THE
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
CHURCH REVIEW.
Vor. Xil.
OCTOBER, 1859. No. 3.
Art. L—SCHAFFS HISTORY AND MERCERSBURG THEOLOGY.
Tlistory of the Christian Church. By Pump Scnarr, D. D., Author of the “ History of the Apostolic Church.” From the Birth of Christ to the Reign of Constantine, A. D. 1-311. New York: Charles Scribner. 1859. 8vo. pp. 535.
One of the most remarkable developments of our times, especially in our own country, is the springing up among us of a School of Theology represented by such men as Dr. Scuarr, the author of the History before us, Dr. W. N. Nevin, Dr. E. V. Gernart, Rev. Mr. Harsaven, &c., whose opinions have been given to the public mostly in the pages of the “ Mercersburg Review.” In certain respects, these men are more orthodox, more Catholic, and more Scriptural in their teaching, they represent more clearly and fairly the teaching of Holy Scripture and the Primitive Church than many,
VOL. XII.—NO, II. 24
370 Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. [Oct.,
we may say most, of the popular divines of our own branch of the Church. Having their descent from a different stock, tracing their genealogy through no Puritan rationalizing ancestry, they have been brought into more direct commu- nication with the writings of the Early Church, which with the Revival of Learning exercised such prodigious influence upon the minds of Continental and Northern Europe at the Reformation. In their conception of the Church, or rather of the organic life of the Churcli, in their teaching as to the nature and efficacy of the Sacraments, in short, in their whole theory of the Gospel, as an organic, authoritative Institution, in distinction from an unbridled, self-willed Individualism, their views have been presented with a reality, truthfulness, and power, with such a noble, heroic disregard of the popular prejudices, the ignorant caprices and the vulgar whims of the age, as has often surprised, as much as it has delighted us. Again and again we have been led to ask, What shall hinder a full, perfect visible union between our own Church and men so completely in harmony with us on so many of the fun- damental principles of our holy Religion? The late Liturgical Movement in this same denomination has pointed in the same direction, indicating the yearning of a spirit Catholic in its sympathies, and echoing to the voice of the universal Church in all ages of the world. It was not without reason that the late “ Memorial Movement,” so called, was started among us. It did not spring from a petty sectarian ambition ; it was not meant as a master stroke of policy, nor as a bid to a popular whim, though it may have been regarded so, both within and without our Fold. But such men neither comprehend the times, nor the Church.
The History before us has called up the whole question with new interest; and, at the same time, we are obliged to say it has given us the data for an answer to the enquiry which we have propounded above: why men, Poecetinen so thoroughly Catholic on so many — of Christian theology, are yet in fact alien from us, and, as we fear, are destined to drift farther and farther even from their present moorings? We confess that we look upon this question as one of no or- dinary moment. Everything indicates that on our own conti- nent, in this new, fresh, virgin soil, great social questions are to be solved; and whether for the weal or woe of men, is to depend wholly upon the faithfulness or the unfaithfulness of the Chureh. Christ has no new Church to plant, no new Faith to teach. The “Church of the Future,” which dream- ers talk of, is to be the Church of the Past. That which hath
1859.] Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. 371
been, is that which shall be, and there will be no new thing under the “sun. And as the Errors with which the age teems are only old heresies revamped ; so the Church which we are to plant, and the Faith which we are to teach, are those which have the promise and the certainty of Curist’s per- petual “ayo ory until the end of the world. And hence it is especially, that among the ranks of the so-called Protestants of our country we have watched with great interest a doc- trinal development of so remarkable a character.
We propose to quote from these writers, briefly, yet enough to show their opinions on several points touching the Church, its Nature, the Sacraments, &c., Kc.
And, first, as to the Church:
“Right or wrong, reasonable or unreasonable, the very idea of the Church which is now denounced in the quarter of which we are speaking, as no better than a silly dream, is that precisely which is found to pervade the reigning mind of the Church Catholic from the century of the Apostles down to the century of the Reformation. It meets us in the old Creeds; it speaks to us from every page of the Christian Fathers; it breathes through all the ancient Liturgies; it enters into the universal scheme of the Early Christian Faith.”*
“The coming of the Holy Ghost was not in order to the publication of the Holy Scriptures primarily, but in order to the founding of the Holy Catholic Church. For the thinking of the Early Christian world, therefore, it was not possible to place the Bible before the Church in the order of faith. The Church was for them a fact deeper and wider and nearer to the proper life of Christianity, than the Bible. Not with any feeling of disrespect for the Bible of course, and not from any doubt of its being the inspired Word of God, but because their sense of Christianity was such as to require this order rather than the other.”+
“Beyond all question, the Creed means to affirm the being of the Church, as an indispensable link in the scheme of salvation, and as something not accidental merely, but essential to the constitution of Christianity. In this view it defines itself and fixes its own attributes. It is necessarily One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolical. It can be no real object of faith at all, except in this character and form. Its Ministry is of divine right. Its Sacraments convey grace. The scheme of the Creed, in a word, is Churchly throughout; and it is not possible to understand it, or to have any sympathy with it, except from the posture of a true Churchly Faith. For the strictly Puritanic mind, it can never seem to carry a right sound.”t
“Faith in the Church, with these Fathers, was not just faith in
* Mercersburg Review, April, 1858, p. 177. + Ib. pp. 192, 193. ¢ Ib. pp. 193, 194
372 Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. [Oct.,
bishops, or in an altar, or in the use of a liturgy, for bishops and altars, and liturgies were common among such as were held not- withstanding to have neither part nor lot in the true commonwealth of Christ. It terminated on what the Church was supposed to be as a divine mystery, back of episcopacy and behind all Sacraments, symbols and forms, the force of which must turn necessarily at last on its own nature.”*
“The whole Creed, thus, moves in the power of the Church system ; all its articles have a Churchly tone 2nd it is not possible for them to find a hearty and full response, where the Puritanic unchurchly spirit has come generally to prevail. This is the reason that it is so little
opular with most of our religious sects at the present time. They can co no sympathy, as sects, with the old idea of the Church. Hence consciously or unconsciously, their indifference, if not positive dislike, to a symbol which is felt to be mysteriously full of it from beginning to end.”+
“The hyper-spiritualistic notions of the age make no Earnest with the idea of the Church as a visible organism, governed by strict prin- ciples of ecclesiastical unity ; and,as a matter of course, the authority of the Church sinks down to the level of a mere social arrangement.”{
“ All theology, however, that ignores the Church, either in the days of the Apostles or afterwards, cannot stand the test of the most super- ficial biblical exegesis; and it is evidently too shallow and blind to bear the test of history in any sense. The Apostles themselves were called to their office in an orderly way, and they entered upon the discharge of its functions according to the laws and ordinances pre- viously laid down.”§
“Tie same order of things is to be continued according to all the facts in the premises, even unto the end of the world; at least, as regards the nature, the economy, and the ruling spirit of the Church, Unity and authority forever; whatever comes in conflict with this principle is abnormal and wrong.”
“Its Gicumenical Councils never dreamed of tolerating a lawful rival by the side of their decisions and decrees; but the right of spiritual jurisdiction was strictly confined to the bosom and polity of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. Accordingly the voice of the Church, when thus officially expressed, was received as the very voice of the Holy Scriptures, and of the Holy Ghost, Who spake through it as the proper, infallible organ, and medium of divine truth."
“Modern Protestantism makes no ierit of outward ecclesiastical unity, at least in the absolute jure divino sense in which it was always taken by the Cathelic Chureh.”**
“We have no fears as regards the final success of the Church; for Christ is with her in spite of all the fanatical, heretical, and schismati- cal aberrations that afflict her at the present day, and Ile will over-
* Mercersburg Review, April, 1858, p. 194. 7 + Ib. pp. 198, 197. Ib. p. 269. § Ib. p. 274. ] Ib. p. 276. ¥J Ib. p. 284. ** Ib. p. 288.
1859.] Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. 373
rule even the wrath of man for good; yet it is as clear as the mid-day sun, that, before she can take proper and satisfactory care of all the intellectual, sovial, and political interests of our country and of the world, as it now stands, she must use less slang and ultra-radical dog- matism and more fervor and unction; before she can sit and rule Queen of the nations, she must come back as an humble and modest bride, into holy wedlock with her glorified Bridegroom, and clothe herself with the pure garment of righteousness and sacramental unity. ‘Church or no Church’ is, emphatically, the question of the age ; and American soil is the battle-ground on which the solemn problem
of its relation to the future civil and religious liberties of our race is to be decided.”*
We have quoted the more freely on this point of the nature, unity, and authority of the Church, because it is rare to find such wholesome truths so boldly and nobly uttered in these days of sickly, shallow, sentimental indifferentism ; because the great truth of the Church, as an Article of our Faith, of our Creeds, must be sounded, with trumpet tone, through the length and breadth of the land; and enone these extracts are but fair specimens of the teaching of this School of Theology on the point now before us.
On the subject of the Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and of the Rite of Confirmation, the teaching of this School is equally remarkable. They not only come up to the full Catholic teaching of our own branch of the Church as to the nature and efficacy of the Sacraments, but certain of their writers even go beyond our standards. For Rationalism may teach too much as well as too little on the etticacy of Sacra- ments. It may dogmatize superstitiously as well as sceptically. Indeed, on the Lord’s Supper, the German Lutherans, at the Reformation, never rid themselves of certain gross and sen- suous views of the nature of that Sacrament, and Dr. Nevin, perhaps the most prominent writer of the Mercersburg School, assigns a sacrificial character to this Sacrament, between which view and the Romish there is not difference enough to quarrel about.
‘Two or three extracts concerning the Sacraments are all that we need to give.
On the Sacraments :
“Hence the Sacraments are called the visible Word; by means of which the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit are yet more specially and impressively mediated than through the oral or written Word;
* Mercersburg Review, April, 1858, p. 291.
374 Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. Oct., for, through them the general promises of grace are specially made over, sealed to and appropriated by each individual, which, for his per- sonal relation to God, and the assurance of his being in a state of grace, is of the highest importance.’”*
On Baptism :
“The baptismal transaction assures the person baptized that the in- ward work of the Holy Ghost is as certain and real as the outward use of the sign. He is as certainly introduced into the covenant of grace, that is, he is as certainly ingrafted into Christ, regenerated by His Spirit, and forgiven through His blood, as he is externally washed with water. The thing signified is objectively connected and conferred with the sign, as truly and really, as the sign itself is used.”+
On Confirmation:
“In the case of the believers at Samaria, and the twelve disciples at Ephesus, the laying on of hands was the completion of their baptism, and the impartation of the Holy Ghost. Why should not Confirma- tion now be regarded in the same light? Why should not all entering the Church in this sacramental way, believe in the real presence of grace, qualifying them from that time forth, for every duty which may be legitimately required at their hands? Let the Church of Christ and her sacred rites stand out trembling with their own heavenly fullness and divine power, and we shall require nothing to effect the greatest results, but the still small voice—the silent flow of grace through her regular ordinances, from Him who is her centre and life—mighty to save—her all and in all—to Whom be glory, world without end.”}
On the Lord’s Supper :
“The other Sacrament is the Holy Supper. As Baptism is the com- mencement and implantation of the Christian life, so the Lord’s Supper serves to nourish and support it, and hence it is to be repeated, whilst repetition in the case of Baptism is inadmissible. The Holy Supper was instituted by Christ on the last night before His Passion, and the promise of Grace by which He communicates to us His presence and the benefits of His atonement, is expressly woven into the words of institution, since it is declared, ‘This is my body which is given for you,’ and ‘This is my blood shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.’ "§
We need not say, that the utterance of language like that which we have quoted above, coming, too, from men ot
* Mercersburg Review, July, 1857, p. 393. Ib. January, 1858, p. 18. ¢ Ib. January, 1858, pp. 96, 97. Ib. July, 1857, p. 397.
1859.] Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. 375
learning, and occupying a position favorable for extensive influence, is one of the pregnant signs of the times. Its tone is so thoroughly Church-like, so utterly and radically opposed to that spirit of ultra-Protestantism which threatens to sweep away every vestige of Primitive Christianity, that we come once more to the question, What is it that separates these men from us? Agreeing with us on so many of the vital truths of the Christian System, looking at our common duties from the same stand-point, sympathizing with us, as to the immi- nent dangers which threaten our country, our race, and the Church of Christ in this land, more than they can sympathize with any other body of professed Christians in the nation; why shall we not see eye to eye, and join hand to hand, and heart to heart, in the one great work of our common Lord and Master? May we not ask this question of our brethren represented in the pages of the Mercersburg Review? Do we misunderstand them? Or, do they misunderstand us? Must we always remain, like oil and water, mixing, but not blend- ing? brethren in name, yet uttering only notes of discord, and waging fratricidal war with each other? Again, we say, we = that our own portion of the Church, in the “ Memorial
ovement,” has extended the olive branch of peace; she has invited a free interchange of sentiment; she has done all that she can do, or ought to do, to heal the wounds of Zion ; her wetchmen have uttered their words of warning; and, in this regard, at least, the blood of souls will not be required at her hands.
And hence it is that we have examined the pages of this History of Dr. Schaff with no ordinary interest. For, as one of the Editors of the Mercersburg Review, we have sought in his History a solution of the difficulties which have all the while met us in reading the pages of his Quarterly. And we are free to say, we think we understand Dr. Schaff, both in his Quarterly and in his History. For an honest man, (and such we doubt not Dr. Schaff is,) in writing history will write it, or at least will attempt to write it, not make it. He is a scribe, not an author or creator. The His- tory of the Church from the birth of Christ to the Reign of Constantine, (A. D. 1-311,) is, of all others, the very ¢ra where the historian, if he has any peculiarities in his theory of the Church, will be most sure to exhibit them. We may, like Mosheim, record facts simply ; and then it is with his facts only that we have to do. Or he may, with Neander and most modern German Historians, write histor irom the stand-point of a certain theory; and then it is with
376 Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. [Oct.,
his theory also that we have to deal. We do not hesitate to say that Dr. Schaff writes the History of the Church during this most important period from the stand-point of a theory. Consciously or unconsciously, it shapes and colors his History. Indeed, his conception of the province of the Church Histo- rian leads him of necessity to tinge, at least, his work with the peculiar hue of his own personal views. He says, “ History has a soul as well as a body, and that the ruling ideas and general principles must be represented no less than the outward facts and dates.”* We are to look, therefore, in Dr. Schaff’s volume not only for facts and dates, but also for Dr. Schaff’s understanding of the “ ruling ideas and general principles” of the Church of Christ. Whether Dr. Schaff’s conception of “the ruling ideas and general principles” of the Church is a true conception or not, is of course another and very distinct question from the question of his “facts and dates.” And yet, as the “soul” is a good deal more important than the “ body,” so Dr. Schatf’s notion of what the “ruling ideas and general principles” of the Church are, is, of course, the most important thing in looking at his History.
The period of the history of the Church which Dr. Schaff has embraced in this volume, is the great battle-ground of the Church. It was so at the Reformation. It is so now, and is to be so emphatically hereafter in the war with Rome and with Dissent. It is so, however, not in regard to its “facts and dates,” for these are becoming so well known that men cannot, and we may say, dare not, write such nonsense as Dr. Miller, of Princeton, and President Hopkins, and the Rev. Lyman Coleman have been in the habit of ventilating. For such men have a reputation for truthfulness, at least, to main- tain, if they have no conscience to appeal to. And the great facts in the early history of the Church are becoming so generally known that men must be more careful what they write. It is not these facts which are to be disputed ; it is the use which is to be made of them, the interpretation which is to be put upon them, or, as Dr. Schaff says, “ the ruling ideas and general principles” around which those facts are to be grouped.
Let us state this matter more clearly. If Curist in and through His Inspired Apostles established not only a Church but some particular Church, not only a Ministry but some me Ministry, not only Sacraments but some particular
acraments, not only a Christian Sabbath but some particu-
* Schaff’s History, &c, Preface, page vi.
1859.] Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. 377
lar Christian Sabbath; if He gave not only a Word, and a Faith, but some particular Word and Faith, then the great question is, what that Church, and Ministry, and Sacraments, and Sabbath, and Word, and Faith, really are? How are we to know? By what rule are we to determine? There is a principle of authority somewhere here. Where is it, and what Is it?
To this question, and it is the great question of the day, the Quaker answers that there are no binding, obligatory, external Forms in the Christian Dispensation. The Congregationalist says that while Forms, to a certain extent, are a good thing, yet that there are none which have a divine sanction; that everything is left to expediency. The Romanists, on the other hand, are at loggerheads with each other. They stick for authority ; but they never have been able to tell where it is. Some say it isin the development of certain root ideas or principles first given to the early Church. Others claim that it resides as a perpetual legacy in the living Church; but where in the Church, they never have been able to agree. They boast of authority, and so of unity; but they never have been able to locate the authority ; and so their unity is, after all, a sham.
The great rule binding all ages and tines, on all these great questions of the Faith and Institutions of the Church, is, Aros- totic Sanction; or the sanction of the strictly Apostolic Church. It is the Church as planted by Apostles specially called, appointed, and inspired by the Hoty Guosr to this very end. “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you;” this was the charge which Curist gave them, showing that there were certain definite “ things” to be observed, “even unto the end of the world ;” and that these “things” were not anything, or some things, or noth- ing, but “ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER I HAVE COMMANDED You.” (St. Mat. xxviii, 20.) And they had besides the special promise of the Hoty Gnosr to teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance, whatsoever Curist had said unto them. (St. John xiv, 26.) Here is the principle, the root principle of the Church. What the Church then was, what the Faith then was, such Christ meant [is Church and Faith to be, “unto the end of the world.” This was the Church which He promised to be with; this was the Faith which His disciples went forth to preach. The bare statement of this rule carries its own demonstration with it; while its denial, and the substitu- tion for it of either of the other principles which we have
378 Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. [Oct.,
mentioned, has resulted, we need not say, in the grossest fanaticism, infidelity, idolatry, and superstition. Of this, the world is full of living proofs. It is the great lesson for Christ- endom to learn, to accept the Chureh as Christ planted it, and the simple Facts of the Gospel as they are revealed. System-making, Church-wise, and Doctrine-wise, has been the sin and the curse of the Church in all ages from the very first.
This rule is perfectly practicable. The only question as to an Article of Faith, a Doctrine, or an Institution, is, has it Apostolic authority? Fer, be it remembered, on this point of authority, between the sirictly Apostolic and the strictly post- Apostolic age, there is an unfathomable gulf. The Apostles were called, inspired, and sent forth to sustain this relation to the Church. On them the Church was “built.” In teaching the Faith, they had, as we have seen, the special promise of the Hoty Guosr “to guide them into all Truth.” Their mission lasted in the person of one or other of the Apostles down to nearly the beginning of the seeond century; and. during this more than sixty years of strictly Apostolic guid- ance, the Church spread in its unity of Faith, Order, Ministry, and Worship, into all parts of the then known world. All that the earlier and purest subsequent ages of the Church could do, all the authority which the Fathers, or the Earlier Councils can claim in this regard, is to witness to the “ Faith once delivered to the saints,” to define that Faith against the Heresies which beset it.
Such is the rule by which we are to try all questions per- taining to the Church of Christ; her Faith, Ministry, Order, and Worship. What that Faith, Ministry, Order, and Wor- ship are, is, of course, another and a distinct question. To meet this question, the later New Testament Scriptures of course are our guide. They teach, however, rather by recog- nition and by allusion than by commandment. Why it is that a “thns saith the Lord” is not found, for many things, and for ail things held to be of divine and universal obliga- tion, is a question which does not concern us in the present connection. What we have to do now, is with the fact that a = enactment, a divine prescription, does not exist for
octrines and for Institutions which by universal consent are vital to Christianity. And where the language of Holy Scripture upon such points is misunderstood or perverted, we are thrown at once for an interpretation of their meaning upon the practice of the Apostolic Church ; and thus and there we learn beyond controversy how the Apostles themselves
1859.] Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. 379
understood their own language. We need not say that this was the ruling principle of the Anglican, in distinction from the Continental Reformation; it was Apostolic Practice versus Private Opinion, so called. And to meet such an appeal we are brought at once to the undoubted testimony and the History of the Primitive and Apostolic Church. For in that age of trial and of suffering, wher the fires of martyrdom kept the Church pure, whatever of Doctrine and of Institution was taught “ always, everywhere, and by all,” could of necessity have had but one origin. And here it is that we see the importance of that period in the history of the Christian Church. Men sneer at the Fathers, and at patristic learning ; but such men are simply stupid, or wicked, or both. They talk about the Scriptures; how do they know what the Ca- nonical Books of the New Testament are ?
We are prepared now to examine Dr. Schaff’s “ History of the Christian Church from the Birth of Christ to the Reign of Constantine.” What are “the ruling ideas and the gene- ral principles” with which he has written the history of this most important era, and which have given color and shape to his historic statements? The great fault of Dr. Schaff is, that he has no clear, distinct conception, no strong, well- defined statement of the fundamental principles by which the history of the Apostolic Church must be interpreted. That principle of authority, that Rule of Doctrine and Institution, that “divine pattern ” in Faith and Practice given by Christ, and by which the Apostles planted the Church, not for one age, but for all ages; of all this Dr. Schaff takes no cogni- zance. This great principle, of such infinite importance, he not only thoroughly ignores; but he ignores it in a manner which throws the whole argument into the hands of the Ro- manist. Take, for example, his Section on the “Germs of the Papacy.” What does he mean by the “germs of the Pa- pacy ?” Does he mean that the Papacy was the natural de- velopment, the legitimate outgrowth of the principles of the Apostolic Church?—that the “ germ ” was now in its fruit- age? He certainly does mean this, and he certainly teaches it. His ignoring the rule which we have already enunciated, forces him to teach it in spite of himself; and such will be the tendency of his work on the popular, ill-trained, ultra- Protestant mind of the age. Yet there was never a shallower specimen of sophistry in the world. Undoubtedly the per- version, not the development, the trampling upon, not the carrying out of the principle of Diocesan Dnity, combined with external temptations, led in time to the establishment of
380 Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. [Oct.,
the Papacy. It was the abuse, not the use of an Apostolic principle. And that abuse, whatever else it may prove, roves that there was no distinctively Congregational or Bouiietosten element in Apostolic times; for the tendencies of such an element are all in another direction. Had the Apostolic principle, not only of Diocesan Unity, but of Dio- cesan Independence also, been rigidly adhered to, the mon- strous assumptions of the Papacy would never have been heard of.
And yet, althongh Dr. Schaff does not formally state the rule above announced, he does, by implication, sometimes rely upon it, as did Dr. Miller, and as does every Presbyterian when he is called to defend certain Doctrines and Institutions. They cannot defend them without it. Thus the divine ap- pointment of the first day of the week as the Christian Sab- bath, the doctrine of Infant Baptism, the doctrine of the Trinity—in sustaining these essentials in the Christian Sys- tem—these men are compelled to appeal to the testimony of the Apostolic Church. The argument is a good one; but if it is good for the use to which they put it, it is good for the Ministry and Worship of the Church, and for some other things besides. The “ruling ideas and the general principles” with which Dr. Schaff has written his History, are dreamy, mystical, loosely and even inconsistently defined, and are so stated, as we shall show presently, as that they may mean much, or little, or nothing. And here we have the key, not only to his History, but to that whole School of Theology of which we have been speaking. We think we understand now why it is that men, sometimes so superlatively “ Church- ly” in their theories and fancies, are yet in no small danger of being found most emphatically un-Churchly, in fact and in reality ; and that men who onso many points seem, in word, to be wholly with us, will, not improbably, in the hour of action and of trial be found thoroughly against us.
The following is Dr. Schaff’s conception of Apostolic Chris- tianity:
“Tn virtue of this original purity, vigor, and beauty, and the amaz- ing success of primitive Christianity, the canonical authority of the single but inexhaustible volume of its literature, and the infallibility of the Apostles, those inspired organs of the Ho!y Ghost, those untaught teachers of mankind, the Apostolic age has an incomparable interest and importance in the history of the Church. It is the immovable groundwork of the whole. It has the same regulative force for all the subsequent developments of the Church, as the inspired writings of the Apostles have for the works of all later Christian authors.
1859.] Schaf’s History and Mercersburg Theology. 381
“ Furthermore, the Apostolic Christianity is pre-formative, containing the living germs of all the following periods, personages, and tendencies. The whole history of the Church, past and future, is only the progress- ive analysis and application of principles and prototypes given in the New Testament ; especially of the three leading representatives of the primitive age, Peter, Paul, and John,”*
If the reader is disposed to say that Dr. Schaff,in the above extract, is inconsistent with himself, that he both affirms and denies, that he has meaning, and has no meaning, in his defi- nition of Apostolic Christianity, and that there is a vagueness in it peculiar to writers of the modern German type, and which passes with some people for wonderful profundity ; we say, that if the reader chooses to express such an opinion of Dr. Schaff’s definition of Apostolic Christianity, all that we have to reply is, that we give the definition as we find it, and that, when the reader has read and understood it, he will be prepared to read and understand the history itself. He will, perhaps, come to the conclusion which we confess forces itself npon us more and more as we trace the history and study the writings of these men, that “ Mercersburg Theology ” is the resultant of an attempt to combine in one System the most implicit Faith with the most daring intellectual Specula- tion. It is child-like belicf, cramped and distorted by what Dr. Nevin, speaking of Germany, somewhere calls ‘ the general disease of the country.” If the whole thing is full of dazzling anomalies and paradoxes, if it isan enigma and a puzzle, and so an attraction to young and visionary minds; we may see reason why it should, for the time being, com- mand attention, and yet never be able to prove an clement of life and power in the religious history of our country. It is an exotic which will never flourish, though it may live, in such an uncongenial soil.
The Rev. Dr. Nevin, another prominent writer of this same School, and second to no man in it for influence, gives his definition of the Church as follows :
“ The true sense of the Church Question, in this view, that which forms its proper nerve and gist, is not found really in those points, around which the controversy is most commonly made to revolve. The first matter needing to be settled, is, not the right of any outward historical organization to be considered the Church or a part of the Church, but what the Church itself must be held to bin theory or ideal ; not the force and value of any institution, or usage, or order, which may be set
* Schaff’s History, pp. 30, 31.
382 Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. [Oct.,
forward in any quarter as evidencing the presence of the Church, but what this presence in any case must be taken actually to involve and mean. * * * The fundamental question is not of the sacraments, nor of a liturgy, nor of the Church year, nor of ordination and Apostol- ical succession, nor of Presbyters, Bishops, or Popes; but as we have said, of the nature of the Church itself, considered in its ideal character, and as an object of thought anterior to every such revelation of its pre- sence in an outward way.”*
We have italicized a part of this quotation, which really con- tains the gist of the whole matter. The reader, who is familiar with the peculiar terminology of German Philosophy, will see, at a glance, precisely what, and how much, such language really means. Of course, on everything pertaining to the Church, whether it be a point of Doctrine, or an Institution, these men would first instruct us as to their own anterior ideal conception, before we can be safely left to the teachings of the Hoty Guost and the Practice of Inspired men. A Divine In- stitution, our knowledge of the nature of which is made de- pendent, not on the supernatural manifestation of such Institu- tion, but on some anterior ideal conception of our own, can- not of course be affected by Scriptural or Apostolic testimony, be it what it may. But surely, the history of German Philos- ophy for the last twenty-five years,shows how definite our knowl- edge of the nature of the Church is likely to be under such guidance; and it enables us to see pretty clearly how much the cause of a really true Catholicity may reasonably hope for from such a School of Theology as that which we have been considering. The great difficulty with that theology is, it is based on a system of Philosophy the whole genius and spirit of which is radically and thoroughly speculative and un-Churchlike.
There is no part of his work where Dr. Schaff’s peculiari- ties as a Church historian are more manifest than in his “ Sec- tion” on the “ Origin of the Episcopate.” He thus states the question: “ Was the Episcopate, directly or indirectly, of Apostolic (Johannean) origin, as the Catholics and the An- — and in a modified sense also some of the recent
’rotestant divines of Germany, maintain? Or did it arise, as the Presbyterians and most Protestant historians assert, not till after the death of the Apostles, and develop itself from the presidency of the Congregational Presbytery?” On this question he pretends to give the leading points of the argu-
* Mercersburg Review, April, 1858, pp. 187, 188.
1859.] Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. 383
ment on both sides; although the argument for the Apostolic origin of Episcopacy is neither fairly nor fully stated. The conclusion to which he comes, or “seems” to come, for he speaks hesitatingly, is this: “that the Episcopate proceeded, both in the deseending and ascending scale, from the Aposto- late and the original Presbyterate conjointly, as a contrac- tion of the former and an expansion of the latter, without either express concert or general regulation of the Apostles, neither of which, at least, can be historically proved. J¢ arose instinctively, as it were, in that transition period be- tween the first and second centuries, probably before the death of John.”* The italics are ours.
If he had said that the Episcopate existed, not “ probably,” but most certainly, before the death of the Apostle St. John; if he had reached and laid hold of the conception of the root principle, that the Apostolic Church was more than a mere model and pattern Church for future times; that it was that very organic, living Body of Christ, of which, as a positive existence, Christ is the Head, and through which, in all ages, He dispenses His Grace; if instead of a dreamy, transcend- ental, “ ideal, anterior theory ” about the Church, there were rather a childlike, loving reception of what Christ, in His wisdom, (not in ours,) has chosen to do, and to appoint, for the accomplishment of His own gracious purposes; there would be much less to find fault with, in the volume before us. The universal existence of Episcopacy, in its ordinary acceptation, as an Institution of the Church everywhere in the early part of the second century, as soon as authentic history throws any light upon the subject, Dr. Schaff of course is too intelligent a man to dispute. Chiliingworth’s state- ment of this argument, for point and clearness, has never been improved.
“ When I shall see, therefore, all the fables in Metamorphosis acted, and proved true stories; when I shall see all the democracies and aris- tocracies in the world lie down and sleep, and awake into monarchies ; then will I begin to believe that Presbyterial government, having con- tinued in the Church during the Apostles’ times, should presently after, (against the Apostles’ doctrine and the will of Christ,) be whirled about like a scene in a mask, and transformed into Episcopacy. In the mean time, while these things remain thus incredible, and in human reason impossible, I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus:
“Episcopal government is acknowledged to have been universally received in the Church, presently after the Apostles’ times.
* Mercersburg Review, pp. 419, 420.
384 Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. [Oct.,
“ Between the Apostles’ times and this ‘ presently after, there was not time enough for, nor possibility of so great an alteration.
“‘ And therefore, there was no such alteration as is pretended. And therefore Episcopacy, being confessed to be so ancient and Catholic, must be granted also to be Apostolic. Quod erat demonstrandum.”
In his treatment of ancient authors Dr. Schaff evidently aims at entire fairness. He admits the authenticity and genu- ineness of writings and documents on which the Church has always relied, and which leave us in no doubt as to the organization, Ministry, Sacraments, and Worship of the Early Church. Occasionally we find a slip which surprises us. Thus, in speaking of the “ Angels” of the Apocalypse, he says, they “ probably represent the whole corps of officers in the respec- tive Churches of Asia Minor, as the responsible messengers of God to them.” And yet he confesses that “if regarded as single persons”—and Dr. Schaff knows that the united voice of Catholic antiquity, and the opinion of the most learned non- Episcopal writers, agree that they were single persons— “they must be somewhat like the Bishops of the second century.” He says, “ We might call them Congregational Bishops, as distinct from the Apostles, and from Diocesan Bishops of later times.” But pray, Dr. Schaff, what sort of a “ Congregational Bishop” was the Angel of the Church of Ephesus, when we know that more than thirty years before, there were even then many Presbyters in that Metropolitan City? (Acts xx, 17.) We have called this a slip; for itis at variance with the general accuracy of statement as to matters of fact which characterizes his volume.
Our object in examining this work we trust is already accomplished. We have wished to show the place which Dr. Schaff's [History occupies in a Church point of view; and we think we have also found, in his volume, a key to explain much which is mysterious and inexplicable in what is known as Mercersburg Theology, and in the anomalous position which it occupies, and the relations which it sustains in our country. We are willing these men should know precisely what im- wression their System makes upon usas American Charclimen,
Ve have written with entire frankness, and as if for brethren, who will know how to appreciate it, and will thank us for it. The Church, in whose name and behalf we speak, has, we confidently believe, a glorious future before her. Small, comparatively, in numbers, she is already commanding the strong points of influence in our country; and her missionary pioneers are proving that she is not a Church for a class; but
1859.] Schaff’s History and Mercersburg Theology. 385
the Church, for all. All eyes—patriots, philanthropists, Christ- ians of all names, sick of empiricism ‘ial quackery, and novel- ties in Christianity and in morals—are turned more and more towards her, as being that element of true conservatism and true progress which the age demands. Still it is tobe a future of desperate conflict: not, it may be, with carnal weapons; the trial is to be one demanding a truer heroism, the perilous trial of soft dalliances and treacherous compromises, where Satan is so transformed into an angel of light as to deceive, if it be possible, the very elect. Whether that future is to bring us and our Mercersburg brethren nearer together, or is to drive us still farther asunder, Curist, the great Head of the Chureh, only knows; and it is a question which He comprehends in all its momentous issues. For ourselves, we would so write, so counsel, so act, as that we at least may be safe in leaving that question in His hands.
Aside from the fundamental mistake which lies at the bot- tom of this work, as to the general merits of the Llistory, as a TTistory, we have said nothing, and do not intend now to speak at length. Mosheim, in his “Commentaries on the state of Christianity during the first three hundred and twenty-five years from the Christian Era,” has covered the entire ground of this volume, and has written with a fullness and a depth of research which leaves little to be desired. In comparison with his masterly examination, the work of Dr. Schaff is but a compend. Indeed, the summary character of this new His- tory is one of our principal objections to it; and yet, on the wide range of topics discussed, we know not where to find the same amount of matter within the same compass. On the struggles of early Christianity with the sdetdied mind of that age, and especially with its Philosophy, the work is particu- larly rich. As to the recently discovered alleged work of Hippolytns, “ The Philosophoumena,” which Chevalier Bun- sen has done so much to bring before the public, it is, we think, of much less importance and value than Dr. Schaff seems to suppose. But into this subject we cannot now enter.
The following are the leading topics of examination in the volume: Preparation for Christianity, Founding and Growth of the Church, Apostolic Theology and Literature, Christian Life and Worship, Organization of the Apostolic Church, Spread of Christianity, Persecution of the Church and Christian Martyrdom, Literary Contest of Christianity with Judaism and Heathenism, Development of Church doctiine
VOL, XIl.—NO. Ill. 25
386 Schaf’s History and Mercersburg Theology. ([Oct.,
in Conflict with Heresy, The Christian Life in Contrast with Pagan Corruption, Christian Worship, Organization and Dis- cipline of the Church, The Church Fathers and their Writings.
We will not part with the work without saying that in several respects It possesses great merits, and that outside the circle of scholars and divines, in the spirit of whose philosophy it has been written, it cannot but exert a wholesome influence. We hope for it, in this regard, a wide circulation. There is a manly frankness in it, which will command respect; and it will correct popular mistakes, rebuke prejudices, and awaken in many minds new conceptions of the very principles, the whole genius and spirit of our holy Religion. Such a “Sec- tion,” for example, as that on “The Catholic Unity,” so nobly, and, with a single exception, so admirably expressed, will prove a corrective precisely adapted to the temper of our times. The well instructed Churchman will find in the work little that is new, much that he will disapprove, but an earnestness, freshness, and vigor, which he cannot but admire.
1859.] Bishop Eastburn’s Third Charge. 387
Art. I1.—BISHOP EASTBURN’S THIRD CHARGE,
The Third Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Massachu- setts, delivered in Trinity Church, Boston, on Wednesday, May 4th, 1559. “The Signal Work of the Holy Spirit in these United States.” By the Right Rev. Manton Easrsurn, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese. Boston: 1359. 8vo. pp. 23.
Bisuor Eastrsurn’s Third Charge has just been laid upon our table. Like other Charges delivered periodically by our Right Reverend Fathers, and published to the world, it is to be ranked among the religious literature of the day, open to candid criticism, and liable to deserved censure, if delivered only in a suitable spirit, and with a becoming respect for the Office. In this temper we propose looking at the production now be- fore us. We hope our examination of it will be fair, liberal, free from all prejudice and bitterness, and utterly devoid of all party spirit. If further apology for our examination were needed, we have it in the fact that the Charge has been scat- tered gratuitously all over the country, challenging public criticism, and aiming’ to mould,if it may, public senti- ment. It is not with the Bishop of the Diocese of Massa- chusetts alone, therefore, that we have to do, but with the in- dividual author’s opinions also, and opinions uttered in a tone which certainly makes further apology unnecessary.
In general, we remark that this Charge bears no marks of ability. It seems to be a production of haste and hurried thought. As to style, it is stilted and pretentions, and filled with the mannerisms that abound in all the compositions of the same author. It would seem to be impossible for him ever to say a simple thing in asimple way. There is a strain- ing after dignity, which too often reminds one of the “red patches” spoken of by the Prince of critics. This defect is all the more noticeable, from the contrast it presents to the beantiful simplicity belonging to the style of his venerable predecessor, whose writings are as free from this blemish as can well be imagined. Bishop Griswold’s style was singularly yure and simple. One of the finest judges of composition we oes ever known, said that Bishop Griswold wrote the best English that he had ever read, and, often as he fugneene in public, never fell into a strain of mere religious declamation.
388 Bishop Eastburn’s Third Charge. [Oct.,
This is specially true respecting Bishop Griswold’s Charges, which are marked by deep practical piety, ripe wisdom, dis- criminating thought, wegeh doit, and elevating Christian sentiments. We sincerely wish all this could be said of the Charge now under examination. But critical truth compels us to confess, that scarcely any of it rises above respectable re- ligious declamation, fitted well enough for Bishop Eastburn’s conference meetings, but unsuited to an Episcopal Charge, where we have a right to look for a higher range of thonght
We sincerely hope that all he says of the work of Grace, with which God has been pleased to bless our land, is true. Nor is there any subject about which we would speak with deeper reverence, or more heartfelt praise to Almighty God, than that of the pouring out of His Holy Spirit for the conver- sion of man, and the causing of a “deep and wide revival of a living faith in Christ working by love, and bringing forth all the fruits of the Spirit.” We desire this, as the highest of all blessings to a ruined world. But, to us, the Bishop seems to discourse of it in a strain of lofty exaggeration, and we trust he will pardon us, if we say further, that his language does not impress us with his deep faith in the reality of the thing. It is rather the language which we should expect to hear from the rostrum, where a speaker had a topic assigned him that he must make the most of, but, being destitute of exact infurma- tion, and conscions of having little to say, he feels bound to work up every idea to produce the best oratorical display, and seeks to atone by turgid expressions for what he lacks in force of thought. Of this, there is, indeed, a great lack. Page after page consists of a series of truisms and common-places, which weary the reader. We look in vain for anything new and original, anything that ay proof of earrest thinking. Much of it is a stringing together of religions phrases, which seem to be uttered by rote, and wear a good deal the aspect of mere cant. In a production, where we look for the utterances of matured wisdom, enlarged views, broad charity, and a generous catholicity of spirit, our expectations are here sadly disap- pointed.
It may be said, however, is not your standard too high? How can you look for much force and originality of thought in a man burdened with the care of a city parish, in ad- dition to those belonging to the Episcopate? And we reply, as Yankees, by asking another question, Who pvt these cares of a parish upon the Bishop, or who keeps them cling- ing to him? Are they not self-imposed? He seems to think him- self able to take charge of a parish, and to perform the duties
1859.] Bishop Eastburn’s Third Charge. 389
of the Episcopate besides. But in this over-estimate of his ability, we have abundant reason for believing that he stands alone. We doubt if there be a single person in the Diocese who accords with him in this belief. All would be glad to have him devote the powers God has given him to the exclusive duties of his high Office, as none too much to meet its claims and responsibilities. And the opportunity of doing this has been generously offered him, by the efforts of a distinguished layman in the western part of the Diocese, which, however, was resolutely declined. With what propriety, then, can the onerous cares of a parish be urged as an excuse for decided failure in his Episcopal efforts? He chooses to im- pose ~~ himself duties beyond his power to discharge satis- factorily. For this whom has he to blame but himself? We mention these things because it is due to the Diocese that the state of its affairs, 2m this respect, should be known. We are not disposed to bind heavy burdens upon him, which we re- fuse to touch with one of our fingers. So far from this, we have been ready not only to tonch them with our fingers, but also to put our shoulders to tle task of relieving him; but he resolutely persists in carrying burdens so far beyond his abil- ity, and leading to so many mortifying results.
The defects which we have already mentioned are not, however, the worst faults of this Charge. We could put up with its feebleness, its mannerism, its declamation, its marks of hurried, immature thought, were it not so perfectly un- Church-like, and uncharitable in spirit, and were not the tone of it throughout too much, “I am right and everybody else is wrong,” Iam * Evangelical,” all who differ from me are formalists, whose teachings are mere “ceremonialism ;” who “put the Saviour into the background,” and offer as “substitutes for Him something which it would be hard to say whether they are most ludicrous or most cruel.” Of one thing we are certain, we are at a loss to know whether it be most “ludicrous ” or most contemptible for a Bishop to utter such language, and to discourse to his Presbyters in such a strain of denunciation, unless he desire to set the Diocese in a blaze. For he may be well assured that this imperious treatment of all who differ from him will not long be tolerated. The hour of retribution will certainly come. The language of rebuke, to be effective, and to be anything else than an insult, must always presuppose, in the censor, a certain moral status, not put on, but tacitly recognized on all hands.
What, have we come to this? Shall a man of moderate
390 Bishop Easthurn’s Third Charge. [Oct.,
talents, of mediocre attainments in theology, and less logic, assume to be the model which all others are to trim their Theological opinions by? Shall he use the prerogatives of his Office to crush those who venture to differ from him in ecclesiastical views? Shall he avail himself of his high position, and hiding behind a set of evangelical phrases which may mean anything or nothing, from thence hurl his missiles at those who may perchance differ from himself in their concep- tion of certain doctrines and duties, who may cherish higher and more reverential views of the Sacraments than he holds? Shall he employ the opportunity of delivering a Charge, for the purpose of denouncing his honest opponents in Church views; treating them with reproach and contumely, as men who uphold a “system of superstition,” inculcate a “delu- sive formalism,” favor “ Popish worship,” and “ Priestly mediation,” and, what is the severest of all censure, and the most cutting of all reproach, “put the Lord Jesus into the shade,””* and mock mankind by offering to hearts which are under conviction, a “stone for bread,” and a “serpent for a fish!” Surely this is not to be tolerated, “no, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel may continue with us.” And is it not high time, frankly and firmly to tell him so? If he chooses to maintain lower views of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, let him do so on all proper occasions, by fair argument, by sound Scriptural logic, and with all the force and eloquerce that he can command. On a fair field, we shall not whine at any blow he can give, or any vic- tory he can achieve. We like a fair, open contest, if contest it be, in which good, honest, sturdy blows are given and re- ceived. But if others choose to follow the older, more com- mon, and, as they deem, better methods of doing the Church’s work in their several parishes; if they maintain, in their judgment, truer views of the blessed Sacrament of the Supper ;
* While the above accusation is before our eye, we deem it proper to cite a passage emanating from one who is probably regarded by Bishop Eastburn as the very impersonation of the system which he assails, and which he charges with the awful sin of “ putting the Lord Jesus into the shade.”
“The truth, the whole truth, is this: Christ in the Sacraments, Christ in Con- firmation, Christ in Holy Absolution, Christ in the Offering of the Daily Morning and Evening Sacrifice, Christ in the Word preached, Christ in the Ministrations to the Sick, Christ in the Teaching of the Penitent, Christ in the Sacred Institution of Matrimony, the type of His own union with his Church, and Christ, (for is He not the Resurrection and the Life?) Christ in the Burial of the Dead: this, this only, this entirely, is the unadulterated, the uncrippled, the whole, the sound theology of the Church.”—Carisr in His Orpinances. A Sermon preached in King’s Chapel, Boston, by Rt. Rev. Horatio SovrueGare, D. D., July 11, 1858.
1859. ] Bishop Easthurn’s Third Charge. 391
if they have a more appreciating sense of Christ’s presence therein, and cherish more adoring gratitude for the spiritual benefits which it confers upon the believing partaker, it is not for the Bishop, as we before said, to hide behind a set of Evangelical m dhe and from thence to utter his denunciation against those whose views differ from his own, as if for this reason they must be heretical and soul-ruining.
From these general remarks, which we have made in no spirit of cavil or love of contradiction, but with a sincere desire of pro- moting the “truth as it is in Jesus,” and from a conviction that it would be a “spurions charity” for us to allow this Charge to g° forth, without an effort to furnish some antidote to its errors, et us now turn to the subject-matter of it. The first part is de- voted to pointing out “the remarkable features of the religious movement,” manifested during the past year, throughout our country, and for which he expresses his gratitude to Almighty God. In this we are happy to join him. We lift our voice of praise with his, to the Giver of all Good, for every indication of the Presence of the Holy Spirit for the conversion and sanctification of men. What he says of the features of this work of Grace, we shall not dispute. We devoutly hope it is all true; and we earnestly pray that the “ work ” may abound more and more. In the second part he mentions “the encourage- ments which this work of Grace addresses to the Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in these United States.” These are two. The first is, “ that we possess in our Liturgy a form of words which is so eminently in harmony with the spiritual condition of the people.” This is, no doubt, true. It is a pleasing fact, that our noble, scriptural Liturgy does furnish all that a people can need, when most deeply awakened to a sense of their spiritual wants, and are anxiously asking the question, what they shall do to be saved. To souls burdened with sin, and seeking relief in Divine Mercy, what is there to be compared with our Liturgy, in holding up the fullness and sufficiency of Christ’s Atonement, and pointing out clearly the way of salvation for the guilty through Him? What is there which presents the Gospel in a manner so adapted to meet all the wants of those who feel godly sorrow for sin, and desire to be led as penitents to the foot of the Cross? And when the veople are in this spiritual condition, when there is a prevail- ing and deep interest felt among men to secure the blessings of the Gospel, and to “gain” that “peace which the world cannot give,” the Bishop admits—and we hail the admission— that “there is no degree of sorrow for transgression—no ex- tent of desire after some Mediatorial defense to stand between
392 Bishop Eastburn’s Third Charge. [Oct.,
offending man and offended God, which does not find a re- sponse in the Prayer Book, in those scriptural services through which we lead the congregation. It is the gospel here—it is the gospel there—it is the gospel everywhere—distinct and ull—anthem—creed — petition—humiliation—thanksgiving— all speak one language, most in unison with all the emotions of an awakened heart, because it is the simple phraseology of the Bible, expressing those simple truths which that same Bible reveals.” All this is eminently true, and it is retresh- ing to see such a statement.
‘In this connection there is another remark, which we hail with equal pleasure. Ile says, “ We often hear complaints made by those who are outside of our fold, of the frigidity and stiffness of our ritual. One thing, however, I doubt not, that you have always found; that where there was a shallowness of religious character among our brethren of other names, these complaints were always the loudest; and that, on the other hand, where there was the profoundest sense of sin, and the warmest fire of love towards Him, who bore our trans- gressions in His own Body on the tree, and the clearest appre- hension of the Gospel, there our form of words was the most thoroughly appreciated and loved.” This is capital. Nothing could be truer or better expressed. It is a forcible testimony given to the spirituality and “ adaptedness of the Prayer Book to the present state of things, when so many, feeling self-con- demned, are importunately asking what they shall do to be saved.” These are his words, and we hope that all those who are “outside of our fold,” as well as many inside of it, will read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them to their soul’s health.
But, alas! for the inconsistency of man! In the face of these wholesome truths—in the face of all this pr per landation of the Prayer Book, and distinct admission that our “ Liturgy furnishes a/Z that the most burdened souls need,” that ‘it is the gospel here—the gospel there—the gospel every where”— that “ creed, prayer, confession, anthem, are in unison with all the emotions of the most awakened heart,” because in them “Christ is evidently set forth ”—in the face of all these admis- sions, he immediately proceeds to mention the second encour- agement which “ we of the Protestant Episcopal Church may take to ourselves, in connection with the present work of the Spirit.” And what, gentle reader, suppose you this to be?
hy, of course, you reply, it must be to use more faithfully that Prayer Book, whieh S so justly eulogizes as containing such a treasure of spiritual blessings, suited to all the wants of
1859.] Bishop Eastburn’s Third Charge. 393
the most awakened heart, to follow out that Prayer Book in the Order of its Daily Morning and Evening Service, to im- bue more and more the hearts of the people with the chastened ~“ of its deep devotion, and to bring out into full exercise the whole spiritual power of that remarkable Book, which is so “entirely in unison with all the emotions of an awakened conscience.” But no, this is not the encouragement, namely, that we possess such a Liturgy ready at hand, and should use it more diligently than ever. On the contrary, the ‘“ encour- agement which we of the Protestant Episcopal Church have in the present revival of religion throughout our land,” is “the order, propriety, and Christian dignity of those more informal and social meetings of our people, which, since the present interest began, have been held for united and rxrempoRANEOUS prayer.”
This, then, is the encouragement held out by the Bishop. Having expatiated upon the present revival and told us of the outpouring of God’s Spirit, and reminded us of the superior excellence of the Prayer Book, and of its fullness and suffi- ciency to satisfy all the spiritual needs of the sin-burdened and the inquirer after salvation through a Divine Redeemer, and of its Liturgy, in unison with all the emotions of the most awakened heart, he gravely and deliberately mentions as an incentive to work, in the present state of increased attention to religion, that we throw aside our Prayer Book, and resort to meetings for extemporaneous prayer and Jay exhortation. But what an encouragement! Dves he intend to mock us? Having held up the Prayer Book to our admiration, and ex- tolled our Liturgy as so eminently adapted to meet the spirit- ual wants of our fellow men, at a time of refreshing from above, when God is granting His Holy Spirit, he tells us to lay it aside, and instead of a more sedulous use of that Book, to forego this advantage which we possess, and adopt a mode of worship which is dying out throughout all the land of its own inanity, and which the Sects themselves are rejecting as the driest of all forms; and all this as the best means of promoting “the conversion of the impenitent, and the increase of the life of God among his professed people.” ‘Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.” Here is a Bishop who “thanks God for the adapt- edness of the Prayer Book to the present state of things,” which he has been describing, and in the same breath advises his Presbyters to give up that Prayer Book, and resort to holding “ meetings, in which laymen and clergymen may pour
394 Bishop Easthurn’s Third Charge. [Oct.,
forth extemporaneous prayer, for the extension of the Gospel, the conversion of men,” &c. But, as if resolved to carry his inconsistency to an extent that stultifies himself, while dis- carding the Prayer Book and its Services, in favor of meetings for extemporaneous prayer and exhortation, he yet admits, that what is good and desirable in those meetings is to be traced to “the subduing influence of our ritual upon the whole Christian character, and the gentleness, reverence, and chas- tized fervor which it imparts to religion.” But why not have, then, more of that blessed influence? Why cut off from the worshipers, in those meetings, any of the hallowed effects of the Ritual? Why not have that Ritual shed its entire and full-orbed influence upon the souls of the worshipers? Why resort to a system, liable, in the end, to every objection which can be urged against a Liturgy; and a system, whose marked characteristic is, that it ministers to the spiritual pride and self-sufficiency of those who use it ?
Here an observation forces itself upon our attention. When in this Charge the Bishop descants so laudatorily upon the Prayer Book, and holds up its Liturgy as so adapted to souls burdened by sin and seeking deliverance, when he —_ of that Liturgy as meeting the spiritual wants of such as
esire frequent seasons of supplication, how natural it would seem to have been, for him to take this occasion to do tardy justice to two Churches in the city of Boston, which for years have, by their Daily Prayers, Morning and Evening, and by fully carrying out the Rubrics of the Prayer Book, developed the spiritual power of that Book, and the rich resources it contains for supplying the religious wants of men, for cher- ishing the spirit of prayer, and for creating a desire and ap- petite for frequent seasons of supplication! Respecting one of these, we may say that probably no Church has done more to bring out the power of the Prayer Book, and create a deep and abiding interest in its noble, elevating, and spiritual Service. No Church has so clearly shown the exhaustless wealth of our Ritual, when its design is fulfilled and the whole compass of its varied devotion is fairly tried. How natural, under the circumstances, to have pointed to so worthy an example, and to have held it up as deserving of imitation by all who in the spirit of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church, are in- quiring what they can do to supply more abundantly the
eep spiritual wants of men, and set forward the work of Grace in the hearts of those who are inquiring the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward! But, instead of this, he discards the Prayer Book and its Liturgy, as failing to meet
1859.] Bishop Eastburn’s Third Charge. 395
the moral and religious necessities of the soul, during a time of “ refreshing from the presence of the Lord,” and commends meetings for eatemporancous prayer; as if, forsooth, these were the grand instrumentalities for “drawing forth the hearts of men in united supplication, and bringing down rain from the opened windows of heaven.”
This Charge suggests several other remarks, some of which we shall here venture to make. The Bishop urges upon his Clergy to commence those assemblies fur prayer, in which om may give “ utterance to their desires in unpremeditated anguage.” This he thinks will be “ prolific of blessings ;” nay, “certainly ” will be, he says. Why? we have a right to ask. For it is mere assertion, without the shadow of reason to support it. Why has prayer in unpremeditated language such power with God? If it be so, let us employ it always, for what we want above all things is to reach the ear of the Giver of all good. But this, according to the Bishop’s asser- tion, is more effectually done by uttering our desires in lan- guage suggested by the impulse of the moment, than in a prescribed form of sound and Scriptural words. And the idea of “setting on foot” ali over the Diocese these “ familiar assemblies,” in which men may “ give utterance to their de- sires in unpremeditated language,” fills him with such ecstasy of feeling, that he breaks forth suddenly into prayer—‘ May the Lord raise up through every portion of the Diocese com- panies of earnest and praying men!” What he means, in this short litany, is, that the Lord would raise up men, who, under the influence of a little excitement, can pray better without the aid of our holy, beautiful and spiritual Liturgy, than with it. To such, forsooth, these “earnest and praying men” are confined. Does he really mean, that Forms of Prayer are fatal to earnestness? And on the supposition that such men can be found, he proceeds with his litany, “ And may God put it into your hearts to encourage their in- tercessions for a dying and thoughtless world,” i. e., the * in- tercessions” of those who think they can, off-hand, make better prayers than are be found in the Prayer Book. Only do this, encourage such, and “your hands will be strength- ened. Your field of Jabor will be refreshed with dew from heaven.” Such is the way a Bishop discourses to his Presby- ters! To us it sounds very like solemn nonsense. ‘“Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing; more than any man in all
enice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat, hid in two bushels of chaff. You shall seek all day ere you find them ; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.”
There is one more remark, called forth by the concluding
396 Bishop Eastburn’s Third Charge. [Oct.,
part of the Charge. Through the previous portions, he has exhibited a degree of uncharitableness, which surprised and grieved us. He seems to have had before his mental eye some man of straw, at which he is ever thrusting his spear. What the phantasm is, we do not precisely know, though we infer from certain intimations, that it is some theological sys- tem, which he so intensely hates, that it cannot pass before his vision, but instantly “A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into his memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.”
And what is very observable to the reader, and perplexing too, the phantasm is ever changing its form and appearance. His ideas, like Hamlet’s, are confused.
“ Tlam. Do you see yonder cloud, that’s almost in shape of a camel?
* Pol. By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.
“ Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.
“ Pol. It is backed like a weasel.
*“ Tlam. Or, like a whale.
“ Pol. Very like a whale.”
But whatever it be the Bishop is fighting with, he spares neither harshness of language nor bitterness of spirit. So much is this the case, that were a stranger, ignorant of the circumstances, to read the Charge, he would verily suppose, that an imperious prelate, feeling indignant at some dreadful error which had crept into his Diocese, were seeking to crush out its life with his Episcuel heel. But how surprised would he be to learn, that the evil conjured up in the Bishop’s fancy, and regarded by him as so dire and soul-ruining, and de- nounced in such unmeasured terms of opprobrium, is that in Doctrine and Worship, which is held, and honestly and sincerely held, by some of the most devoted, earnest, labori- ous, exemplary, and we will say, successful Rectors in the Diocese ; and also by many laymen, who are surpassed by none in the land, in practical godliness, reverent piety, char- ity, benevolence, rid and self-sacrificing devotion to the interests of humanity, and the building up of Christ’s Holy Church!
Nor is it enough for him to vent his own anger and bitter- ness of spirit against what seems tous an evil that exists chiefly in his own diseased imagination, but he seeks to stir up the spirit of party strife in his Clergy, and to whet their zeal against the abettors of a system which he disingenuously
1859.} Bishop Eastburn’s Third Charge. 397
caricatures. Hence he guards them solemnly against a “ drivel- ing charity ”—urges them “ to forswear a false tenderness ”— admonishes them to “ abjure a weak and unmanly spirit, that looks with a lenient eye upon” these different views cherished by their brethren of the same Household of Faith, and incites them “to maintain, at all times, and all places, an uncompromising hostility” to what he has represented as error, and which really means all that is antagonistic to his own private views. True, he afterwards does pour one drop of oil upon the troubled waters. After having said enough to awaken all the bitterness of the human heart, he has the grace to add, now in this contest to which I summon you, do not fight with “bitter and violent personality.” Do not fight merely for “the sake of division.” Remember that “ the wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable ;” all of which seems to us like the conduct of a demagogue, who, having stirred the populace to phrenzy, and “ fooled them to the top of their bent,” then, just as their passions are about to burst forth into acts of violence, stops them, to say, “ now do not be needlessly cruel; kill not merely for the sake of shed- ding blood; do not burn up your enemies in their beds; but give them warning, before you tear down their houses over their heads.”
There is one portion of this Charge, and one evidently regarded by its author as not the least important, to which we shall only briefly allude. We refer to the Bishop’s pointed and violent rebuke of that fraternal spirit of unity and con- cord which is more and more breathing over the heart of the Church, and which is already restoring among us harmony of counsel and of action. That certain factious men should strive to fan the embers of discord, is of course to be expected ; but that a Bishop of the Church of God, in a day and age like this, should deal out such epithets, and, as far as lieth in him, keep alive and stir up hatred and alienation among brethren, his own sons in the Faith, ministering at the same altar, and in as good standing as himself, is a spectacle as painful as it is mortifying! We cannot but exclaim, “tantene animis calestibus ire?” If there is heresy in the Church, if there is violation of Ordination vows, we will go with him who goes farthest, if need be, to vindicate the Church’s honor. But if, with at most only allowable differ- ences of opinions, men are “ bearing the burden and heat of the day,” let them at least have the sympathy of cheering and encouraging words. “There is a day coming,” when, under the constraining motive of a common forgiveness, we shall all look more kindly upon each other.
Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct.,
Arr. IIL—OUR DOMESTIC MISSIONARY SYSTEM.
1. Report of the Domestic Committee, Oct. 4, 1858.
2. Mr. Francis Wharton's Letter to Bishop H. W. Lee, on Domestic Missions. Philadelphia: 1858. 8vo. pp. 40.
Tue most gratifying sign at present of the vitality of the Church, and of her re-awakening to her true position as the instrument of our Lord and Saviour for the conversion of the world, is the Missionary spirit everywhere apparent. Our Church publications have been full of suggestions and expedi- ents to make the Missionary organization more effective. The discussions, Reports and Resolutions of our Diocesan Conven- tions bear witness toa wide-spread sense of our duty, and attempt to realize it; and much interest was felt in the Re- port of the Committee on modifications in our Missionary system, expected at the Annual Meeting of the Board of Mis- sions at Baltimore in October last. Towards the preparation of that Report, many suggestions have already been made. Per- haps it was as well to take plenty of time in maturing it; the continuance of the Committee gives opportunity for a further discussion in advance. The subject is so important that we offer no apology in again presenting it at some length to the readers of the American Quarterly Church Review.
That there are defects in our present working has long been too apparent. Among the remedies suggested are the concen- tration of our energies upon “strong points”—the encourage- ment of “liberty of choice” in the agencies by which our Missionary offerings are dispensed—more stirring appeals to the Christian public—the use of every means to increase the offerings, and so increase the men. The principle which un- derlies all these suggestions, and the necessity which prompts them, is this: that the Church, the dispenser of the Gospel, is bound by the imperative rule of charity to furnish to the world that light, and knowledge, and warning, which it is one part of the wretchedness of the world to despise, and therefore to take no means to procure for itself. Our commission is, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” It is well for us when our Lord gives us such favor in the eyes of the people, that we need to provide neither
1859. ] Our Domestic Missionary System. 399
“shoes, nor scrip, nor money in our purse,” because the world recognizes that “the laborer is worthy of his hire:” but such was no promise of perpetual standing; it was revoked before “the agony in the garden,” and the Church is bound to support its servants while they labor for the good of the world. This, we say, is the principle of Missionary activity on the part of the whole Church; “Go ye!” The labor is to be ours, and the good the world’s; and therefore, either the labor of preaching, or the duty of giving to feed and clothe the preach- er, is laid upon every partaker of the Grace of Christ. “Freely ye have received, freely give.” We have the Truth, and it is ours to the full extent of our ability to preach it to them who have it not; and therefore the question of our Mis- sionary organization and operation is simply the question of economy, physical, mechanical, or political, as well as reli- gious—how to obtain the greatest amount of power with the east expenditure of means.
Now the comprehension of our mission is necessary to know the power we want. We are one Church, sent to preach one Faith to one world; and just as far as we are enfeebled in means, or wasteful of them—as far as we hamper ourselves by shackles, or adulterate our principles by weakening con- cessions—we fall short of our high mission, and are either cir- eumscribed in boundaries, or wanting in the strength of s0- lidity. Thus, our efficiency is destroyed, and the results of our attainment fall short of the command put upon us. Such is now our position; throughout our own country and the world at large, unnumbered places are unocenpied, which ought to be and must be filled, before we fulfill the commission,— “Preach the Gospel to every creature.” For eighteen hun- dred years that mandate has been written for our reading, and at no time during all that period has the fullness of the com- mand been obeyed. Events are indicating changes of the greatest significance in the moral world as near at hand; yet when and how our Lord shall come is hidden as at the first.
The analysis of our position as one Church, preaching one Faith to one world, leads us to three conditions of our Mission- ary action. First, that Faith is a matter, the purity and impor- tance of which, the Church, and not the world, is the judge. Secondly, that the minister or agent in preaching the Truth, must be subordinate and responsible to the Church, as fulfill- ing her mission, and not to the world, as considering what it wishes, and thinks, and desires. Thirdly, that there be no obstacle in the way of preaching to every person who has a soul to be saved. That is to say, translating these proposi-
400
Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct.,
tions into practical language—first, a definite Faith, unchange- able, clear, and fully apprehended; secondly, such an inde- pendence of the worldly-minded and the wicked as will enable the Minister to fear or respect nothing but the Divinely con- stituted authorities of the Church; thirdly, a Church open for all, high or low, rich or poor, to come and hear the glad tidings. When we have secured these things, a Ministry spiritually minded enough to apprehend the Faith, and, as supported by the Church, in position independent of the world, and also the open doors for every one to come into the temple and listen, to come to the Ark and be saved, we have placed the Missionary in such a position that none of his power need be wasted, and the resolution of the other part of the problem of expansion only depends on the liberality of God’s people, and their appreciation of their duty.
But here, perhaps, it may be well to anticipate a question likely to be urged. ‘Do you object to any aid of the Church in its Missionary operations by means gained from the world ?” Not at all. But we do object to the individual Minister being so left to the world for aid, that he is liable to be brought un- der judgment to the world; and, while he is bound to the au- thority of the Bishop and the Church on the terms of the Charch, that he shall be also bound to the support of the world on the terms of the world. Let the world aid the Church as much as it will, when it cannot swerve it from its duty ; the meek are promised the possession of the earth; but the individual soldier is defenseless, unless he is guarded by the moral force of the army in which he is a standard-bearer. This may be enough for the present; a fuller answer will be found before we are through with what we have to say. In view of the everywhere expressed want of a more efficient Missionary system, we shall briefiy define certain principles which, in our judgment, must govern our Missionary organi- zation. Our view is restricted to the Domestic field, since the principles which we advocate are already carried out in the Renton Stations.
No scheme of Missions will be comprehensive enough, none of our operations will rise to the full height of the command imposed, unless their broad foundation be the principle that the Church, as such, is Curtst’s Misstonary Soctrry. We may have Missionary Societies, voluntary or authorized, in the Church, and they may be very useful in their way, and as far as they go. But the whole Church must view itself as a
reat Missionary body. She is such by the very a of lor charter. Societies and organizations, other than the
1859.] Our Domestic Missionary System. 401
Church, are useful for concentrating activity upon certain ob- jects; but the whole organization of the Church itself is the one great Society to perform this specific labor. It was so in- tended by our Lord. The spread of the Gospel was not to be merely or mainly by the instrumentality of books, but of men. Such was our Lorp’s provision, in the institution of His Church, with its Apostl-s, and Evangelists, and Pastors and Teachers, at a time when all the world was the field for what we now call Missionary action. Such, too, is the Institution which is to continue, until every one is gathered in; for as the wants and needs of men are the same in all ages, so the provision to meet those wants must be the same, and the Church must preserve the same character with which it was first instituted, itself the Missionary Society, “whose field is the world,” whose duty is to pluck man as a brand from the burning, and to keep him till the day of the Lord Jesus.
The relation of the Church to mankind, therefore, is two- fold; first, as gathering them from without; second, as pro- tecting, guarding, and teaching them when brought within her fold. The first relation is the Missionary, the second the Pas- toral. The one has as the subjects of its action the unbap- tized and unconverted. The other has the baptized and the communicants. In the one relation, the Church’s business is to change the whole current of thought and feeling, which sets earthward till it runs heavenward ; neither more nor less than to work, under the Grace of God, a complete moral and spiritual revolution. In the other relation, its business is to build up disciples in their most holy Faith. The subject of the Missionary action of the Church has not received the Faith, nor professed himself bound to it. He is alien from the covenant, and governed by the thoughts and max- ims of the world that is at enmity against God. He therefore has no right to be a judge of Gop’s truth, or to control in Gop’s Charch. The Church comes to him, like Ezekiel the prophet, with a message to deliver, whether he will hear or whether he will forbear, and that message is one which requires in him an entire change, before he can be acceptable to God. But, in the Pastoral relation, the convert brought into the Fold of the Church has received the Faith; he professed at his Bap- tism its everlasting obligation, as well as his resolution of obe- dience to God’s commandments, and solemnly renounced all the works of the devil, the world and the flesh. He therefore has become a part of the Church; like every other member, clerical or lay, is interested in the preservation of the doc- trine, the purity of the discipline, and the solemnity of the
VOL. XII.—NO. Ill. 26
402 Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct., worship. He is pledged to it, and is therefore trustworthy under those pledges, which define the extent of his action, and which furnish a rule by which he himself may be judged, should he attempt innovation or corruption. To him, there- fore, the custody of the Faith has been committed, and since it has been committed to him, he must have a certain degree of power in the Church to execute his commission. St. Paul, writing to the Galatians, gives two tests of the Gospel: “ that which we have preached,” and “ that ye have received.” The meeting of these tests is when the Church asks the candidate for Baptism, “ Dost thou believe ?” and the answer is, “ I do;” the Church then propounds “ that which it has preached,” and the candidate professes that that is it, “ which he has re- ceived.” Between the Ministry commissioned by Christ to preach, therefore, and the Laity who have the duty to con- tinue in “that they have received,” the power in the Church is divided. Now, power to be permanent must be of the es- sence of the Church, and therefore consists in an ability to ive or withhold something without which she cannot exist. Without a Ministry she cannot exist; and, in like manner, without the means of support, the Ministry cannot give their whole time to the preaching of the Word and the administra- tion of the Sacraments. The power of Ordination inherent in the Episcepate, the fountain of Ministerial authority, gives to the Ministry the instrumentality by which to do their part in reserving hereatter that which heretofore “they have preach- ed ;” while the coéperative principle inhering in the Laity ives them their influence in the preservation of “that they iave received.” There is thus a mutual check on the part of both Orders, by which the purity of the Gospel is preserved. There is a Ministry of Apostolic authority; and there is the dependence of that Ministry for codperation and for support upon those, and those only, who are subjects of the Church’s pastoral care. Hence the distinction of our congregations into the Pastoral, the Parish, and the Missionary, the Station.
It will be perceived that we have here a broad distinction between the two modes of action of the Church, the Mission- ary and the Pastoral. Every Clergyman of the Church, in his relation to the world, the unconverted, and the unbaptized, is as much a Missionary as if he was in India or China; inas- much as the inhabitants of those pagan lands differ in no way, except in degree, from the unbaptized in more civilized coun- tries. The un-Christian poet, or professor, the aristocrat of learning and civilization, in the eye of the Church, “ look- ing not at the things which are seen,” is as truly an alien
1859.] Our Domestic Missionary System. 403
from the Kingdom of Gon, as the poor negro who falls down before his idols on the shores of Africa. Wheresoever, again, there is a baptized person pledged to the vows which the Church requires, there is the subject of her Pastoral care ; and, in like manner, to whatsoever man or woman, nay, to what- soever little infant, the Church administers the holy Sacrament of Baptism in the costliest temple, to these she has come as a Missionary, and all the instruction and warning, and exhorta- tion and pleading that preceded the baptism of the adult, or the Faith that brought the infant to Christ, were as truly Mission- ary operations as the teaching of the expatriated Missionary in a foreign tongue, and to people of another color.
The Missionary work of the Church, therefore, is never done, so long as generations are born to take the place of those who die. We are all Missionaries to the sinner, the unconverted, the un- baptized ; we have a Misston—are “sent” tothem. And, since the labor of teaching and persuading is concentrated in the per- son of the Clergyman, it is our duty to make such provision for the Clergy, that their power shall be exerted to the full extent, and as shall permit no waste. He must have the support and hearty codperation of the Laity, so long as he is approved by the standards to which he is sworn, and is faithful in the discharge of his duty. Nor is there any difference in prin- ciple in this respect between the “self-supporting” Parish, and the Missionary Station. The one, to speak in the language of political economy, is only a Station in which the production equals the consumption. The Church in that Parish supports its Minister; first, indeed as a Pastor over itself; but, also, as a Missionary to the world. The Jfissionary, however, has the same title to a support; not from the localized Church of that particular spot, for there there is none; but from “the Holy Church throughout all the world.” We insist upon this, because we think that much of the inefficiency complained of in our Missionary operations, and our slow progress in building up congregations of devout believers, has arisen from an ignoring of this principle, and from the attempt to spread our resources over too great fields, while we have left the Missionaries too much at the mercy of the world. The Romish Missions, and the Methodist Missions, both of which are eminently successful in their way, are based upon this fundamental principle. This strictly representative character, on the part of its ac- credited agents, is adhered to in all successful corporate bodies, even of a worldly nature. It is only in the Church that we ignore it, as of no importance. If, where the healthy senti- ment of the self-supporting congregation helps the Minister, he
404 Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct.,
is supported by the Church and not by the world, surely there is the more need in the waste places of civilized heathenism that the Missionary, unsustained by the moral force of a congrega- tional public sentiment, shall not be forced to appeal to those for his support who, if they give at all, will give only on their own motives, and for their own purposes, and who will demand of the Clergyman to respect those motives and pur- poses, however contrary to the Gospel they may be.
Hence we have the two ways in which the Missionary is, or should be, supported ; first, by the self-supporting congrega- tion in the firmly established Parish, whose Rector he is; and, second, by the Church at large, through its more distinctively Missionary Organization, in the Missionary Station, where the Communicants are too few for self-support, and conse-
uently for self-government. To furnish men, therefore, in this latter field, fully competent for their labor is the only way to meet the first condition of the economical problem. How to secure the least expenditure of means, is a more difficult question. Our present and ineffective system is, to save as much money as peor by calling in auxiliary funds gath- ered from the places to which the Missionaries are “sent.” But it will still be a question, and is a very grave one, whether there be not a vast waste of power, moral power, and material power also, in thus making our Missionaries dependent on the world. It may, and we believe does, require the exertion of more force to remove the impedi- ments which such a policy puts in its own way, than is generated by the pecuniary means derived from this ex- traneous source. If, however, that auxiliary means could be turned into the channel of supply, as we believe it could, in such a way as not to impede, a great accession of power might be gained by the same expenditure. For, at present, power is lost in two ways; one, by not supplying sufficient means to enlist all the energies of the Missionary; the other, by in- creasing the resisting power, through working at a disadvantage. In other words, loss of power comes by diminished strength within, and by increased resistance without. To give the world the slightest control over the Church, is, as every West- ern Missionary can testify, to weaken our power in both ways, by diminishing the ponerse application of our own principles, and by giving the world a hold for its resisting action against us.
Self-support implies self-government, and gifts imply au- thority. This is a great principle of natural justice. The Bishop, by the gift of Ordination, obtains authority over the ordained ; the Layman, as well by his membership in the
1859.] Our Domestic Missionary System. 405
Church as by the gift-money, obtains authority over the action of the Church. Here is the principle which draws the line between the strictly Missionary Station and the self-supporting Parish, in their relation to the Church at large. The funda- mental idea of Missionary operations, we said, is that the Church is to furnish all, and expect nothing, until the Parish becomes self-sustaining. The subject of Pastoral care is bound to contribute to the extent of his ability, and is entitled to his voice in the self-government of the Church. It is true that in the mutations of human affairs, the line cannot be so dis- tinctly drawn; but there will be men identified with the Church, and perhaps of considerable influence therein, who are of the world; and again, in those places where the ope- ration of the Church is in spirit altogether Missionary, there will be members of the Church, who, on a rigid application of the theory, will temporarily be disfranchised of their rights. Still, if these men have the true spirit of their Mas- ter, they will never desire to overrule the wisdom of the Bishop and the Standing Committee, or other Ecclesiastical authority to whom the care of the Missionary field is com- mitted ; it is better that that franchise be yielded up to them, than to the world. Nor, on the other hand, can it be sup- posed that we shall get to working so perfectly, in the best state of the Church, that in the self-supporting Parish all worldly inflnence will be entirely excluded. In mechanics there is always a margin left for friction, and yet the mathe- matics are as carefully studied as if capable of the most rigid application. Where the Pastoral relation predominates, the Parish may be considered, in respect of support, exclusively Pastoral ; where the Missionary relation tos «2a bray it must be looked upon, in an economical point of view, as altogether Missionary. The practical test, therefore, of the classification into one or the other division will be the capacity for self- support. In the one case, the Missionary activity will be de- pendent on the Church’s inward government of itself; in the other it will be dependent on its policy toward those without. The one, as a community, has an interest in “that it has received,” which implies a certain responsibility in preserv- ing it; the other has as yet received nothing, therefore has no interest in preserving anything.
On the part of the Church at large, therefore, a different policy must be pursued towards each of these two classes of congregations. The one is to be admitted to all the rights necessary for the working of a federal body, such as the visible Church is, in order to preserve the Faith from usurpation by
406 Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct.,
any class within ; the other, as a class, ought to be as jealously excluded, that there be no invasion from without. In the self- supporting Parish, the Missionary operations will be independ- ent of the world, but dependent on the working of the Parish, and controlled by the authorities of the Parish, Clerical and Lay ; and the Clerical instrumentality will be rightly designa- ted by the elective method. But at the Missionary Station— where the operations must be equally independent of the world—they should depend, not upon a Parish, though there may be one organized for secular purposes, but on the Dio- cesan authorities. The Missionary is not elected, but appointed. He is not paid by, or responsible to, those to whom he is sent, but those who send him. This we count to be the general statement of the Church’s position as Christ’s Missionary body, sent to convert the world.
Taking this broad view of our responsibilities as a Church, we see that our Missionaries are, in relation to the world, what their name indicates, “sent”? men—not called, or hired, or employed, by those to whom they minister as Missionaries ; but “sent” by the Church, through its constitutional anthori- ties ; and ministering, therefore, under a commission derived from it, for the due fulfillment of which they are to it responsi- ble. Such is in theory our Missionary attitude; to such a theory should our practice conform. We dismiss from consid- eration all Societies, whether for the West or the East, and we look to the Church’s taking practically this position; One Church, working in Unity, in one way,-—by that instrumen- tality which is, of its essence, for the conversion of the world to Christ. We are not to gather men into Christ’s Fold by flatter- ing their vanity, or yielding to their prejudices, or lowering to their mark, or truckling to their trade; we are to convert them to the Faith; and, until thus converted, they are better, and the Church is better, while they are without and not within. Therefore it is we urge a reform in our policy of appropriating a small portion of the salary of the Missionary from our funds, leaving him mainly dependent on the people to whom he is sent for the rest. Detter, far better, as many a Missionary will testify, that our Missionary force be reduced and our means concentrated, than that so many failures and so much expend- iture be incurred, before self-supporting Parishes are built up in our Domestic field. But we believe the system which we advocate will result in no reduction of our forces, and will, at the same time, ensure success, where hitherto there has been partial or total failure. Our Committee in New York, good men and true, may yet not fully appreciate the genius
1859.] Our Domestic Missionary System. - 407
and spirit of the Western and Southern people on our vast frontiers. There are failures in our system. The Church is closed, the Services suspended, the world exults over the failure, the awakened stray off to other denominations, the congregation scatters, and the good that has been done is lost ; and all because the Church has not been able to water that which she has planted. This, then, is our first proposition. Let us have men “sent” to their posts, and means sent with them, to enable them to stay there, until the self-supporting Parish is built up like an impregnable garrison, able to hold and defend itself without the subsidies of the Church at large, and becoming by contributions an increaser of the power and not a consumer.
The two things necessary, therefore, are the men and the means. And the one is as necessary asthe other. Tosend the men is the part of the Ministry,—the Bishops ; to furnish the means, the part of the Laity. No man can be “sent” as a Missionary with full powers till he be ordained, and the lim- itation of Ordination to the Bishops, in the Divine institution of the Church, points out that chief Officer as the fountain of authority in sending men to work in the Vineyard. By the original commission of Curist, the Bishop, therefore, 1s the head of the Missionary field in his Diocese; and there can rightly be no field of usefulness for a Missionary which is not under Episcopal government. It is his part, aided it may be by his constitutional advisers, the Standing Committee, to appoint the men and to distribute the means. We believe the true working of the Church, in its Missionary Stations, vitally depends on this power of the Bishop remaining invio- late. The self-supporting Parish has its sphere of action; and in that sphere the first of its rights is the right to call such a man, approved by Episcopal Ordination, as it may have confi- dence in, to preach the truth “it has received.” That power of calling, dependent on the pledged support, is the recogni- tion of the interest which the baptized communicants have in the preservation of the Faith; as the necessity of Ordination is the safeguard and seal of the authority of the ministry for the preservation of “that which they have preached.” But when the Parochial authorities have exercised their right in their own sphere, it is not theirs to enter, where no such Parish organization exists, any more than to usurp authority in another Parish. Nor does their contribution of means for this outward object afford any argument for such invasion. Con- sistency requires that confidence be reposed in that govern- ment to which the Charch has committed this care. It belongs to cach self-supporting Parish to take care of its own territory ;
408 Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct.,
and where selfsupporting Parishes are wanting, there the jurisdiction belongs to the Bishops, and there is, therefore, no authority to send or call, but his, whose authority extends over all his Diocese. The man must be “sent ;” the sending power is the Bishop, to whose care those souls are committed, that they perish not. And surely, if the vows and responsi- bilities of his solemn Consecration are not sufficient safeguards for the performance of his duty, under the government of the supreme Council of the Church, the irresponsible, unpledged, unconsecrated, private individual, furnishes a far less guaran- tee that he will take care, in assuming control over any part of the Missionary field, that there be preached the Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel.
This, then, is our System. The Clergyman is the head of the Parish or Missionary Station ; the Bishop, the head of the Diocese and Clergymen ; and the National Church, the head of the Bishop, and, to a certain extent, of the Diocese. The first authority is represented to us by the fact, that no Parish can make a Clergyman, but only elect and receive one. The second is represented by the passing of every head under the hand of a Bishop. And the third, the controlling power over the Bishop, by the Conciliar consecration required by the Canons. Th no other way, than by this subordination of authority, can the unity of the Church be retained. If the Parish were not dependent on the Diocese for the Ordination of its Minister, or if the Diocese were independent of the Church in obtaining a Bishop, the Church could exercise no control in guarding from heresy, or compe down wrong prin- ciples. It is not, “ we will support this man as a preacher, or lecturer, or man of talent ;” but “we will support this man as an Ordained Minister.” When the self-supporting Parish, therefore, furnishes within its own borders the means for carrying on Missionary operations within its own borders, it is the joint part of the Bishop and the Parish, the Rector being as soaaiee ” as a Pastor, to “send” him as a Missionary. Where it isthe “Station,” to which this Missionary is to be sent, the responsibility falls wholly upon the Bishop, as pos- sessing the only lawful jurisdiction. And it is therefore his business to send or appoint, as our Bishops do, under the Con- stitution of the Domestic Board, the men who shall labor there. And since the National Church is the head of the Bishop, it devolves upon it, in its Conciliar action, to appoint Missionary Bishops ; for as the Bishop sends Priests, the Church in Gunn esade Bishops, and none but Bishops, since there is no other Conciliar consecration, and there is no part of the Missionary field where the Church, as such, can carry on
1859.]} Our Domestic Missionary System. 409
operations, which is not under the charge of a Bishop. There cannot rightly be any such place; for there can be no self- supporting Parish, not under a Bishop, and yet in communion with the Church, no Presbyter who can emancipate Limself from the control of all Bishops by rightly going where none has jurisdiction, no Missionary Station rightly receiving aid from the Church, but by the accredited and fully competent authority of him who has been by consecration put in charge of that field. This is an auuutil rinciple, entering into the very nature of our whole Church ~~. If the Laity, be- cause they have means, have the right to send men where they choose, and such men as they choose, how can the Bishops fulfill their vows according to their conscience, to drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine? If Voluntary Societies are to be a “ power behind the throne,” the case is in no way different. The authority is taken away from him who is made responsible for that authority by his Ordination vows, and is given to those who, by their voluntary associa- tion, are utterly irresponsible. On all sound principles, the means can be rightly furnished only in codperation with that power which has the authority to commission men ; and there- fore, the way to dispense the means is by that recognition of the authority of those who have our Lord’s Commission to watch over His heritage, which the Domestic Committee affords to the Bishops in dispensing the means flowing in upon them according to his nomination, or, what would be still better, by his sole appointment.
The question, then, whence are to come the men who labor in the Missionary field, is thus answered. They must be em- aay by the Church, sent by the Church, paid by the Church.
irst, the Church, in her Conciliar action, and by her Conciliar consecration, is pointed out as the authority to furnish Bishops only for every part of the Missionary field. We say Bishops only ; because the fact of Ordination puts the mission of the Priest into the hands of some one Bishop, having jurisdiction : and the way, therefore, for the Church to take any territory under its jurisdiction, is to send there a Bishop over whom the Church has authority, and by whom she governs the field. Secondly, the Bishop sends Priests—over the self-supporting congregation, in the Pastoral relation, by the codrdinate power held in connection with the elective liberty on the tag of the congregation. And, thirdly, the Bishop alone sends Ministers to those Stations where (they not being in a Parish, but com- prehended in the Diocese) there is no codrdinate body of bap- tized and communicating Laity; and he is the only one who has jurisdiction.
410 Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct.,
The next thing to be considered, therefore, is the means and its attainment. And the first principle to be borne in mind is, that in complete systems the happy result depends on all parts working harmoniously. Because the Laity hold the purse, they must not despise the authority of those who hold the keys. And they who hold the keys cannot carry on their operations without the codperation of those who hold the purse. The authority, therefore, that furnishes the men being preserved, it is clearly the duty of those who furnish the means to support these men according to their ability. In primitive days, “they laid the money at the Apostles’ feet ;” strange that now our modern piety should strive to cast them off altogether.
Nor need objection be taken by our jealous republicanism, looking at every such proposition as containing the seeds of despotism. For our Diocesan, as well as our Parochial minis- trations, are guarded by the most insurmountable forces of re- publican supervision. Missionary Bishops are elected by the representatives of the whole Church in General Convention. They are the choice of the people, most solemnly designated ; they are the approved of the Ministry, most solemnly ordained. Diocesan Bishops have the same relation to their Diocese that the Pastors of our Parochial congregations have to their flucks. They are elected, as worthy of the confidence of the people, to administer those very functions, and they bear, in addition, the commendation of the whole Church with which they are in communion, testified by their consecration. To such, the apportionment of the means, (with the advice of the Standing Committee,) by the designation of the men who should re- ceive them, is due, as the administrative heads of the Chureh— if upon no higher principle, still upon that small measure of courtesy that is extended not merely to Bishops, but to the criminal at the bar, since he is presumed still to inherit the confidence once reposed in him, until proved unworthy of it. Granted that A, B, and C, may have an itching to get hold of Stations in his Diocese, under the pretext that the Bishop holds principles contrary to the true doctrine of the Church. The Church does not accredit those suspicions, or it would suspend him. If Churchmen give for the sake of Missionary opera- tions, they give not to the individual, but tothe Church. And if the Church be anything more than a mere sect, if she is really large enough, and broad enough, to hold in her bosom different shades of opinion, she is liberal enough also to furnish men with means, from a common source, to carry on, to the best of their understanding, conscience, and ability, the work
1859.]} Our Domestic Missionary System. 411
of any Office to which they may be called, with her approba- tion, doubly testified by election and Ordination.
This is then our policy with regard to the men sent into the field, and it is one in harmony with which we would see all our Domestic Missionary operations conducted. We do desire to see a total reconstruction of the system on which our means are dispensed. That system is, to aid a certain number of Mis- sionaries from the Domestic, a few others from the Diocesan Committee, with a stated sum, divided pro rata out of the amount raised in, or appropriated to, the Diocese. The result is, all are more or less dependent on the world, and responsible to divided, not tosay diverse, authorities. We urge that Domestic and Diocesan Missionary Funds, together with the means deriv- ed from each Station, as far as the people there appreciate the blessings of the Gospel. should be auxiliary the one to the other, and should come to the Missionary at one time, through one chan- nel, imposing but one responsibility. In this view, the means furnished by the Church come in two ways ; either wholly from within. the district, in the case of the self-supporting Parish, or, in the ease of the Missionary Station, wholly from without the district. Wesay, wholly from without, because, while it is im- peratively necessary that the Station from the first be educated to contribute, it will be better that that contribution be received not by the Missionary, but by the Diocesan authority. We say, Diocesan authority, for while we claim as the principle of our Communion the fact of our Unity, we contend also that it infers no complete centralization. By the nature of our outward visi- ble existence as a Church, we must have as many centres of aid, hearts fur the circulation and distribution of the means, as we have of procuring and authorizing men. Physiologists tell us, that in the human body the digestive system is for the sake of the blood, and the venous and arterial system for the sake of the muscular, and the muscular for the sake of the nervous, and the nervous for the sake of the mind. So the system of means in the Church must be subordinate to the system of men, framed on the same analogy, and meeting at the proper points of contact. A central Committee, exercising adminis- trative control over the heads of Bishops, in their own Mission- ary fields, is contrary to the genius of the Church. It is in reality a Missionary Pope. By administrative control, we mean, that communication with the Priest, Parish, or Station, which in any case sets the Lishop aside while he remains a Bishop in good standing. As, for instance, if the Canons require a Church to be visited, and the Bishop neglect to per- form the duty, no other Bishop,—not the General Convention itself, if we understand the genius of the Church’s Constitu-
412 Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct.,
tion aright,—can enter that Diocese and visit that Church. It must govern through the Bishop, or it must, by deposition or suspension, sever his connection with the Diocese, and make it as if there were no Bishop there, and then appoint a Bishop who will obey the Canons. The analogy holds, and more than holds, with the Central Committee, whose business it is to mediate between those parts of the Church which abound, and those which lack. It is but an accountant, a heart whose functions are mechanical entirely; it has to do with the recep- tion of means, and their disbursements to those whom the = authorities of the Church designate as the —-
ence the Central Committee has for its business to gather as much means as possible from the Church, and to distribute it honestly and faithfully, rendering an account of every penny contributed. It is a treasurer of the Missionary F ol, and nothing more. High, or Low, or Broad, it has no right to work its machinery in any other way than according to the needs of the Diocese or Missionary jurisdiction to which it may have money to apportion, no matter who may be the Bishop. If Bishop Mcllvaine, or Bishop Kemper, be worthy of the confidence of the Church, he is worthy of the confidence of that Committee, or of any other, which presumes to act for the whole Church. As the Episcopal Council deals with Bishops exclusively, and consecrates only Bishops, the Central Committee should deal with Dioceses only, irrespective of opinions, and should consider only whether the authorities hold their official position under the Canons and with the approbation of the Church. It is their business only to calcu- late what the relative needs of Ohio and Wisconsin are, and how much money they have, or can procure to appropriate to them. And this, unless we are mistaken, is exactly the policy of the Committee, and the method upon which they have acted heretofore. Their action upon that principle is not in the least vitiated, because they retain the disbursement of the funds to the individual Missionary in their own hands, instead of paying it over to the Treasurer of the Diocesan Missions, and because they require reports from the Missionary once in six months. They have a right to know that the Missionary gets the money, and they are but fulfilling the part of faithful accountants. It istheir duty to receive from the abounding, and disburse to the needy Dioceses, the means held by the Church in common, and when this is done, their action is com- plete. To do this, one central, one Domestic Missionary Com- mittee is necessary ; without zt, or evith more than one, the Church, as the Church, cannot do her work in being a Mission- ary to the world.
1859.] Our Domestic Missionary System. 413
And here, in passing, we may reply to Mr. Wharton’s Pamphlet, that no argument drawn from our Mother Church of England, in favor of diverse Missionary operations and more than one agency, will hold good on this side of the water, from the fact, that such “ Voluntary ” Societies are the attempts of individuals to remedy the false position of the English Church, in not being precisely what we are. The English Church is both a State Church, and a National Church. Hitherto it has supposed it could do nothing which is not ruled by the State, and, as a Church, it has no care of any part of the Vineyard of the world outside of the realm of England. Asa Church therefore, it has ignored completely its Missionary duty ; and, therefore, when more than a centur and a half ago, some of its members woke up to a sense of their responsibility, they could exert themselves in no way but by “voluntary” association. Bishop Selwyn, Bishop Gray, and other of her Colonial Bishops, with their several Synods, are now taking nobler and more Scriptural ground, and with at least the connivance of the Authorities at home. But, in our own American Church, all these disabilities have been unknown from the very first. As for arguments from the policy of Rome, we may well leave them to our disagreeing friends, one of whom in by-gone days was John Henry Newman; merely re- marking, that the policy of Rome for a long time before and after the Council of Trent, was to break down the Bishops b monk-Clergy responsible to their Abbots, by begging Fri- ars responsible to their Generals, by Jesuits, and by any and every expedient that should make the Papacy what Sectism, in all its furms, would like its Institutions to be, a power behind the Bishops, ruling, fettering, and overriding them.
But to return. The Domestic Committee is a medium of com- munication between Diocese and Diocese, and so between the Church and her Missionary fields. It meddles not with Station and Parish, except in little technical matters. The communica- tion of receiving and giving, is indeed immediate; but the real business is transacted, as it should be, between the Committee and the Bishops. The Bishop, therefore, in as far as he must seek for assistance from without his Diocese, turns to the Domestic Committee. But he also wants the various parts of the Dio- cese to help each other. He must therefore have a Diocesan Missionary Committee, as (to carry out the figure) the Aeart of the Diocese, the center of reception and supply. In this way we secure that systematic working of charity which takes care both of the home and the foreign field; which begins at home, but does not stay at home. ‘The Parish takes care of itself; it has its system of circulation within itself, feeding its own
414 Our Domestic Missionary System. [Oct.,
territory ; and it goes without itself to the Diocesan and Do- mestic Committees. So that we may say the Parish is fed by the members of the Church, and the Diocesan Committee by the Parish, and the General Board is fed by the Diceese, and thus the money gets to every centre, and is distributed again where it is needed, from the Central Committee to the Diocese, where it receives the accession of the Diocesan Fund, and the consolidated amount is thence distributed to the Missionaries laboring at their posts.
The Teede Committee, therefore, is rightly the auwa- dliary of the Diocesan; or, if we choose to call the Dio- cesan the auxiliary of the Domestic, it will not much mat- ter. The idea is, that the resources of the Diocese, derived from both, by apportionment and collection, form one com- mon fund, to be employed by the Diocesan authorities, accord- ing to their wisdom, for the good of the Church under their charge. The question arises, [low should this money be used ? The Board of Missions and many others in the Church are calling for its concentration upon “ strong points,” and the better support of Missionaries therein, even though the weak- er, but still needy points, have to go unsupplied. ‘The Bishops, on the other hand, continually pressed with calls for Mission- aries, and feeling the wants of every part of the Diocese, are tempted to spread their resources as widely as possible, by cutting up the aid into the smallest slices, and leaving the Mis- sionary for the rest to the utterly unreliable pledges of the Mis- sionary Stations—pledges which the few Church people evade by the plea of inability, or too often try to make up by dis- honorable as well as honorable expedients. The result of this course is at last confessed discouragement and disheartenment, our Missionaries are worn down; our people in bad repute ; the “imperial attitude” of the Church and her high preten- sions, a matter of ridicule; or else the Church is fettered by the fashionable, the indifferent, and the worldly. We know personally of a case where a Bishop was applied to, by a cler- _— in Pricst’s Orders and good standing, who desired to
now whether there was work for him in the Diocese. The answer he received contained the following: “ The parish at is vacant; they pledge $200, to which I can add $150 (! ! !) from the Missionary Society, $350 in all.” ! ! Another clergyman we could name was a Missionary in a Parish which had received aid for many years; in the winter a “ Donation Party ” was given him, at which people from out- side attended, and gave, under the idea that it would benefit the Clergyman ; but the whole amount, even to a pair @ shoe-strings, was valued and charged upon his salary! Al-
1859.] Our Domestic Missionary System. 415
most every Missionary feels that the only amount upon which he can rely with any certainty is the remittance from the Missionary Board; and we venture to say, there is not one in the field who would not relinquish his present nominal salary, for two-thirds the amount in regular payments from the Com- mittee, on which he could depend. We therefore say, Let the Church do what her first sl principle supposes she does, pay her men altogether, and then send them to the places where their labors would be of most value. Let her consider her means as intended for the support of Missionaries, and not as mere aid to places. Let the place know that the Church will keep the man there, until she tinds out whether the land is fruitful or unfraitful. And let it be a well-understood thing, on all hands, that when once a place is given up for its unprofitableness, labor there will not be resumed until every
art of the kingdom has received or rejected the Mission. Such a high-toned principle will find a response in the hearts ot the people.
Our proposition, therefore, is, that hereafter such a mode of proceeding be inaugurated in our Dioceses as shall truly carry out these principles. They are true, and they are practicable. Let the Churches throughout the country make it a matter of conscience to contribute regularly to the Domestic Committee as the representative of the whole Church. Let that Com- mittee distribute its means fairly to Dioceses, as Dioceses recognizing the right of each to govern itself, whether by High Churchmen or Low Churchmen. If Bishops, or Mis- sionaries, are heretics, degrade them. If they are true to Christ and the Church, sustain them. Let the Committee re- gard only the needs of the Missionary field, and the money at command. Let each Diocese and every congregation give its stated collections to the Diocesan Fund, or to the Domestic Committee ; and then, let the Bishop alone, or the Bishop and the Standing Committee, as the Missionary Board of the Dio- cese, appoint the Missionaries, making their choice from the best men at their command, paying them their full sala- ries, sending them first to the “strongest points,” keeping them there until the Church is built up on her true principles, and filling out the appropriations of the Domestic Committee with their own funds. We believe, then, the question will be practically answered, with which we set out: How to obtain the greatest amount of power with the least expenditure of means? For the men and the means will then be working under the organic law of the Church, the law of her nature, and so, the law most effective to secure the end of her being, the salvation of the world.
Winslow's Moral Philosophy.
Art. IV.—WINSLOW'S MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
Elements of Moral Philosophy, Analytical, Synthetical, and Practical. By Hennas Waseew, D. D., Author of Intel- lectual Philosophy. Third Edition. New York: D. Apple- ton & Company. London: 16 Little Britain. 1859. 12mo. pp. 480.
In the present Article, we can scarcely do more than to no- tice this excellent work upon a most important subject. We should be glad of time and room to discuss some of the more important and comprehensive questions which any work on Moral Philosophy should presuppose—the discussion of which, however, could hardly be ineluded in a book designed for the popes which Dr. Winslow seems to have had in view when 1e wrote.
While coinciding with our author in the main, we have some fault to find in the outset with his analysis and classifica- tion of the motive powers and influences which act in deter- mining man’s conduct. Still, however, his analysis is an im- provement, in its approach towards the utmost of simplicity and completeness, upon any that we have before seen. These faults, however, do not exert any very serious influence on the general tenor of the book, or materially impair its usefulness ; they scarce do more than make it somewhat less clear, less precise, and less concise, though in all these respects it is a _ improvement on any of the preceding works that we
ave seen.
But it has great excellencies in a scientific point of view, to some of which we wish to call attention, as follows:
1. In the Analysis of Conscience, Dr. Winslow treats it as a complex and combination of the functions of the Intelligence (Insight) and the Sensibility, inasmuch as the word, as it is ordinarily used, denotes both the insight and knowled of what is right, and the feeling of obligation to perform it. Dr. Winslow does not regard the Dendshende, considered merely as intelligence or knowledge of right, as being any special faculty or function. He considers it rather as merely a variety of the general function of insight or reason; the same faculty that sees that two and two are four, or that the sum of the
1859.] Winslow's Moral Philosophy. 417
parts is equal to the whole which they constitute, is precisely the same, though acting on other matters, as that which sees, decides and judges, that to speak the truth, to act benevolently, and in good faith, &c., are right, absolutely so; that is, right for all persons, at all times, in all places, if they speak or act at all.
Consistently with this, Dr. Winslow teaches that the ethic emotions follow, depend upon, and are determined by this preceding insight or judgment, so that if we see or judge an act to be right, we feel it to be obligatory; if we see or judge it to be wrong, we feel that it ought to be avoided. But our judgment may be wrong; we may judge an act to be right when it is wrong, as Saul did, when he thought he ought to persecute the Christians. But we may change our opinion of the act; and in that case our feeling towards it will change accordingly, so that what beforehand we felt that we ought to do, because we judged it to be right, we may come to regret exceedingly after it shall have been done, because we have now changed our mind on fuller knowledge of the subject, and have judged it to be wrong.
2. Dr. Winslow teaches that the primary elements of Moral- ity alone, embracing only its more comprehensive principles, are thus matter of insight, and, in their very nature, axiomatic. In these general axioms all agree; to them all minds assent ; and from these axioms, about which there is no doubt, which no man denies or can deny, and from the definitions of acts, in regard to which all the doubts and differences in the moral judgments of men that exist at all, are to be found, we must build up our Moral Science. The analogy between it and Math- ematics is close and striking. In Geometry, for example, all the student has to do is to find what is the application of his self-evident axioms to the figures and objects given by their definitions, with which his science treats. His axiom says that the sum of the parts is equal to the whole, and therefore, when he ascertains the fact that several angles make up the whole of aright angle, or a circle, he knows that they are equal to that right angle, circle, &c., as the case may be. So all men know and judge intuitively, that to speak the truth, if one speaks at all, is right, and when he has ascertained that a cer- tain act comes within this category—truth, or under this rule, he knows that this act is right, and instantly and instinctively Feels that it ought to be done.
Now the great business of Moral Philosophy is to discuss and ascertain the character of groups and classes of acts; acts which are grouped and classed together by their essential and
VOL. XII.—NO. III. 27
418 Winslow's Moral Philosophy. [Oct.,
formal characteristics, and to show whether, by their funda- mental and essential character, they come under these axioms or not. For example, Dr. Winslow, and very properly, makes a broad distinction between acts that are acts of self-love, and those that are acts of selfishness ; and the moment he has pointed out the essential difference between the two classes of acts, it becomes instantly obvious, that self-love, a proper regard for one’s own true welfare and happiness, is right, and even ob- ligatory, while selfishness, which consists in, or at least always involves, the sacrifice of the rights and welfare of others for some mere transient gratification of ourselves, is always and invariably, (always and invariably, because from the nature of the case,) necessarily, wrong.
Morality regards man, not merely as he is, but as he is re- lated to other persons and things; not individually and alone, but as in action. His duties Sepend upon his relations, and an act, or a class of acts, are seen to be right or wrong, just as they are seen to be conducive or otherwise to the order and welfare of this whole, of which he is a living and acting part; and veracity, benevolence, fidelity, &c., are seen to be, to the moral world, what gravity, &c., are in the natural world. Bodies gravitate in proportion to their quantity of matter, and inversely as the square of their distance; because so, and so only, can harmony and order be preserved amongst them without an arbitrary interposition of personal force on the part of the Creator and Governor of the world: and, with such an interpo- sition, it would not be a universe or Cosmos at all, in any proper sense of those words. Precisely so, veracity, as a law of inter- communication with one another, is the only law and condition on which there can be any society among intelligent beings who are moral agents. Hence the moralist should investigate the sphere of veracity, see what acts it includes, and why; and, precisely so far as it does this, it will determine for us what is our duty, to the extent at least to which our duty de- pends upon absolute and immutable principles, rather than upon positive enactments and the commands of God.
8. To one more point, as essential and fundamental in any system of Moral Philosophy, will we call attention; namely, the broad distinction between the moral quality of an act, and the guilt or innocence of the agent. The character of an act is determined by its nature, which is but another name for its relations and tendencies, &c., as just specified, and is wholly independent of the motives and intentions of the agent, while these motives, intentions, &c., are an essential element in con- stituting the guilt or innocence of the agent. One may cer-
1859.] Winslow’s Moral Philosophy. 419
tainly do a right and proper act from a wrong motive ; and vice versa, one may do an act that is wrong and ought not to be done at all, from the very best of motives. St. Paul, when as Saul he persecuted the Church, thinking that by that very act he was doing God service, is an example of the latter kind; and those persons of whom the same Apostle speaks (Phil. i, 16) when he says that they preached Christ of envy and strife, thinking to add affliction to his bonds, clearly afford an exam- ple of the other kind. No one will doubt that the act of —— Christ was a good one, an act that ought to have
een performed. But we may certainly doubt whether the performance of it, from such motives, envy and strife, could either improve the moral status of the agent, or secure for him the approbation and favor of God.
Hence it is evident, that a person may be innocent while doing wrong, that is, justifiable even in the performance of unjust acts, and guilty when doing right ; the character of the act being one thing, and the character of the agent being another; and although they will always, to a considerable ex- tent, coincide, so that he nf does right will be righteous, and he who does wrong will be guilty, yet the connection is not a necessary one; nor do we believe it to beso constant as is gen- erally supposed. We believe, on the other hand, that there is far more of good intention in the world than the amount of wrong doing actually committed would indicate, and also that there isa vast amount of what is right and proper in itself done from motives of self-interest, and even of malignity, to such an ex- tent as to vitiate the moral character of the agent in that act, and cause him to be consigned to the perdition of the ungodly. Our Lord assures us, that in the day of judgment many will appear before Him, claiming to have done many good and even wonderful works in His name, whom, however, he will reject ; not, as we are led to believe, because they had not done the works, but because they had not done them in His Spirit, or with the right motive. It is the dignity of man, the crowning glory of humanity, that it can, unlike the brutes, rise above the mere instinctive impulses of his nature and natural constitution, choose, from his knowledge of them, and in view of their real character, the objects he will pursue, select his means in re- ference to the object he has chosen, and direct his energies of body and soul towards the accomplishment of that object, and thus live above the world, while he lives in it, a rational life while living in the body. But to do this there must be a con- stant exercise of the reason, that we may know what ought to be done, what is right in itself, and its relations to the grand
420 Winslow's Moral Philosophy. [Oct.,
totality of the universal Cosmos, and a constant watchfulness of self to see that ows motives are right, and that we are — this high, holy, and impersonal object from high and holy mo- tives, instead of making the mere projections of our low, nar- row, and perhaps selfish ends the objects for which we live and act, from no other motives than the mere constitutional force of the animal sensibility. It is, however, very seldom that any one act, when regarded as a means to any given end, can be judged of or decided upon -by any single observation, or from a single point of view. very act, or at least nearly every one, has natural conse- quences of its own over and above any with which we may choose to connect it, as a means, in our small providence of affairs, which consequences are often of so much importance as to compe! us to reject, as in no case allowable, the very thing, which, so far as we can see, is the most direct and effi- cient as a means to the end we have in view. Such is of course the case with all acts that come within the categories of fraud, malignity, profanity, &c. No such acts may be per- formed for any end. It is common to speak of them as wrong in themselves, or absolutely wrong. But such expressions are absurd. An act in itself, aside from its influences and rela- tions in general, has no moral character. Hence its character is always relative. But the expressions, “ right in themselves,” and “absolutely right,” denote a class which needs some dis- criminating epithet. The acts commonly designated by those qualities, are those that are always right; acts that can be brought into no colligation or combination, when they may be left undone, or their contraries done in their stead; acts of such a character that either themselves or nothing must be done ; as, for example, to speak the truth if one speaks at all. To speak at all, may be wrong in some cases; but the fault of the act, if we speak at all, does never arise from the truthful- ness of what is said.
Hence, in all cases, each act must first be considered in its most general character, and, if found to be right or wrong in that view, it must be so held and regarded, irrespective of its relation to any subordinate end we may have in view, and in relation to which we may be disposed to regard it merely as a means. One who is guided in his choice of acts by this more general view, is a man of high moral character. One who neglects it, and considers all acts only as means to his ends, is a man of narrow views, and of a low moral character, subor- dinating, so far as he can, not only truth and justice and right to his own personal ends, but also the interests, happiness, and
1859.] Winslow's Moral Philosophy. 421
welfare of other intelligent beings, and even the Providence and attributes of God Himself, so far as he can, to the pigmy almightiness of the worthless worm whose vision takes in nothing that can make him forget self in a generous devotion to something higher.
This brings us to a point in which we shall differ from Dr. Winslow. In what does the righteousness of the agent con- sist? Inthe choice, or in the constitutional tendencies, which are anterior to choice, and constitute its emotional antecedent ? Or in both? That choice isa moral act, no one can doubt. But does its morality, its guilt or innocence, and so the re- sponsibility of the agent, begin with choice? This, we believe, is Dr. Winslow’s theory. It is, as our readers will understand, the New School or Taylor theory, as opposed to the Old School or Tyler theory, among the Presbyterians. We take it to be beyond all question, that “Sin,” in the Scripture sense of the word, is an attribute of man’s nature, in his present fallen con- dition, as well asa quality that may be aftirmed of his acts. If any one doubts that man’s proclivity to transgression is called Sin by the sacred writers, let him consult Rom, v. and vu. chapters. Referring to transgression, St. Paul says: “ Now then, it is no more I that do it, but Srv that dwelleth in me.” St. Paul has been guilty of no such solecism as to make the mere quality of an act, or a series of them, to be the agent and cause (occasional or efficient) of their performance. Nor do we think that there can be any better ground for doubting that this “Sin,” which is thus an attribute of our fallen nature, is the ground of a condemnation and natural exclusion from the favor of God; so that man is condemned for his nature, and “by nature a child of wrath.”
Now if we are right in this, theologically sin and guilt do not depend upon or reside in the will and choice alone, but in the nature, the feelings, the constitutional emotions, appe- tites, affections, and desires of man, as well. And we are cer- tainly inclined to take this view, also ethically and on philo- sophical grounds. Whatever in man tends to evil is wrong. It makes a part of man’s character. It is one of the qualities or properties by which we judge of him here, and by which he will be judged at last. If man is so constituted, that the emo- tions excited in him by the objects around him, that is, so con- stituted that his natural appetites, affections, or desires would lead him wrong, there must be something wrong in him. The influence of surrounding objects, their attractions and repul- sions, &c., keep all else but man in the right way. Whether we regard the inanimate masses of matter, of which the earth
422 Winslow's Moral Philosophy. [Oct.,
is composed, or the animals that are guided by mere instinct, we find them obeying the laws of their being. And we infer, that if sach objects exert an influence in any different direction upon man, the fault must be in himself, and not in them. To say that he is endowed with reason and will, so that he can counteract these tendencies to wrong, does not in the least change their character, though it does undoubtedly greatly change Ais position and responsibilities. That there is some such discrepancy in man that his appetites, desires, &c., excited by objects around him, would often lead him to sin without the restraints of reason, and do sometimes so lead him even with those restraints, admits of no doubt. This discord, as we believe, confirms the doctrine of the Fall, and shows man to be in an abnormal, depraved condition.
Still, however, this is rather a questioa affecting the theoret- ical accuracy of Dr. Winslow's book, than the soundness of its practical teachings. There are, besides, a few topics that are necessary to a thorough and complete treatise of Moral Science, which are wholly omitted, or but slightly discussed in the book before us. Of these, perhaps the most important, and certainly the most difficult, is that which pertains to the limitation of man's responsibility. It is easy enough to show, that benevo- lence is a duty, and that the specified form of benevolence which gives away a portion of one’s income or possessions to the relief of the destitute or necessitous, is a duty. But where does this duty end? What are the limits of our obligations in that direction? A limit there must be, or no man can be inno- cent with so much as a dollar in his pocket, since there never is a time when there is not some suffering, in body or soul, or both, from hunger, ignorance, &., which his dollar would help to relieve. And if we hold that compassion is absolute, that the obligation to give can cease only when the last penny is gone, or there is no longer sufferer or suffering to be relieved, the right of private ownership is at once at an end.
Bat we have already exceeded the limits which we at first set to our Article, and we close by saying, that although Dr. Winslow’s book is not quite so exhaustive of its subject, nor quite so thoroughly condensed, as we could wish to see a book on that subject, and although these peculiarities will operate to some extent as an obstacle to their finding their way into our higher Colleges as text-books to be used there, it is proba- bly all the better calenlated for that much wider sphere, for which it was more especially designed, general reading, and the unnumbered scores of Schools and Academies throughout our land. And to all such institutions we heartily commend
1859.] Winslow’s Moral Philosophy. 423
it, as being, in our estimation, the most sound, the most salu- tary in its influence, and the most satisfactory in its account of man’s nature and duties, of any which the Press has yet given to the public. There is everywhere manifest a purity of heart, an earnestness of purpose, a love of truth, which work upon the heart of the student, and render a most salutary moral im- pression in favor of virtue, at the same time as this course of thought leads him to see most clearly, not only what is the right way, but also why it isso. This moral influence of the work we regard as a matter of special importance. And in this respect, as well as the many others we have specified, we regard Br. Winslow’s as far surpassing all others.
God’s Sovereignty in the Gospel.
Art. V.—GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY IN THE GOSPEL.
1. Presbyterian Confession of Faith, Chap. II. 2. Cambridge and Saybrook Confessions of Faith, Chap. III. 3. Baptist Confession of Faith, Chap. III. London: 1688.
Tue subject which we introduce to the attention of our readers is one which formerly was of great and absorbing in- terest with several of the prominent sects in the theological world; but which, partly by the ascendency of new points of controversy, and partly through a prudent sensibility to the mischievous tendencies of the prevailing mode of treat- ment, seems now to be put in the shade. ‘The subject is that of the Sovereianty or Gop. Only a few years ago this was the great burden of discussion in a large proportion of the dis- courses delivered by divines, learned and unlearned, among three at least of the larger sects—the Congregational, the Presbyterian, and the Baptist. And such was the usual style of discussion, and such were the principles maintained, that people of plain, unpledged, and unprej slleed minds were not able to see how the common doctrine differed from that of downright fatalism. Hence arose distraction in religious societies, and hence a subdivision of sects.
Latterly, without any acknowledged change in the old dog- matic Confessions of Faith, known as those of Westminster, Cambridge, and Saybrook, there has been a more guarded style of preaching and teaching; a style less adventurous, less blunt, and less parodoxical. Still, the old Calvinistic System, we apprehend, is in no sense abandoned or finally disposed of. And in the course of revolving cycles the old controversy may at short notice come up again, and run as vigorous a course as ever.
In the mean time, it becomes the duty of the friends of sound, scriptural truth, to persevere in those studies, and to exercise themselves in those illustrations of doctrine, by which the ways of God to man may be clearly vindicated, and by which, in the minds of His sinful creatures, the conviction of the righteousness of both His exactions and His inflictions may be made strong and deep. Using this “ faithful dili-
1859.] God’s Sovereignty in the Gospel. 425
gence,” they will be prepared to withstand the effects of error, whenever and however error may reappear.
Under impressions quickened by a considerations, and not unmindful of the fact, that we have never in the course of our labors brought the subject under formal discussion, we call the attention of our readers to the Sovereienty or Gop, received as a principle to be acknowledged and proclaimed in connection with and in relation to the eternal salvation of men.
We may be allowed to remark, that, in general, to exhibit divine truth as a naked abstraction, like a theorem in Geom- etry, or to attempt the diffusion of knowledge by the simple statement of first principles, is not the best method for imparting instruction, or for giving aid in the acquisition of new ideas on difficult subjects. Truth is essentially a spirit—a subtle spirit—but is not effectively and fruitfully known in the mere thought and conception of speculative minds. Her exceed- ing excellence in certainty, purity, beatty, and loveliness, is more clearly and intelligently apprehended, when clothed in the facts of Divine dispensations, and exhibited in forms cognizable by human observation and experience. In confor- mity with this, the theologian shows what God 7s, by throwing the light of illustration on what /Ze does ; and what man is, by holding up to view his life and conduct. In giving the results of our studies and meditations on the subject proposed, we shall endeavor not to lose sight of this consideration.
In presenting our views of the Sovereignty of God, contem- lated in its relation to the work of Redemption, we shall use anguage with freedom, though, we trust, with a reasonable
approximation to logical precision. In the minds of the friends of Calvinistic theology our language, as well as the boldness of our thoughts, may occasion some solicitude as respects the honor and the infiniteness of the Divine character. In many persons the spirit of inquiry is paralyzed by a fear, lest, in the attribute of Sovereignty, God should not receive the honor due to His exalted Name, and lest man should assert the power of doing something, which would or could defeat the counsel of God, or render it impossible for Him to execute His own wili. Some preachers and writers, if language has an established meaning, have gone so far as in effect to make Him the determiner and performer of sin—lest He should lose the honor of being a Sovereign over all beings and all actions. In —_ strange forms are the laws of mind sometimes devel- oped !
, In order to our gaining distinct and well defined concep-
Fi
426 God’s Sovereignty in the Gospel. [Oct.,
tions, which may be identified with our faith in truth, and to e are our minds for comprehending the character of the
od of the Redemptive System, we must give our attention to an important distinction. The reader will see that it is a dis- tinction of the very greatest moment, and that the whole con- troversy must turn upon it.
We must distinguish between the Absolute Sovereignty of God, and that modified or limited Sovereignty, under which He exhibits Himself in the Gospel. We say modified or lim- ited, because nothing can be more evident than that the great principles of Mercy and Grace necessarily imply an arresting of the operation of absolute laws, and the instituting of a new way of dealing with creatures. In Himself, and considered as an Administrator of a physical kingdom, without, reference to His character as a merciful Father to a fallen world, for the salvation of which He has formed a very peculiar and won- derful design, He is, in the highest sense, an Absolute Sover- eign. He possesses illimitable power over all beings and all things. And that power it is right for Him to exercise ac- cording to the counsel of His own will,—or rather according to His own infinite reason—to produce or destroy, to kill or to make alive. It is perfectly impossible to conceive of anythin more absolute and saconedlilte and above all question oa all accountability, than this dominion of the Great Supreme. Is it His will to create a world? The Angels look out, and there it is. Is it His will to make one a wold of flaming light and heat, and to send other worlds, by an appropriate Jaw, in ceaseless revolution around it? “ He apes the word, and they were made; He commanded, and it stood fast.” “ He appointed the moon for certain seasons, and the sun knoweth his going down.” Every created being and thing received originally its measure of existence and its law of action from Him. And it is a sufficient reason for any part of His work, that it was His will to have it thus, and not otherwise.
If any one calls on us to account for the existence of the sere constitution of nature, we say at once, we know of no ight beyond this, and can ascend no higher in knowledge. It is what it is, because He willed it. “ His counsel must stand, and He will do all His pleasure.” All other wills and all other powers in the universe cannot reverse it, nor remove a single atom from the place to which he appointed it.
Such is the Sovereignty of God in nature, a Sovereignty absolute, undivided, o unlimited. He is, in the highest and
simplest of possible forms of affirmation, “all in all.” And no creature can subsist a moment without conforming to the law
1859.] God's Sovereignty in the Gospel. 427
of this Sovereignty. There is not a finite will in the universe, that can move the minutest particle of matter, except by laws of His enacting.
The same views are to be maintained with respect to the original and essential Sovereignty of God in the Moral World. He can not only make laws, but can unfailingly cause them to be obeyed. He can, if He please, keep His system perfect and above all possibility of infraction, throughout His universe. He could (who will doubt it?) have done this before a sinner existed, if He would. So far as we can see, He could have formed a glorious system of agencies and operations, and car- ried it out to glorious results, with the entire and absolute ex- clusion of all fallibility, all errability, and all evil.
But that, He has not chosen todo. And if the reason is de- manded, the only answer we can give is, that in the exercise of His Sovereignty He determined to do otherwise. The counsel was His own, and no motive could exist beyond Him- self, and of course none could be assigned. Consistency and stability imperiously required, that as an absolute Giver and Administrator of law, He should develop the powers and pur- poses of His system with the certainty and completeness of =e if the illustration may be allowed, that is infinitely
rfect.
P Thus, in establishing the present order and system, God did not consult the will, or the wisdom, or the might of any other being. Than this, we can have no higher idea of Sovereignty. It was in the exercise of this that He made worlds, as means for displaying the glorious attributes of His character, and created angels and men as beings capable of beholding and tracing and admiring those attributes. Before this, if we may be al- lowed to suppose an antecedent period, God acted only and was known only as an Absolute Sovereign, Whose will nothin resisted, Whose counsel nothing wopeeal Whose purposes had “ free course and were glorified.” What His wisdom approv- ed, He caused to be done. He did not then, as under the present system of procedure with the race of man He does now, leave open a way by which His designs and works might be resisted and thrust out of place, and come in with an after-measure, (we trust there is nothing irreverent in our lan- guage,) by way of remedy for the disturbance and the evil thus produced. Then, all things moved onward only. The arrow sped straight to the mark. No remedies needed to be sought, no breaches to be repaired, no infractions to be avenged.
But here our line of thought must be changed, if we aspire
428 God's Sovereignty in the Gospel. [Oct.,
to understand certain wonders of Divine Dispensation, which the holy “ Angels desire to look into.” Is it not evident, that thus far we have not a statement, nor an explanation, nor in- deed a key to an explanation, of that system of Divine Grace and administration, which works out the redemption and salvation of transgressors? When the peculiar revelations and facts of the Redemptive Work are brought under close and intelligent inspection, is it not plain, that the God of the Gospel exhibits Himself to the view of faith ander the character and condi- tion of a Sovereignty different in its action from that appar- ent in Nature and Providence? And is not the difference such almost, that, without irreverence and without inaptitude, we may apply to the case language well understood among men, and call it a Limited Sovereignty? Not that it is limit- ed by external pressure, or by involuntary circumscription, but by illimitable Grace,—by promises graciously made to the world under the promptings of its own sublime wisdom and mercy. It is not meant, that God has divested Himself of any attribute of power, or dominion, or wisdom; but that He has been pleased to restore to the soul of sinful man the blessed Spirit’s presence, and, through that, the capacity (lost in the Fall) of choosing good and rejecting evil; and thus, giving him power, by rekindling in him the principle of
ivine life, to become again the son of God by his own (not independent, but still truly his own) determination to return to holy obedience. In other words, God has been pleased to restore to man—to the race of man—the capacity of being a steward, a steward in the making and use of himself; but, above all, a steward of those revelations, mercies, Gifts of Grace, and holy Institutions, which, in the end, bring to the faithful “an inheritance incorruptible, undetiled, and that fadeth not away, eternal in the heavens.” We mean that He has restored to man, not a se/f-determining power, which is an expression no more proper, perhaps, in spiritual things than that of se/f-lifting power is in physicks, but simply a deter- mining power, a power to create mental decisions between good and evil, and to originate actions, for which he may be equitably held to account. Thus man is made asteward, both ministerially and personaliy.
God, rising, if we may so say, to a higher and more won- derfyl form of Sovereignty, has in mercy appointed a way for arresting that absolute curse, through which sin would octher- wise have proved a final and inevitable ruin. He has treated man as actually standing forth in the new character, recognized
1859.] God's Sovereignty in the Gospel. 429 |
in the day of Adam’s Fall, thus, “ Behold the man has become as one of Us to know good and evil.”
And, what perhaps is more than all, in giving interest to these views, He has graciously bound Himself by promise, not in the way of concession, but as a measure of love and mercy, not as if He were weak, and could not enforce the claims of Sovereignty, nor compel submission and obedience, but as from a Father’s tenderness, Who, while He has the right and power to execute justice, has clemency also to forgive, He has, we say, graciously bound Himself by promise to give to sinful men the benefit of a new thing in the universe. Thus, He has made for them, and showed to them, a way of returning to life, and peace, and joy in God, (after condemnation and spiritual death,) which even the Angels in Heaven regarded with amazement, and of which no previous occurrence in the Divine administration had given them the least conception. For this reason precisely it was, that the Angels desired to look into those things. Even to them, there was sumething new, and surprising, and incomprehensible! At first, they did not see how the Kingdom of God could stand under a way of governing that admitted of His loving the rebellious. They could not understand how the great principles of holiness and sover- eignty were to be maintained under such an administration.
n giving to a lost world this way of life, called in Scrip- ture a “new and living way,” God has all the justice, all the holiness, and all the power, that ever He had. And if it were agreeable to His counsel, He could crush and anni- hilate every sinner in His dominions in a moment.
But perhaps some will think they see difficulties in these views. We are not without apprehension of its being objected that we leave open a door by which sin might enter in revelry and overturn the government of the Al- mighty. Not so. He has not lost nor parted with the smallest portion of His power. If His sovereign interpo- sition should be necessary, He can save the order, harmony, and integrity of the universe at any moment. We do not know but this is a miracle which by the blessed Angels is witnessed frequently.
Of this we may be certain; that by an act of Sovereign mercy, through the atoning work of Christ, God arrested the ruin of our whole race; or, rather, by giving back the Holy Spirit to human nature and throwing into the midst of its desolate state, privileges, and Spiritual Gifts, and Means of Grace, and new life, He presented an opportunity for the
430 God’s Sovereignty in the Gospel. [Oct.,
eternal salvation of all. Not actually has He saved all, nor promised to save all; but, within the reach of all, sal- vation has assuredly been placed. As the Apostle saith, “He has given us power to become the sons of God.” In all the Bible there is not a passage which, more admirably than this, expresses the effect ot the Atonement and the wrimary Gifts of Grace. The Atonement was designed to justify God’s Mercy in aap man to the power of choice, and in imparting to him such gifts of present and available Grace as might enable him to escape from that hopeless condemnation which had crushed forever “the Angels that fell.” And this is strongly and clearly expressed by the Apostle St. John, in the words quoted above from the first chapter of his Gospel: “To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.”
Hence, we think we fairly and Scripturally obtain this conclusion ; that when we speak of the source or ordainin of the original law of righteousness and holiness, we should refer it to His Absolute Sovereignty, as we should also when we speak of that new thing in the mode of God’s reigning, the Mystery of the blessed Scheme of Redemption.
But we desire to be distinctly understood on this point, viz, that the personal salvation of men, their salvation as individuals, is not determined by His Absolute Sovereignty, but by their own will and choice, accepting and acting under the gracious power conferred in and by the Atone- ment. God has not determined the salvation of individuals, except as they faithfully exercise that mysterious power imparted to them, through Grace, with respect to their spiritual condition, and voluntarily conform to His gra- cious design, and submit to be sanctified in their souls through the Truth. Before the minds of all He has set life and death, and then, this word, which has sounded in all lands: “ Zhzs do, and thou shalt live forever—do that, and thou shalt die the second death;” thus putting the power of life and the scale of destiny in their own hands.
In a sense no way conflicting with truth, or derogatory to His honor, it may be affirmed that God has made men sovereigns over their spiritual character and prospects, be- canse He has made the question of character and prospects to depend on the originating power of their regenerated (we hope the word will not be objected to) and reéndowed personality. It is for them, individually, to decide, by aids already received or within their reach, what their future condition shall be. If life is the object of their choice,
1859.] God’s Sovereignty in the Gospel. 431
sa may have it; if they prefer death, that also they may ave.
In presenting these views we have before our minds, of course, the case of that portion of the human family whose moral powers, in some degree developed, have entered into action, giving birth to consciousness, thought, desire, love, and pursuit. But now what shall be said of infants? Just this. Infants dying without actually, really sinning, that is, without “sinning after the similitude of Adam’s trans- gression,” we are graciously permitted to believe will be carried “through the Redemption that is in Christ,” pas- sively,and, may we not say, unconsciously into the Kingdom of Heaven.
But not so with real transgressors. These have an active will, which must submit to apply its working and producin power in concurrence and harmony with the Will of God.
heir dominion over themselves must join itself by Faith to His dominion, and appropriate to itself “the power of His Grace.” They can alter nothing. By His counsel, which will stand though all things else fail, they must live; or by His counsel they must perish forever.
Such are the views to which the Word of God and the analogy of things have conducted our minds, touching the parts borne respectively by God and man in the matter of salvation by the Gospel. Such, if our language truly ex- presses our understanding, are our conclusions concerning the Sovereignty of the God of the Gospel, and the power of man derived from that Sovereignty through Grace, over his final allotment.
In submitting the subject to our readers, we beg to call their attention to the practical effect of the views we have endeavored to present. If we are right in the truth, then, in what a position of responsibility are men placed! With a dominion over themselves, which they are conscious is real and actual, and at the same time a known and irre- versible subjection to the dominion of God!! Not ma- chines, which, when properly constructed and adjusted ac- cording to the laws of matter, cannot go wrong; they are stewards, to whom God has given such sway and power that they can act even as enemies to His ge Here is “imperium in imperio!” And yet all will be done and all end consistently with truth, and order, and harmony. Man may turn the natural powers which the Creator has given him, and the new life which Christ. has purchased for him with His blood, to the promotion of sin and dis order; but in the end there will be glory and honor to
432 God’s Sovereignty in the Gospel. [Oct.,
God, and to all who “lay hold on the hope set before them in the Gospel.”
It is only by taking things in this light that we can see reason and justice in holding men to accountability. If God determines the character, and the happiness or misery of His individual creatures, as He determines the circulation of the blood, or the tides of the ocean, or the descent of water in the rivers, or the destruction of property by its accumulated and uncontrollable pressure, then we must con- clude and believe that the feeling of remorse for guilt is a mistake of human ignorance and weakness. What are all the glosses, and definitions, and syllogisms of ingenious Calvinism, when weighed against the first principle of a Revelation which was and is, that God is doing a new thing among creatures, even restoring man to power, under help of Grace given, over himself and his own future? The feelin of remorse for guilt, when one has done the very thing, me, | that only, which God predestined and appointed him to do, is an Error. If God, by an act of Absolute Sovereignty, pre- destines the character and condition of every individual, (and of course providing and appropriating the means which make him what he is,) then it is simply absurd to address man as a producing personal cause, or as being capable of originating a line of conduct calling for omer» Baer» or challenging reward. In that case man cannot oppose God, because in whatever he does he is doing the will of God, which cannot be wrong.
We are much inclined to renew the old questions, which the Predestinarians could never answer but by saying, “ Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?” Does the Supreme Being, by an act of His Absolute Sovereignty, foreordain the final and eternal condition of the individnals of our race? Or, does He, in Sovereignty, predestinate all the thoughts, actions, feelings, and characters of His crea- tures? Does He cause wills to determine, and minds to think, as He causes rivers to flow, and lightnings to flash? If the answer is “ Yea,” then we affirm again that the conscious- ness of guilt is an error of nature, and the worst that can be said of sin is, that it is amisfortune. Many hardened sinners, without doubt, would be gladdened by an exhibition of plausible grounds for that answer—much, perhaps, on the re ae of the compliment once paid to a preacher of
niversalism: “I would give ten thousand dollars if his doctrines were true.”
But it cannot be so. By the terms and promises of the Gospel based on the Atonement, and ratified and sealed in
1859.] God’s Sovereignty in the Gospel. 433
the Ordinance of Baptism, God has constituted man the de- terminer of his spiritual condition and final lot, by givin him power to decide what that condition and that lot sha be. And thus to the lost sinner He can say, in perfect truth, “Thou hast destroyed thyself.” He has pledged His word that if men will show themselves true and faithful sons, and fulfill His gracious purpose in restoring the lost principle of spiritual life, they shall receive increasing tokens of His love and favor. Let the husbandman take the offered seed and sow it, and cultivate it; the Lord of the harvest will not fail to give fertile soil, and genial showers, and quickening sunshine. All real power is from im ; but not in a sense which makes Him the thinker of our thoughts, or the doer of our actions. We have but a few works more, which having said, we shall leave the subject to the consideration of our readers. In the views which we have presented, we discover nothing derogatory to the character of the Great Supreme. Far from denying Him the power of Governing His Kingdom in the way of His own wisdom, these views recognize a glo- rious vastness of resources for blessing the human race; while it is maintained that He reveals a peculiar, wonderful, and, in many respects, mysterious system under which He exalts man by constituting him a trustee and self-governor, with power to be unfaithful and do wrong, but with right and interest only to do right. The great point before our minds, which we have endeavored (perhaps not as success- fully as we wished) to set in a strong light, is this: that, in consideration of the Atonement of Calvary, and in display of His own infinite Love, God has endowed—perhaps we should say reéndowed—human nature with a capacity for receiving and Lae a message from Him, thus giving a qualifica- tion to all men for taking the trust implied in stewardship, and laying a foundation for justly holding them to account. This, to our minds, is a point of unspeakable importance; a- point on which Christian teachers are too sparing of their strength ; a point which, if faithfully urged, would rouse the sensibilities of many hearts now sleeping in sin. Men have been told that they have been sinning against offered Grace, until they think themselves quite excusable for not being made willing to accept the offer. Let them be charged with sinning against Grace already given and received in the soul. Let them know that “the Kingdom of God is” even now “within them.” In that case, it may be hoped the lethargy of many will be startled, and the cry come forth from troubled spirits, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not.” VOL. XiI.—NO. II. 28
434 Bishop Doane. [Oct.,
Art. VI.—BISHOP DOANE.
1. The Great Hearted Shepherd: The Sermon in memory of the Right Reverend Grorce Wasutnaton Doang, D. D., LL. D., late Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey ; preached by request of the Standing Committee, during the session of the Cantenttins of the Diocese, in St. Mary’s Church, Bur- lington, Wednesday Evening, May 25th, 1859, by the Rev. M. Manan, D. D., St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery yp bee! of Ecclesiastical History in the General Theological Seminary.
2. The Sermon preached in St. Mary's Church, Burlington, on the first Sunday after Easter, 1859, the Sunday morning after the death of Bissor Doanr, by the Rev. F. Ooty, D. D., Assistant Minister of Trinity Church, New York.
3. A Funeral Sermon on the occasion of the death of Bisuor Doane; preached in the Presbyterian Church, Burlington, N. J., on May 1st, 1859, by Corttanpr Van RenssEvarr, D. D., a Minister of the Presbyterian Church.
Ir may be said of prominent Bishops of the Church, as of great Generals or great Statesmen, posterity alone can do them full justice. The motives by which they have been actuated, the principles for which they have contended, the difficulties with which they have been surrounded, the trials they have had to suffer, and the lasting foundations which they have laid, can- not be calmly estimated by those who have struggled with them side by side. Personal feelings and prejudices cannot easily be overcome. We view everything from our own stand-point, and our approval or condemnation will be more or less colored, as we happen to have been for or against the principles which we are called upon to judge. Not that we have any doubt as to the judgment which osterity will pass upon the life and labors of the wonderfully endowed Bishop, whose name is placed at the head of this Article, for it is, in a measure, already written upon the Church; but as our plea for not attempting nore now than a brief outline of the leading events of his life. His biography has yet to be carefully written. And when posterity i 1 have calmly weighed his remarkably varied gifts and graces, his self-consuming zeal, his sympa- thizing love, his singular magnanimity, and faith, and patience,
1859.] Bishop Doane. 435
and hope amidst the darkest clouds of adversity, his extraor- dinary power as a preacher, his skill as a teacher, his sound- ness as a theologian, his talents as a poet, his far-seeing wisdom as a counselor, and his fidelity and tenderness as a Pastor and Shepherd of souls, together with his manifold labors and suffer- ings for Christ’s sake, we doubt not but that it will place him not only by the side of Seabury, and White, and Hobart, who laid the foundations of the Church in this Western world, but enroll his name high up among the greatest and best Bishops with which God has blessed His Church on earth.
Grorce Wasnineton Doane was born in Trenton, N. J., May 27th, A. D. 1799. Of humble parentage, his father a carpenter by trade, the Bishop’s position in life is to be attribu- ted, under God, entirely to his own exertions and persevering will. While yet a boy his parents removed with him to New York, where Ge began his education, under the care of that excellent scholar and accomplished linguist, the Rev. Dr. Barry, afterwards the Rector of St. Matthew’s Church, Jersey City, N. J. Here he laid the foundation of his exact knowl- edge of the Ancient Languages—an accomplishment which he cherished until the end of his life—their choicest sayings, when among his Clergy, bubbling forth from his lips with an ease and rapidity which astonished his hearers. From New York he removed to Geneva, where he was prepared for College by Mr. Hubbell. “Here he showed (says Dr. Mahan) his zeal for the principles instilled into him from childhood, by declining to learn his Christian duties from any other Cate- chism than that of the Church. For this he was whipped and disgraced. But the firmness of the boy-martyr rallied many of his companions around him ; and, in the ri | those who pre- ferred the Church Catechism were allowed to use it.” During this period many of his leisure hours were spent in a printing office, near his parents’ residence, and the knowledge which he there acquired of type-setting and proof-reading, was of great service to him in after years. In 1816, he entered Union College, Schenectady, the expense of his education there having been provided by a liberal Churchwoman, who has lately entered into her rest, after a life filled with good works, “ About this time he seems to have formed that habit of work- ing late at night, which doubtless took something from the length, but added more to the intensity and efficiency of his after-life. He usually studied till twelve o’clock, four of the hours thus gained, being given to extra-Collegiate reading.” During his Ecllegiate course he was noted for his attention to his studies, and his ability as a clear and beautiful writer ; his
436 Bishop Doane. [Oct.,
great diffidence and modesty, which always raised a biush upon his cheek every time,that he recited and prevented him from finishing a single declamation which was required of him, alone giving him the second, instead of the first, place in a class of more than ordinary ability. This bashfulness contin- ued to annoy him until several years after his Consecration to the Episcopate. Though in a College not under the influences of the Church, Mr. Doane was always most regular in his attendance at the Services of the Church, in the village; and an aged Presbyter, who was at that time his classmate and most intimate friend, has stated to us, more than once, that he was the purest minded young man that he ever met. In 1818, immediately after his graduation, he removed to New York, and began the study of the Law; but this not according with his tastes, he turned his attention to Theology, pursuing his studies in a class under the care of Bishop Hobart, Dr. Brownell, and Dr. Jarvis, which was the nucleus of our present General Theological Seminary. His leisure hours were, at this period, devoted to teaching, for the support of his mother and sisters; and the love and filial affection of the son is still spoken of by those who were in the habit of visiting him in his simple home. In 1821, Bishop Hobart Ordained him Deacon, and Priest in 1823. He received-the appointment of Assist- ant Minister in Trinity Church, and united with the Rev. Mr. Upfold (now the Bishop of Indiana) in organizing what is now “a Luke’s Church, the first Services being held in a watch- 1ouse.
“Tn 1824, he was elected Professor of Belles-Lettres in Wash- ington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, and traveled, raising funds for the College, all through the South. In this place began his deep rooted intimacy, so tender and so enduring, with that noble Christian Pastor and soldier of the Cross, the Rev. Dr. Witttam Croswett ;” a love which his loving nature cherished through life. Few of our readers will have for- gotten the touching Memorial of Dr. Croswell from his pen, which was selatel in this Review; and after the Bishop’s death there was found in a little pocket-book, which he always carried with him, a lock of Dr. Croswell’s hair. While hold- ing this Professorship, the two were associated in editing a staunch Church periodical, called the “ Episcopal Watchman.” In this paper many of the earlier poetical productions of these kindred spirits appeared.
In 1828, he removed to Boston, being chosen Assistant to Dr. Gardiner, Rector of Trinity Church. On the death of the Rector, he was elected to fill his place, the Rev. Mr. Hop-
1859.] Bishop Doane. 437
kins (now the Bishop of Vermont) having been chosen his Assistant.* This was a post of great honor and usefulness. With a large congregation, comprising some of the first men in the country, in a community which appreciated his literary abilities, a salary ample for all his wants, and surrounded by devoted and admiring friends, it was a position which few men would not have coveted, and where he might have led a com-
aratively easy life, finishing his course with joy. But God
ad greater designs in view for him. Such a man was not to be left with any mere pra charge. The Diocese of New Jersey became vacant by the death of its first Bishop, the Rev. Dr. Crves, in 1832. After several ballotings, Mr. Doses was elected and unanimously declared his successor on the third of October of the same year; and the readiness with which he assumed the fearful responsibilities of the Episcopate, giving up a most excellent position in the Church for the charge of what was then a weak and feeble Diocese, when convinced that it was the call of God, we regard as one of the remarka- ble ventures of faith in his life. The Diocese of New Jersey numbered at that time less than a score of Clergy within its limits, and its first Bishop had been compelled to eke out his scanty salary by assuming the entire pastoral charge of Christ Church, New Brunswick. And so poor indeed was the pros- pees of its growth supposed to be, that when the election of
r. Doane was spoken of at a casual meeting of several Jead- ing Clergymen in Hartford, one of them did not hesitate to express his surprise that the Rector of Trinity Church, Boston, should think of taking charge of a Diocese which had been dead and buried for twenty years ; and Bishop Croes, in his last Address to his Diocesan Convention, felt called upon to say, that they had cause to thank God that they had not lost anything since they last assembled. To decide the question whether he would resign a rectorship in every way to be desired, and accept the Episcopate of such a Diocese, Jess than a fortnight was allowed him. The first intimation that he had of his election was the appearance, October 6th, at his resi- dence in Boston, of the Committee appointed by the Conven- tion of New Jersey, to announce to him the fact; and the General Convention, at which it was desired that his Conse-
* At his institution as Rector of Trinity Church, Bishop Griswold preached, taking for his text, St. John iii, 30: ‘‘ He must increase, but I must decrease ;” and what was very remarkable in a Preacher of Bishop Griswold’s impersonal character, he closed the sermon by applying the text to the newly instituted Rector and himself.
438 Bishop Doane. [Oct.,
cration should take place, was to assemble in New York in less than twelve days from that date. “On the 19th day of October,” as he describes it in his first Episcopal Address, “ convinced, on principles which have been, long since, delibe- rately adopted as the rules of my life, and by the concurring judgments of those who were best fitted to form an accurate decision in the premises, that such was my duty to His Church, Whose soldier and servant I am,—I communicated to the Com- mittee my letter of acceptance, and on the thirty-first day of the same month, was consecrated to the Office of a Bishop in the Church of God, by the venerable and Right Rev. Dr. White, the Presiding Bishop, assisted by the Right Rev. Dr. Onderdonk, of New York, and the Right Rev. Dr. Ives, of North Carolina. That the solemnities of that day may be pro- pitious to this our portion of the Vineyard of the Lord, and promotive, now and hereafter, of the Kingdom and glory of our Divine Redeemer, let me have, brethren, as I most truly need, your fervent and continual prayers.” And then, after detailing his visitation of all the Parishes, he makes the follow- ing remarks. The extract is somewhat long, but it exhibits so clearly the principles and spirit with which he assumed the mitre, and, may we not say, is so prophetic of what was, under God, fulfilled by his Episcopate, that it will be read with renewed interest.
“ It might seem to a hasty observer, whose eye should for a moment rest on the small space which the Diocese of New Jersey fills on the map of the United States, that it was a light work, and soon discharged. It does not so seem to me; nor can it to any thoughtful Christian. ‘Jacob,’ indeed, ‘is small.’ The territorial limits of the Diocese are soon passed over. Our Churches are few. Our parishes feeble. Our people poor. But how much larger was the land promised to the fathers of the old covenant, the scene of the wonders, and the cradle of the glories, of the new ? How much more in number were the Churches of Christ, which even St. John lived to behold established in the earth? How much more rich or powerful, as the world accounts of power and riches, were the primitive flocks, whose sheep,—nay, whose inspired, and now glorified, pastors,— were ‘ destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandering in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth?’ My brethren, reverend and beloved, I need not remind you, that there is no restraint to the Lord, to save by many or by few. I need not remind you that small as Jacob then was, he has arisen and filled the earth. ‘Jacob,’ indeed, ‘is small.’ Temporal power and splendor do not, and cannot, appertain to the Churches of this Diocese. What then? Are our ef- forts to be discouraged? Is our hope of influence or usefulness in the Church to be repressed? Are we hindered thus in the promoting of our Master’s great work, the care and the salvation of souls? Directly the reverse. There is no circumstance, it seems to me,—and should the conviction be the result of that partiality which is natural to one’s own, you will not greatly blame me,—there is no circumstance, it seems to me, peculiar to our condition, which does not favor the growth of primitive piety, and, therefore, of prim- tive prosperity. There are many circumstances which encourage us pecul- arly to zeal, to fidelity, to perseverance, in setting forth the GospEn in the
1859.] Bishop Doane. 439
Cuurcu; in the sure confidence, that ‘in due season, we shall reap if we faint not.’ Is our Diocese small? It can, and ought to be better tended,;watered, and cultivated. It is the less exposed to internal division and distraction. It is the more easily defended from external evil and injury. We are brought more nearly together. We feel, or ought to feel, more as brethren of one family. We can more easily ‘stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel.’ Are our parishes few and feeble? The sympathy of a good cause can the more easily pervade them. They offer nothing to tempt the ambitious or the worldly minded. Their equality with each other preserves them from envying and jealousy. Are our people poor? They have the less then to hinder their pursuit of the ‘true riches,’ They are the nearer to His condition, and the better prepared to receive His Gospel, ‘ who made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant.’ They have the easier approach to His favor, who has ‘chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him.’ In- stead of repining then at our condition, or excusing ourselves from effort, on the ground that we can do so little, let us rather thank God that He has put it in our power to doso very much. . . . If it be asked then, ‘how shall Jacob arise, for he is small?’—how shall we best improve the ability which God has given us, and bring forth richest fruit to His glory and the good of souls? I answer, by the diligent, faithful, constant exercise, with prayer to Him who alone can give the increase, of all the means which He has put in our hands. Small as our Diocese is, there are many fields ‘ white for the harvest,’ that implore the sickle of the reaper. . . . All that is neededis the love of Christ to move us to the effort, faith to attempt, and to pursue it, and method, Christian method, in its prosecution.”
No wonder that with such a spirit at its head, the Diocese of New Jersey should have become the center of much that is primitive and apostolic in our Branch of the Church. That an Episcopate, entered upon with as could be an easy one, were not to be expected. He gave himself to his work. No one ever yet accused him of sparing himself. Everything that he had, his time, his talents, his thoughts, his personal ease, his peace of mind, his home, nay, even life itself, he freely lavished upon the flock which the Good Shep- herd had committed to his care. No other Bishop, with a Diocese ten times the size of his, ever worked harder. He set out with the highest view of his Office and responsibilities, and, blessed with an energy and strength of constitution which few men possess, he labored to fulfill it by day and by night, in sunshine and in storm. His visitations were made always two, and generally three, a day, each morning administering the Holy Communion, being assisted only in the distribution of the consecrated elements, and at every Service catechising the children, preaching, and confirming. And frequently have we known him, in the midst of such laborious visitations, to work nearly the whole night with Committees on some matter for the good of the Church, and yet be the first up in the morning in the house at which he was entertained. Ordinarily he would work twenty hours out of the twenty-four, and then take his
440 Bishop Doane. [Oct.,
rest in the remaining four wherever he might chance to be, on a sofa, or in the cars, or even a common country wagon, traveling from one point to another. Even in the earlier years of his Epis- pate, when he had much less to do than later in life, he has béen known to keep the printers in Burlington at work all night by paying double wages, and correct the proofs himself as they were brought to his library, hour by hour. An appointment once made was never broken, if it could by any possibility be fulfilled. He would travel in an open wagon, or drive, as we knew him to do on one occasion, nearly fourteen miles in an hour, through the most violent storm, to catch a train of cars, that he might be where he was expected. No heat or cold ever detained him. Only let him see that some duty could be performed for the Church, and no privation or difficulty deterred him from the task. He has crossed the Delaware, opposite his residence, in an open boat, when even the stont- hearted ferryman tried to dissuade him from the attempt. When ona Visitation in Monmouth County, intelligence was brought to him of the death of the Rev. Dr. Barry, his hon- ored teacher, just previous to the Evening Service, with the request that he would preach the sermon at the funeral in Jersey City, the next day, at two o’clock; though it in- volved his returning to Burlington for some papers which could furnish him with dates, he immediately promised to do it; and then, after the Evening Service, which had been appointed, he drove a number of miles to meet the night freight train on the Camden and Amboy Railroad, rode in an empty freight car to Burlington, where he arrived at 2 A. M., wrote the Sermon, and left by the cars at 8 A. M., arriving in Jersey City in time to preach the Sermon, at the hour appoint- ed, in the presence of a large gathering of the Clergy and Laity. And on his last Autumnal Visitation, he left the Board of Missions in Baltimore at 5 P. M., arriving in Eliza- beth at 3 A. M. Friday, took but two hours rest, then had three full Services, catechising, confirming, and preaching at each, and was up the following night writing until after two o’clock, though he had three Services, and twenty-five miles of driving arranged for each of the two succeeding days. Thus did he toi
day after day, and month after month, crowding into a short Episcopate of twenty-six years, the work of three lives rather than of one. And yet did he say of himself in all sincerity, in rn last Triennial Charge, so little did he count all that he had
one,
‘‘When I read of Paul, the scholar of Gamaliel, the leader of the leaders of Jews, and facile princeps, among the master minds of every age, going down
1859.] Bishop Doane. 441
from Athens, where he had confounded their philosophy, by his revelation, to them, of ‘The unknown God,’ to work at Corinth, as a tentmaker, that he might preach the Gospel, without charge, to any man; . . . when I behold that wondrous photograph of his eventful life, which his indignant zeal flashed in, upon that old Corinthian page, ‘in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness ;’ ‘of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; * thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day have I been inthe deep;’ ‘in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft;’ ‘besides those things which are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the Churches ;—when I contemplate these ‘ signs of an Apostle ;’ and consider, how little I have suffered, for the same Cross, how little I have done, and am doing, for the same suffering Lord, I sigh myself, into insignificance, and feel that I am not worthy to be called a Bishop: and, humbly pray, that He, the servant of Whose servants I desire to be, would enable me and dispose me to serve Him better, and make my service more promotive of the honor of His kingdom, and the glory of His Cross.”
To describe Dr. Doane as a Bishop, we cannot do better than quote the remarkable words of Dr. Van Rensselaer, the noblest tribute which has been paid to his memory, and the more generous from the fact that the writer was the Bishop’s theological opponent for many years, and that such a testi- mony was not demanded of him by his position. Of course we must make due allowance for the stand-point from which every Presbyterian must look _ the Episcopate, though we cannot but honor the heart that could thus bring his of- fering of May flowers to lay upon the new-made grave— “flowers plucked (in his own words) by a Puritan’s hand, and placed in memoriam over the dust of a great Episcopal Bishop.”
“Asa Bishop, the departed Prelate will undoubtedly be acknowledged by his Church to be one of her greatest sons. So he was. He magnified his Office. His work was done on a great scale. He was personally everywhere in his own Diocese, and his writings were circulated widely in every other Diocese. He was the prominent man in the House of Bishops. He could outpreaeh, out- vote, and outwork the whole of his brethren in the Episcopate. He was a sort of Napoleon among Bishops. It was after he crossed Alps of difficulties, that he entered upon the campaigns of his highest renown. The Bridge of Lodi, and the Field of Marengo, were to him the inspirations of heroism, and the rallying time of mightiest strategy. Bishop Doane was, perhaps, better adapted to the English Church than to the American. His Prelatical notions suited a monarchy more than a republic. In the House of Lords, he would have stood among the foremost of Lord Bishops, He of Oxford, would not have ranked before him of New Jersey. Bishop Doane was a good deal of an Anglican in his modes of thought and his views of Ecclesiastical Authority.* Had he lived in the days of
* Some seem to have supposed that he was more of an Englishman than an American, in his feelings. His persistent celebration of Washington’s Birthday, and the Fourth of July, in his two Institutions for Christian Education, ought to have corrected this, In his Oration at Burlington College, on the Fourth of
4492 Bishop Doane. [Oct.,
Charles, he would have been a Laudean in Prelatical and political convictions ; super-Laudean in intellect, and sub-Laudean in general Ecclesiastical temper. My own sympathies are altogether with the Evangelical, or Low-Church Bishops, as are those of the vast majority of this audience. I do not believe in the doc- trines of lofty Church order, and transmitted grace, so favorably received in some quarters. But this is a free country; and the soul by nature is free, and has a right to its opinions, subject to the authority of the great Head of the Church, Bishop Doane had a right to his, and he believed himself to be, in a peculiar sense, a successor of the Apostles. He is one of the few American Bishops who has had the boldness to carry out his theory, and to call himself an Apostle. He delighted in his Office. Peter was to him the example of rigid adherence to the forms of the concision, whilst Paul was his example in enduring suffering for the extension of the Church. With an exalted view of his Office, he lived, and labored, and died. In this spirit, he encountered all his hardships and perils ; and when, as in the case of danger in crossing the Delaware, he jumped into the frail skiff, inviting the ferryman to follow, it was in the same spirit of ‘AposToLuM VEuIS.’ Bishop Doane was, in short, as complete a specimen of High-Church Bishop as the world has seen, and, in some respects, he was a model for any class of Bishops, at home or in mother England.”
To this it is one scarcely necessary to add that, in his own Diocese, he gave a helping hand to every effort, and quickened all with whom he came in contact, with his own energy and life. This was one secret of his magic influence overmen. He had the power, to an extraordinary degree, of instilling into others the energy which he possessed him- self. It was shown in his Diocese, in his Parish, in his Col- lege, in his Schools. ‘ He came to a poor and feeble Diocese, and how soon he infused into it the energy of his own vitality! He went into an humble country Parish, with just life enough to save it from dissolution, and soon the Church became the center of life to the place, and the sickly plant grew into the vigorous tree. He took an old worn-out School which had expired in the hands of Friends, and he gave to it that won- derful life which has animated St. Mary’s Hall.” He could be a Bishop and do the work of two Bishops, the Rector of a large Parish, the President and working Head of two Insti-
July, 1851, ‘ Patriotism a Christian Duty, he thus speaks for himself; “I believe that Patriotism is a religious duty. I believe that it is to be taught, as such, from earliest childhood. I believe, that only second to their Saviour and His Church, our offspring should be trained to love and serve the land, which is their Providential heritage. And I would take these children now, and lay their hands upon the Altar which commemorates and certifies to their redemption, and demand their pledge, before the God who sees their heart, that they would never be the friend of him who would disturb this Union. I care not where he comes from, I care not what his plea be. As an American, I knowno North, I know no South. One country is enough for me. ‘Omnes omnium caritates patria una complexa est. The country of the Union, the country of the Constitution, the country of the Stars and Stripes, that is my country. I go for it, all. I go for it, as one. I go for it, as indivisible. And I would sooner tear my quivering a from their core, than see one Pleiad lost from all that glorious con- stellation.”
1859.] Bishop Doane. 443
tutions, familiar with all the details of their discipline, as- suming the entire charge of their instruction in Declamation and English Composition, and yet be foremost in the General Councils of the Church, active in every scheme for her ad- vancement, on every Committee of importance, and withal constantly preparing material for the press. And yet, we venture to say that no Bishop ever knew personally more laymen of his Diocese, or was more attentive to all their joys and sorrows, than Bishop Doane. If but a friend were sick, or a child died, none were sooner to note it by letter or by his presence, than the Bishop. And incredible as it even yet seems, it was his regular custom, at his Visitations, to enquire, by name, for families and individuals belonging to the Parish, whom he had not observed present at the Service.
His Visitations had a character peculiar to himself. Though -— Church received at least an annual visit, the Visitation was looked forward to, as an high day in the Parish. Old and young flocked to hear him preach, and none could be other- wise than gratified to see how all classes of the congregations stopped to speak with him after the Services, and receive his friendly greeting, or his blessing. On such occasions, he loved to have his Clergy about him ; he would give all he coulda part of the Services to perform, and never rest until an host was found to entertain them as long as they could stay. And seldom did a Visitation Service fail to gather not only the Clergy, but the leading Laity of all the neighboring Parishes, so that they were, without the name, Convocations, at which many a Pastor’s hands were strengthened, and many a plan devised for the welfare of the Church. At every Visitation, if he could gather but a dozen children, he would catechise them “openly in the Church,” in the presence of the con- gregation. In this, he was always very happy, and many lessons of faith and duty did he imprint, not only on the younger, but on the older hearts of the flock. His Confirma- tions were most impressively administered. He never “ad- dressed the candidates,” as Se thought that it detracted from the deep solemnity of the Service; and we must say, that we have never been more deeply impressed with the Service than in the Diocese of New Jersey. His Episcopal Addresses also had a character peculiar to himself. Instead of a mere detail of so many Services performed, and so many Confirmations administered, they were freely interspersed with the incidents of his Visitation, acts of kindness which he had received, deeds of charity done for the Gospel’s sake, and constant
44-4 Bishop Doane. [Oct.,
hints as to how and where the cause he had at heart might be advanced. Nothing escaped his notice. If a con- + om had struggled out of debt, or any improvement 1ad been made in its Church edifice, it was certain to secure his attention. And he never seemed happier than when he could speak a word of commendation for any of his Clergy or their Parishes.
As a Rector, he was most indefatigable. Even with the “care of all the Churches” on his shoulders, few flocks were better tended than his Parish in Barlington. ‘He was (says one who knew him well) earnest, active, fertile in expedients, a faithful visitor of his people, and a friend of the poor. He seemed always to be in the right place at the right time. He went about doing good, and was known in Burlington as Rector, more than Bishop.” His chief delight was to labor among the poor; and he left no greater mourners, outside of his immediate family, than among the poor of his Parish. His heart was in the Pastoral work, and he con- tinued to perform the duties of a Rector until his death. A sweet little piece of Poetry, written by him in Northfield Vicarage, England, in 1841,* reveals this desire of his heart, and we cannot refrain from quoting it here :
‘“HOC3ERAT IN YOTIS.”
‘This was in all my prayers since first I prayed, A Parsonage, in a sweet garden’s shade ; The Church adjoining, with its ivied tower ; A peal of bells, a clock to tell the hour ; A rustic flock, to feed from day to day, And kneel with them, at morn, and eve, and pray. He, who ‘ doth all things well,’ denied my prayer, And bade me take the Apostle’s staff and bear, The scattered sheep o’er hill and dale pursue, Feed the old flocks, and gather in the new; Count ease, and health, and life, and all things loss, So I make known the blessed, bleeding Cross. These quiet scenes, that never can be mine, This homebred happiness, dear friend, be thine ; Each choicest gift, and influence from above, Descend on thee, and all that share thy love; Peace, which the world gives not, nor can destroy, The prelibation of eternal joy.”
* His visit to England was made in consequence of an invitation to preach at the Consecration of the Parish Church at Leeds, one of the finest Ecclesiastical structures of modern times. He was the first American Clergyman who was allowed to preach in an English pulpit, and during his visit did very much to- wards promoting that intimate intercourse which has since grown up between the mother and daughter Church,
1859.] Bishop Doane. 445
As a Preacher, he possessed great power. He made it a rule to write one Sermon every week, and but one; and he has published more Sermons than any other three men in this country. Upon the greatest variety of topics, of every form which a Sermon can take, they will perpetuate his great intellectual power, consecrated to the GospPEL In THE CHURCH, and be an heritage of which the American Church will have reason to be proud. The felicity and clearness with which he divided his subject, the conciseness with which his thoughts were expressed, his perfect command of language, his power of word-painting, the variety and appropriateness of his illus- trations, added to his powerful voice and energetic delivery, constituted him one of the first of pulpit speakers. Though many of them were written during the night preceding their deliv- ery, or on Sunday morning before Service, they are as highly finished, as though he had spent days and weeks of labor upon them ; and there is often more thought in one of his sentences than in pages of ordinary composition. Said a Clergyman to him, after Saeslner one of his Sermons, “ Bishop, it always does me good to hear you preach ; I can preach better, for it, for six months to come.” His Sermon before the General Convention in Philadelphia, in 1856, was one of the triumphs of his life. The tone, the manner, the matter, made an indelible impression on all who heard it. At a time when the political horizon was darkened with the clouds of sectional strife, which threatened the dismemberment of the Union; when many did not hesitate to say that there never would be another General Convention, and when fears were excited for the preservation of the Prayer Book in its integrity, his words lifted men above themselves, as he dwelt upon “THE Grortous Cuurcu, the purchase and the purpose of Christ’s death,” and roused them up to their responsibility for' its Faith, its Order, and its Worship. The vast Church was crowded with a congregation of more than three thousand persons, many of whom were compelled to stand; yeta 0g might almost have been heard to drop durin any part of the delivery of the Sermon; and when he close with that noble peroration, which we are willing to place side by side with that of any pulpit orator in any age, so deep was the silence that you could hear yourself breathe. We venture to quote it, though, without his delivery and the occasion when it was spoken, it cannot be fully appreciated :
“A Griortovs Cuurcu! Men, brethren, and fathers, shall we not feel it, in the action, and show it in the issues, of this sacred Council? Shall we not lay aside every prejudice? Shall we not lose sight of every personal, of every local, consideration? And, with a single eye to our great trust, in the promotion of
446 Bishop Doane. [Oct.,
His Kingdom, Who bought us with His blood, seek nothing but His glory, in the salvation of the souls, for which He died? Oh, what a virtue will go out from us, if this shall be so! Oh, what an'‘answer, to that blessed Eucharistic prayer, ‘That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe, that Thou hast sent Me!’ Oh, what a hastening of the time, when those fond yearnings of His heart shall all be realized: ‘Father, I will, that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me whereI am, that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me!’ Blessed, glorious hope! To see His glory! To see Himself! To see Him, as He is! To be like Him, because we see Him as He is!’
“The issues of the Judgment Day are passed. The blast of the Archangel’s trumpet, which waked all the dead, has died away, upon the air. The wailings of the lost are buried, with them, in the pit, which they digged for their own selves. The harpings of the Angels, all, are still. ‘There’ is ‘silence, in Heaven!’ One stands before us, in form, like unto the Son of Man; and, yet, His glory fills the Heavens. His hands are pierced ; and, yet, they wield the sceptre of creation. His brow, still, shows the traces of the thorns; and yet it wears the crown of Heaven. Hisside drops blood; and, yet, it beats, with blessings, for the world, that pierced it. He stands, beside the Throne. He extends the arms, which once embraced the Cross. He takes, to His bursting breast, the spotless Spouse whom its own blood has washed. The Mediatorial work is done. The Mar- riage of the Lamb has come. He has presented, unto Himself, a ‘glorious Church!’ The conquest of the Cross is over. The coronation of the Crucified is consummated. ‘Death is swallowed up in Victory!’ And, ‘God is all, in all!’ Then, on the stillness at which Angels wondered, and which thrilled all Heaven with awe, like the voice of mighty thunderings, the song shall burst, which is to fill the echoes of eternity, forever and forever: ‘ Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!’ ‘Blessed are they which are called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!’ Holy and merciful Jesus, as Thou hast called us to Thyself, so, we beseech Thee, keep us ever Thine; and unto Thee, with the Eternal Father, and the ever blessed Spirit, three sacred Persons, and one only God, shall be ascribed all glory, and all praise, now and forever more. Amen.”
As a Teacher, he also stood preéminent. From first to last, part of each week was spent in a School. He had a natural turn for children. Everywhere they ran to meet him, as “their own dear Bishop :” and his tact in teaching them, was universally acknowledged. He had but little faith in modern systems of education. The soul was, to him, a trust Divinely committed, and he held the teacher’s accountability to God only second to that of the Pastor. Hence he would not give his support to any system which proposed to teach the hand and the head, without the heart. hat he longed for, and labored for, was the old-fashioned Parochial School, am and of the Church. To this he recurs year after year, in his Episcopal Addresses, urging them upon his Diocese, with every argument in his power. And it was with him no mere theory. St. Mary’s Hall, and Burlington College, are the standing monuments of his