Christian aspects of faith and duty, discourses

Introduction

This volume will sufficiently commend itself to those who read it. But the publisher has thought that a brief introduction of it to the American public would aid its circulation. Having fallen in with an English copy of the work during my summer vacation, from which I received great instruction and delight, it was with peculiar satisfaction that I found it in process of republication on my return to New- York. We have seen nothing from Mr. Tayler's pen before, justifying the enthusiasm with which his English brethren are accustomed to speak of him. But we understand from this volume, how full his claims are to the respect and admiration of the denomination he adorns.

It is not so much as sermons, but rather as essays upon the most immediately and permanently interesting topics of Christian thought, that we value these discourses. "While treating the general subject of practical religion, they grapple with the very questions that are now agitating the mind of the religious world. There is a frankness and courage in meetvi

INTRODUCTION .

ing doubts and difficulties, a union of boldness of thought with reverence of spirit, a sympathy with the explorers and pioneers of modern thought, blended with gratitude and docility toward past thinkers, a manly, business-like dealing with religion, — which, together, make this volume singularly pertinent to the wants of the times, and admirably adapted to hold the beam, while freedom and authority, dogmatism and doubt, are agitating the scales of theological opinion. But it would be an injustice to the author, did we emit to say, that his Discourses, though peculiarly timely, are not dependent for their interest on the period of their appearance. They deal with permanent realities in a manner and spirit, which is for all times. They are rather positive enunciations of Christian truths, than-con troversial arguments upon disputed points.

We cannot forbear to ask attention to the careful finish of the author's style. It is calm, clear and strong, rising at times into the most grace&il eloquence.

Among the many and increasing obligations under which our English brethren are placing us, we gratefully acknowledge the wei'ght of this new gift.

H. W. B.

New- York, Sept. 25, 1851.

Preface

This Yolume is published in compliance with earnest and repeated request ; and that is the proper apology for its appearance. Never indeed can the themes of which it treats, lose their interest with the thoughtful and the serious : but there are few minds that can hope by any originality of conception or freshness of illustration, to set in a new light and invest with a new attractiveness, those aspects of our relation to the great realities of the Universe visible and invisible, which under some form or other are ever present to the human consciousness, and age after age have had the richest lights reflected on them from the most gifted spirits. No such presumptuous hope would ever have delivered these pages to the world. — But we may exact too much from ourselves ; over-estimate our claims as well as under-estimate our powers ; and omit to do good, from miscalculating our capacity of usefulness. By aiming at too high an intelviii

PREFACE.

lectual standard, we may let slip the more obvious and certain opportunities of moral influence, which ever wait on sincerity and earnestness, the honest pursuit of truth and the ardent desire of human happiness. It is a comfort to feel, that this Yolume is put forth under circumstances which give it the promise of some beneficial impression on the minds to which it is immediately addressed. It is committed to them in the full trust, that the remembrance of the friend will in some measure supply the defects of the writer ; that the mutual confidence and understanding of a long and happy intercourse will infuse a deeper significance into words that might else fail to interest or convince ; and that many a passage, associated with the memory of the living sympathies that once took it to the conscience and the heart, will gather a light from affections which have been purified and brightened by the common sorrows and joys of many years, and are destined, it is hoped, to endure unchanged through the evening of life. — To those who share with the writer these grateful recollections and happy feelings — this Volume is dedicated. — If it shall help to preserve in their hearts, while they tarry here, the living spirit of the Eeligion of Christ ; — to cherish their enthusiasm for what is pure and noble and generous; — to urge

PREFACE.

ix them to a high and self-denying virtue ; to give them the strength of faith nnder affliction and trial ; — and to fill them with a calm and holy trust in the expectation of the last great change : — it will have performed its task, and may pass contentedly to its rest with the generation which it has served in its day to comfort and instruct. The small drops that from endless sources instil a strengthening sweetness into the draught of life, cannot be counted and are soon forgotten ; but their united influence leaves the world better and happier than it would else have been.

Should this Yolume attract the notice of any minds unprepossessed by such friendly associations — their candid judgment is bespoken in behalf of some views that may be found not wholly in accordance with the received opinions of the Christian world; and should the quarter whence it comes raise a prejudice which repels examination, let them consider the words of the humble and pious a Kempis — ' Non quaeras quis hoc dixerit, sed quid dicatur attende.'

Contents

^ Page.

Spiritual Hunger and Thirst, 9

n.

II. Man's Ascent To God

James, iv. 8.

" Draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh unto you."

Physically — we cannot separate ourselves from God; for in the language of the psalmist, He 'has beset us behind and before, and laid his hand upon us ;' and in the still more decided words of Paul, ' in Him we live and move and have our being.' Morally — we feel ourselves at an infinite distance from Him : an impassable gulf seems to lie between Him and us. Scripture in various forms gives utterance to this solemn consciousness of every religious mind, — 6 God dwells in light which no man can approach unto.' (1 Tim. iv. 16.) The greatest prophet cannot 'see Him, and live.' (Exod. xxxiii. 20.) Even Abraham, the father of the faithful — distinguished as the friend of God — thought it a presumption, in the days of patriarchal communion, that he ' who was but dust and ashes, should have taken upon him to speak unto the Lord.' (Gen. xviii. 27.)

If we rest in the first of these views, and confine our thoughts to the fixed and uniform order of phenomena which act on the senses — we not only see God m all things — which is a Scriptural idea — but we are borne unconsciously to a conclusion which goes beyond it ; we identify all things with God, and look upon ourselves as a part of Him. If we add to this view, the profounder consciousness of our spiritual activity and personal responsibility, which is its needful complement — and which has a yet stronger expression in Scripture — the latter inference is checked, for we then recognise all things — ourselves included — as dependent on God, yet distinct from Him — subsisting indeed through his ever-present energy, but under such conditions of limitation, as must separate by an insurmountable barrier every thing created from the absolute perfection of his own Infinitude. In tracing to its legitimate consequences the idea of fundamental power from these opposite data, we reach the point of vital separation between the pantheistic and the monotheistic conception of the universe. A different interpretation of the same phenomena, will cause a momentous difference in the conclusion. According as we take consciousness, intelligence, will — in one word — Spirit — to be only the last result of the progressive development of things, or to be itself, in its absolute state, the source and regulating principle of the entire system — the most recent effect in the order of creation, or the fundamental agency which underlies all creation's energies and manifestations — we lapse into virtual atheism, or we come to a clear acknowledgment of the Living God.

A vital question, then, is involved in the right apprehension of what is called the personality of man's ascent to god.

God. This doctrine, truly conceived, stands in the central point, from which opinion has constantly diverged, on one hand, into anthropomorphism which degrades the Almighty into a mere exaggeration of human passions and infirmities — and, on the other, into pantheism which evaporates Deity into an abstraction, or reduces it to an unintelligent and incomprehensible force. Each of these extreme tendencies is at war with a healthy reason, and destructive of genuine religion : but we must not on that account include in indiscriminating censure, all the individuals who may from various causes have been more or less carried away by them. All errors that have had extensive currency among earnest and thoughtful men, are allied to some truth, and were originally designed to correct some excess or meet some want of the spiritual nature.* In the action and re-action which, mark the progress of ideas, doctrines mischievous in their remoter consequences, may help to qualify too strong a tendency in the opposite direction, and so adjust the final balance of opinion. Meanwhile, the calm and dispassionate mind, observing how these divergencies successively compensate each other, is confirmed in its attachment to the great central truths whose fixed influence and controlling attraction are equally indicated by them all. In pronouncing judgment,

therefore, on an individual, it is not fair to allege even the undeniable consequences of his opinions, if we have reason to think, that he did not anticipate them. We must ask what his Past had been — and what his Present was : in them we can often find the determining impulse of a man's peculiar opinions. Perhaps he was so absorbed by the desire of counteracting evils and errors, which he daily felt and saw in strong operation around him, — that he hardly carried forward his thoughts into the Future at all. The impassioned anthropomorphism which mingled such exciting elements with the religious agency of Zinzendorf and Wesley — is entitled at least to a lenient construction, when we remember the cold and powerless rationalism which it strove to overcome. Nor again is it surprising, that men so profoundly meditative as Spinoza — so ardent in speculation as Lessing — so refined, subtile and comprehensive as Schleierinacher — disgusted with the gross and heavy orthodoxy of their clay, and earnestly aspiring after a higher spirituality — should have rarefied their conception of God, till substance and vitality — all that we can realise to ourselves as a Living Personality — vanished away. It is impossible to doubt the pious feeling and serious purpose of all these men. Such considerations, however, should not blind us to the pernicious tendency of errors which their genius and virtues have invested with a kind of moral respectability. Only let us spare the persons, while we attack the thing.

We put ourselves in the right position for apprehending the idea of the Divine Personality, when we man's ascent to god.

set out from the first and nearest of all realities — our own spiritual consciousness — and think of God, as a kindred nature — a Conscious Mind. All that we mean by the Personality of God, is included in an adequate conception of Mind. From Mind we acquire the notions of will, power, origination. But mere power left to itself would be a lawless and destructive force. From an inherent necessity, therefore, in mental action, we are compelled to assume the co-existence with Power, of other attributes to impel and guide it. These we express by the terms — Goodness and Wisdom — which embrace together all the moral and all the intellectual perfections of the Sovereign Spirit. As we are conscious, that our own errors and vices proceed from passions, infirmities and fears which are incidental to our limited nature, but from which He whose nature is without limit, must be free — we hesitate not to speak of God as absolutely without imperfection, and we ascribe to Him boundless Power, unerring Wisdom, infinite Love. These three great attributes of Power, Wisdom, Goodness, present themselves to us as necessary conditions of the existence and operations of the highest Mind — -the absolute Being. Assume one of these attributes, and it will involve the co-existence of the other two. Admit flaw or deficiency in any one, and it will disturb its relations with the rest, and draw after it a dissolution of that harmony and self-consistency of action which is the basis of our reliance on the order and perpetuity of the universe.

Among the powers appertaining to the unsearchable essence of God, we must include that of limiting the outgoings of his own creative energy — of arranging and distributing creation in endless gradations of life and faculty — of imparting to the race which he has placed at the head of the visible scale, some portion of his own spiritual consciousness and freedom — and of allowing them within certain bounds, through the mysterious endowment of will, to act in independence of Himself. Within these bounds lies the choice of Right and Wrong — with its effects on the moral condition of the agent — and the liberty implied in that choice, of voluntarily approximating to God or withdrawing from Him. It is in this highest sphere of our existence, where we are conscious of moral distinctions and a spontaneous reverence for what is just and true — that our minds attain the deepest conviction of the Personality of God — that we own Him, as a real Being — a living Presence — a sympathising Father and Friend. Our spirits — in this their holiest and most elevated mood — crave intercourse with a kindred Spirit — and believe, it is granted them. They repel it as an impossibility which their inmost nature disavows — that at this most advanced point of their ever- unfolding being, on the dim confines of visible and perishing things, they should at length find themselves lonely and forsaken — placed foremost among creatures, only to feel a more hopeless desolation — with no voice from the infinite Silence, to answer their imploring cries — no breath of responsive Love, to hush the throbbings of the expectant heart and soothe its intense yearnings after sympathy — no witness of a Parent Mind, to which a child's affections may cling, and to which a child's man's ascent to god.

weakness and ignorance may trust itself, in the dread uncertainty which overhangs the Future and the Unseen.

The apostolic exhortation, c Draw nigh unto God,' implies, that in our natural state and at the commencement of our moral career, we are at a distance from God — and that to approach Him depends on our own volition and effort. This distance indeed varies in different individuals. The innocent simplicity of childhood would seem to lie in immediate contiguity with the Spirit of God. Yet there are often inherent tendencies to evil, which show themselves from the first in the human being. Often too the original purity is soiled and darkened by appetite and selfishness which interpose a shade before the countenance of God, and render a restorative process necessary to bring back the clear consciousness of his benignant presence. In every case communion with God is not a simple gift of nature, but the reward and blessing of spiritual culture and devotedness. Our moral remoteness from God, and the necessity of holiness to approach Him — is the great idea which pervades Scripture from beginning to end, and so broadly distinguishes it from the prevalent systems of philosophy. Thus placed by nature, while we are under the dominion of sense, and merely follow our instinctive impulses, at a great distance from the Most High — how are we to obey the apostles's injunction, and begin the free movement of our minds towards God ? To trace this movement, is to trace the origin and progress of the religious life — that secret but fruitful intercourse which the experience of thousands attests may subsist between the Spirit of God and the soul of Man. In the present discourse I shall speak of that part only of the process which relates to Man — of his personal, voluntary efforts to attain to God, and hold converse with Him.

(1.) The first step towards God originates in a deepened sense of the moral worth and high responsibilities of Man's life. The religion of children, as of some uncultivated and simple tribes, consists in a vague wonder and awe, intermingled with a diffusive feeling of gratitude and trust. They are taught perhaps to blend the idea of God with that of duty ; but the association is not in general very vivid, till sorrow or death, or the consequences of heedless transgression, have awakened the mind to profounder reflection on the destination of humanity. While life flows on— in the main innocent and happy — the moral consciousness is tranquil, but it is not quick and operative. Such, however, can rarely be for any length of time, the condition of a dweller on earth. Sorrows and trials are too thickly spread — misfortune and disappointment reach us through too many avenues — to leave any one many years undisturbed by the importunate question — 4 Why am I here ? and what have I to do V An ideal gradually shapes itself before every reflective mind, of Man's function and duty, which his actual performances and even his habitual aims fall immeasurably below, and the comparison of which with the reality, fills him with grief and shame. Perhaps some unwonted sin deepens the feeling of disparity between what he is, and what he ought to be — rouses him to a sense of danger — and puts him on efforts that he never made before. Perhaps he is awakened without passing through this ordeal of personal humiliation. He is conscious of powers that have never yet been adequately exerted, or finds himself possessed of opportunities which he has hitherto failed to improve. He looks around on a world languishing in darkness, sin and woe — yet teeming on every hand with seeds of undeveloped good, which only ask for patient and zealous culture, to ripen into widespread blessings for mankind. Can he linger in sloth and apathy, with no earnest aim or chosen work, while such solemn calls are made upon him ? His self-reproach may be less for what he has — than for what he has not — done. But in this upbraiding sense of deficiency lies the hidden source of future strength. By whatever consciousness produced, whether of positive wrong or of defective goodness — and however designated in the copious nomenclature of Religion — conversion, seriousness, new birth, conviction of sin, or self-dedication to the truth — in this strong and clear persuasion of a moral purpose in existence, and in the resolute sacrifice of all worldly, selfish and carnal impulses that are at war with it — the true life of God in the human soul has its origin : and no one probably ever attained to eminence in virtue and religious wisdom, ever rose above the standard morality of his age, or wrought any lasting good for mankind as a philanthropist and a reformer — whose char^ acter had not passed through some such crisis as this. 3

For with all states of mind which involve the birth of a new and higher life — the idea of a Divine Inspector and Judge is deeply interfused. It is then that we hear His voice in our inmost souls, calling on us to come and serve Him. It is then that we own His presence in every deepened conviction and strengthened purpose, andin the solemn awe of religion overshadowing ourdaily steps. It is then that we are penetrated by the irresistible belief, glancing like heaven's lightning through the soul, that all things must work together for certain good, so long as we continue in free and unconditional self-surrender to His service. And all these influences blending into one, and acting with a single impulse on the mind, create the force which bursts the bondage of former habit and sets the bias of the character in a new direction. The sentiments which possess the soul, on the first experience of this change — are a grave and earnest sorrowfulness — humiliation before God — tenderness of heart — fervent prayer — moral watchfulness. The soul for the time is broken and cast down, and waits for encouragement to look up and proceed. Such is the natural expression of this first stage of the religious life. We must not rest in it. It is but preliminary. It marks transition. It is an effervescence of strong emotion, which must be fixed in principle and condensed into habit, or it will evaporate and pass away. Some forms of Religion, not perceiving this, have taken these transient symptoms for the permanent functions of the life of God, and striving to arrest it at this point, have man's ascent to god.

converted piety into one long agony of groans and tears.

(2.) The resolution to serve God having been made, we come now to the ordering of the ontward life and the discipline of the affections in accordance with it. The life of God must be deep set in firm and steadfast principle, and must be bnilt up and fortified on every side by virtuous habit. Habit and principle are not indeed the same thing with the spirit of Religion ; but they are indispensable conditions of its secure and continuous existence. They define and protect the sphere within which it liyes and breathes, and give it free scope to act — exempt from constraint and invasion. In this second stage of the religious life, the mind is less fettered -by anxiety and fear. It has more reliance on itself. It feels safer against temptation and sin. It has more confidence towards God, and greater freedom in devotion. It has less of excitement and rapture — fewer of the deep convulsive struggles of faith and conscience, which marked its opening course — but a more serene and habitual consciousness of the divine presence and of moral responsibility. This passage from the first to the second stage of the religious life, is the most critical period in the spiritual history of the Soul. It furnishes the test, whether the strong emotions which once agitated it, were merely a sudden gust that swept over it and passed away, or the harbingers of deep and radical change. The emotions, when they came, might be genuine. But did they last? Thousands have meant well, and striven for a time after the life of God. Alas !

they were open to impressions of every kind ; and the latest effaced the first. They wanted fixed resolve, distinct purpose, and the power of self-denial. The world was too strong for them. They abandoned prayer, and quitted their hold on God. The false lights of ambition and vanity led them astray. Snares and temptations beset them, and they fell : — and the day that dawned so fair, went down in grief and guilt.

Nor is this the only danger that awaits men in the second stage of the religious life. They may tarry in this, as others have tarried in the first. They may never go on to perfect freedom and peace. They may remain entangled in the mere instrumentalities of Keligion ; and without lapsing into vice and absolute worldliness, become scrupulous and formal. They may tie themselves down to duty, and punctiliously fulfil every letter of the outward law, without the faith and the love which sanctify and gladden the heart. It is of immense importance to the religious sentiment in this phasis of spiritual growth, that it should be associated with a rational and benevolent theology, which will divest it of all narrowness and gloom, and harmonise it with the great interests of humanity. For such a theology by unfolding a wide and cheerful view of the designs of Providence, and of man's business and destination in this terrestrial scene, quickens his onward progress, and facilitates the transition to a yet higher stage of religious development.

(3.) Arrived at this, the mind surveys the whole world in a religious light, and impregnates every man's ascent to god.

part of life with a religious spirit. In going to God, we do not separate ourselves from the world ; for it is only through the world — in the very midst of its cares, temptations and trials — its active duties, its absorbing interests, and its exciting joys — that we can rightly draw nigh to God, and hold communion with Him — blessing every scene with the consciousness of his presence, and sanctifying it by cheerful obedience to his law. It is the traditional cant of a false theology, that Religion and the world are mutually repugnant. "We should rather say, there can be no true Religion without the constant use and hearty enjoyment of the world. To the virtuous, Heaven is the complement of their life on earth : and our own experience must teach us, we should be wholly unfit for the exalted occupations and delights which we believe await us there, without the preparatory seasoning and discipline of the stern or joyous realities that are thrown around us here. Every one at his entrance into life, should look on the world, as a field to be cultivated and a garden to be enjoyed. All that he needs, is the religious consecration of mind and heart, to secure as ample a return from the one as is necessary for the moral purposes of existence, and to gather a rich abundance of the sweetest satisfactions from the other. He should ask himself, as the wide and varied prospect opens round him — ' What am I fit for ? and why have I been placed where I am V — And when the answer comes to him from his own sincere and earnest heart, he should recognise his mission as from God, and religiously give lip all his powers to fulfil it well.

"We need a wider interpretation of man's religious vocation in this life. It lies, I take it, in the zealous culture of his specific gift and entrusted talent, whatever that may be — according to his discernment of the Divine law. As the world is now constituted, men's minds are often forced down by circumstances into spheres of action, for which inclination and aptitude equally unfit them. And while this is so, patient submission and an effort to make the best of what is unalterable — are plain dictates of prudence and duty. A faithful and energetic mind will master circumstances. But as education is diffused and society developes itself, more choice of object will be offered to various talents : and even now, as far as we can, we should endeavour to put men and women to the task for which nature evidently intended them. More strongly marked character will be thus produced in individuals ; and the infinite riches and beauty, with the true use and enjoyment of this world, will become more apparent to every mind. "We may promote this salutary change, by dissipating the mistaken feeling which is now associated with the word respectability. Every social function is respectable, which fills its proper place, is exercised in the right spirit, and wields its appropriate talent. All things are parts of one great whole, and express together the benignant harmony of the Spirit of God. Whatever stimulates and gratifies a rational curiosity, though it yield no direct practical result — whatever awakens man's ascent to god.

taste and sentiment, or throws a grace over the coarser realities of life, if cultivated in a holy and loving spirit — is as solid a good to mankind, as the heavy drudgery which heaps up riches year after year — and may be as truly religious — may as directly take the mind to God — as the mechanical routine of a traditional piety, and the cold and listless observances which dishonour many a sanctuary. We come, through this religious consecration of life, to view the entire universe as the dwelling-place of God — conversing through nature, history and the human mind with Him — and sympathising with the filial spirits that He has placed in the midst of it, to behold his glory and rejoice in his beneficence. In nature we witness the serene reflection of his unchanging majesty and almightiness. In history we trace the grand results of his moral government, combining and accumulating from age to age, and interpreting, as they proceed, the great idea of his eternal Providence. In the workings of the human mind, we observe that He has left men, within certain fixed limits, to be their own teachers, and to profit by the fruits of their own experience. He has thus sanctioned in his own vast plan for the education of the human race, the great principles of self-reliance and self-government : yet has guarded the order of his creation, by setting bounds to the folly and wickedness of man, and through that wonderful alchemy which is everywhere at work in the moral world, transmuting their effects into means of higher good and more effectual instruction.