one word, the moral will must be fastened on the worker, or no healing was effected.

In the case before us, why did our Saviour put this particular question to the impotent man, " Wilt

WILL AND DESIRE.

thou be made whole ? " He must have known that the man desired to be put into the pool and healed. The very fact of his lying on its borders was proof of that desire. Why then this interrogation, " Wilt thou be made whole ? "

There is a vital distinction between willing and desiring. Had the impotent man merely wished to be healed, Jesus would have passed by him, and left him as he was. But lie did more than this : he willed to be restored ; and, now the miracle was wrought, the man took up his bed, and walked.

We also, my brethren, morally impotent, disabled by sin, are in the very plight of that commiserated being : our feet touch the brim of those waters that gush* up in Christ to everlasting life. We desire — every one surely is sometimes so touched with a sense of his spiritual maladies as to desire — to be immersed in the healing element. But with many of us that is all ; and therefore it is that here we lie, prostrate with moral iniquity ; and we have lain for years, it may be, impotent and motionless. We have never yet willed to be made whole.

But why will not the desire suffice to quicken and restore us ? How does it come short — and so far short too — of the will ?

In the first place, our desires are inefficient, because they are to a very great degree involuntary. Turn your thoughts inward, and recall the past. What a train of shapes and shadows are at once brought before you ! You are a husband and

WILL AND DESIRE.

father, perhaps ; and you have desired wealth, so that you need be anxious no more for those depending on your toils and successes ; or that ease and luxury might be your inexhaustible portion. You have desired honors, distinction, praise, and power. What aspirations, what dreams, what visions, the offspring of folly, unbidden guests, have flitted through your mind, whether for delight or for torment. But the will was not in them, and hence they passed away.

Desire often takes the form of evil ; it is yoked involuntarily to imagination, and hurried by it into forbidden paths. Dark spirits enter our chambers of imagery ; no man is so pure as, at once and forever, to exorcise these grim visitants. But is there sin in every flashing thought of wrong ? Nay,

" Evil into the mind of God or man May come and go, so unapproved, and leave No spot or blame behind."

But approve it, suffer your desires to rest where you know there is pollution, then you give scope to the will, and then you stand convicted of guilt.

Desires are not seldom evanescent, and on this account ineffective. They dance before the deluded eye vague as the hues of the prism. The will is fixed, calm, and steady, and therefore it is influential. Desire is the fitful meteor, beginning at no point and rushing to no end. The will is a sun, serene and steadfast ; and as that mighty luminary is subject to the measurements of the

WILL AND DESIRE.

patient astronomer, so is this inward light an ever-present and a trustworthy object. A desire to be released from the bondage of some sinful habit may be called up suddenly by a pang of remorse, and hence be as transient as the occasion that awakened it. To will such deliverance must be a work of deliberation, the result of many previous processes, of comparison, compunction, decision, and made effective by reason of its permanance.

Then, too, desire is usually passive, and therefore easily enslaving. Viewed in this aspect, it is subject to an influence beyond and above itself, so that it can do nothing. A viper is on our hand ; the will is the only power able to shake it off, and leave us safe and free. It alone can deliver us from the excitements, and exhaustion, and the servitude of evil, and establish us in Christian liberty.

We perceive, hence, that desires do not necessarily yield any good fruit. Aspirations for moral perfection spring up plentifully in the soul ; yet how few of them mature into action. Blossoms abound, but the fruit falls in an unripe state. We ask, and receive not, because we ask amiss ; we only desire, in faint accents, in broken sentences, in the words of the sleeping man's speech. We seek to enter the kingdom, but we do not will it, and hence do not strive, and so we come short of it.

The difference between will and desire, we may now see, is not, as many imagine, one of degree alone. It is deep, inherent, and radical. Dr. South

WILL AND DESIRE.

has well said, " A wish is properly the desire of a man who is sitting or lying still ; but an act of the will is a man of business vigorously going about his work." The one is essentially passive, the other active. Desire contemplates the heights of life's moral Alps, and would fain ascend them ; but labor is needed, toil is inevitable ; it faints at the prospect, and remains in the valley. The will looks the difficulties steadily in the eye ; and though steeps and crags and ice and chills be there for terrors, it sets itself resolutely to the task, tramples on each fresh obstacle, and at last reaches the proud summit.

The moral will alone is successful, because it aims at things near and practicable. We often desire impossibilities, — to be saints and seraphs at the moment. A thought tells us this cannot be ; and the wide space between the aspiration and the result perhaps leaves us despondent and inert. If you say, " Go to, let me build a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto Heaven," the project is a chimera ; God will confound your language, and Babel will be the end of it. But if you fix upon some one good thing to be done, an impure passion to be overcome, or a good principle you would establish, and will that precise object, no more, no less, your scheme is practicable ; and according to the strength of your determination will be your success in its execution.

Another point of distinction is this. Desire looks only at objects ; the will considers means and efforts. Your sympathies, let us suppose, are excited by a

WILL AND DESIRE.

tale of sorrow. 0, you wish all evil like this were banished from the world, the sick all healed and the poor filled with plenty. This is a mere object, — it is a beautiful spectacle ; but it is a garden suspended in the air : its flowers are an illusion, its fruits, the apples of Sodom. But walk to the house of a poor neighbor, turn your will on some particular mode of relieving this single person, in his or her peculiar straits, and now fancy is dismissed, common sense comes in, judges coolly, plans methods, follows on to results, and wisdom and charity at last meet together, and the sun goes down on a good deed done.

Now, then, it may be affirmed that all success in things either sacred or secular depends primarily upon force of will. Who is the affluent merchant ? Not he who has merely dreamed of wealth, and indulged vague desires to possess it. Such visions have flitted across the minds of thousands, and they were all barren, dead branches of a dead stock. The successful man willed to be rich. An individual died in this country, leaving, it is said, a fortune of some twenty millions ; and what was his history. He paid his passage across the Atlantic, while yet a boy, by singing to the master of the ship. He landed in a city whose splendid structures he saw men admiring. " I too," said the youth, " will yet build a wonder, and it shall stand too on this very spot." The passing years saw him toil and save and adventure and amass ; and he did at length build a wonder, and on that same spot, and why ? Because of the force of his will.

WILL AND DESIRE.

Who is this man whose name stands so high on the roll of literary fame ? Is it one who in his early days simply wished he were distinguished as a scholar or an author, and there rested ? No, the will was aroused ; determination possessed the young man ; academic shades, college walls, the midnight lamp, all ministered to that one purpose ; and behold the triumphs of the man.

But is the treasury of human nature exhausted by gain or renown ? No, man has a spiritual force, a moral will ; and what if the whole power of this inward storehouse were turned to the forthcalling of that ? Is the language too strong which affirms, that if a man so will, if he come with this force unto Jesus Christ, "he is a new creature"? There is that within us over which mere desires, spiritually regarded, are often powerless ; but on which the moral will is never steadily concentrated without effecting an ultimate regeneration. We have, nearly all of us, an ideal of the true Christian. We do see at times for what we were created; and poorly, miserably do we feel that we are accomplishing our vocation. Between our ideal and our actual, between what we would be and can be and what we are, there rolls a fearful gulf. How shall we cross it ? That question sounded daily in the heart wakes up at last the moral will. And now we determine ; we plunge in ; hope buoys us up and wafts us on ; more and more our possible becomes real ; and in the end the peril is over, the shore reached, and the soul safe in God.

WILL AND DESIRE.

Now a man who does not thus seize the sacred ideal of life, and hold it fast, and approximate its actuation, is always a vassal of sin, sold to guilt, in the bond of iniquity, in jeopardy of death. Desires may visit him ; the thought may ever and anon be forced on his mind, that his principles are unstable, his affections for God and man torpid, and his life shrunken, weak, and miserable. He wishes it were otherwise ; he would fain repent and live ; but tomorrow's sun will melt the light snow-flake of desire ; the ideal will again flee away, and the actual possess and overmaster him.