"No man can be assured of his own salvation, except he see the same salvation in the same Saviour for all men, as well as for himself; which is to love his neighbor as himself."—Richard Coppin.[59]

THAT the errors connected with what has been deemed the Orthodoxy of the past are passing away is undeniable. We have been noting this on every page of this volume. The Christian pulpit and the religious and secular press are bringing out new confirmations of it continually. Take two indications; first, the emphatic utterances coming from the Episcopal Church in England and America. It is Rev. Charles Kingsley who writes: "I preach to you a Son of God who has declared everlasting war against disease, ignorance, sin, death, and all which makes men miserable. Those are his enemies, and he reigns and will reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet, and there is nothing left in God's universe but order and usefulness, health and beauty, knowledge and virtue, in the day when God shall be all in all." It is Canon Farrar at Westminster Abbey who is awaking deep interest in his vigorous exposures of the hideousness of the old ideas of a wrathful God who would punish some of his simple offspring hereafter "without relief and without end." His volumes entitled "Eternal Hope" and "Judgment and Mercy," are full of references to the opinions of others in the past, who have opposed these errors,—although most of them are not new to readers and students of Universalist literature,—and are among the harbingers of that coming day when the absurdities which he assails shall be numbered among the things that were. His admissions of the force of the arguments of Universalist writers are such as will awaken new inquiry in many directions, notwithstanding he takes occasion to affirm of himself most distinctly, "But I am not a Universalist." We can only say that, if he is not, he is doing no small share of a work which will tend to make others avowers and defenders of this faith. Others of the ministry in England, like the late Dr. Maurice, Rev. Frederick Robertson, and Rev. Stopford Brooke, have given their testimonies in behalf of these higher and clearer views of Christian theology. In America, such men as Drs. Holland and Phillips Brooks, are advocates of the improved theology, the last-named explicitly affirming his faith in the final salvation of all souls. Dr. Heber Newton, rector of the Anthon Memorial Episcopal Church at New York, in his sermon on the death of the late Rev. Dr. Chapin, said that—

"Dr. Chapin, knowing the feeling of the church against the new ism, boldly became its preacher, for he recognized its great and noble mission. That sin had its recompense, he never doubted, but his doctrine of 'God is love,' was so eloquently preached that the theologians reconsidered their doctrines of retribution. Even the Episcopal Church, he says, in recently reviewing the articles, struck out the one about eternal punishment. When Universalism began its mission, religion so to speak, had become ossified and rigid, and it was necessary, to meet the advanced thought of the age, that some change be made in it. The force that wrought this change, developed outside of the Orthodox Church, and it has been instrumental in banishing much of the barbarism and cruelty of expression which Christians borrowed from the Pagans."

The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches have had their experiences in the agitation of these questions involving the acceptance or rejection of the leading points of theology held by them in the past. But the freest and boldest utterances on this subject seem to have come from the Congregationalist Churches. Members of the Beecher family have been quite conspicuous in their allusions to the old and abhorrent doctrines of Calvinism; as for instance, Mrs. Stowe, in her "Minister's Wooing" and "Old Town Folks;" her sister Catherine, in her emphatic saying, that, as this theology is set forth, "there must be an awful mistake somewhere;" Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Conflict of Ages" (a work ably reviewed by Rev. Moses Ballou); and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who has just now affirmed that he will never more preach the horrible doctrine of endless punishment. After repeating a statement he had made, that the dogma of endless suffering is the cause of increasing infidelity, Dr. Edward Beecher says, that "Universalism is no longer restricted within denominational lines, but is now diffused more widely than some suspect," that "the preaching of the doctrine is largely neutralized by a latent Universalism within the walls of evangelical churches," that some of the clergy "dare not investigate the dogma (endless suffering) in an impartial, scientific method, lest they bring themselves into conflict with the creed they are expected to defend;" and closes thus: "Meanwhile the creed-doctrine of an endless punishment is seldom discussed from the pulpit, and never willingly heard by the pews." Significant indeed is the closing of his volume on the "Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution:" "Even admitting that the doctrine of eternal punishment is the word of God, it seems to be forgotten that allegations may be attached to it that shall make it to be not the word of God, but the greatest falsehood in the Universe."

At the Congregationalist Convention in Boston in 1865 the difficult problem came up to be solved, "how they could state what they themselves had come to believe, without appearing to deny what the fathers believed." Assembled at the old Burial Hill of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, they affirmed their adherence to the "substance of the Westminster and Saybrook Confessions of Faith." To clothe this "substance" in verbal forms, making it a true statement of the old theology of Puritanism, and at the same time a living thing of to-day, would seem to be an undertaking resulting in as great a confusion of tongues as in any instance recorded in the history of the past. To keep intact the theology of the past in their churches is an impossibility.

For, let us understand that the most thoughtful among the theologians of nearly all the churches are now beginning to feel the force of the question hitherto hushed down, as it has been boldly asked or even whispered in the face of the theology of the past: What is the Divine responsibility in the creation of man? It is the question asked by Hosea Ballou, in his youth, of his father, a Baptist minister: "Would it be an act of goodness on my part to create a human being,—had I the power,—knowing that his existence would prove an endless curse to him?" a question which the father was unable to answer, and which the son did not press strongly upon him. This question, though familiar enough to Universalists and long made a ground of argument concerning human destiny, has usually been evaded by the supporters of the popular theology, as beyond the reach of human reason. They have regarded the inquiry as to the responsibility of God in the creation of man as irreverent on the part of his feeble offspring. But the question has been considered and earnestly examined, and the discussion of it has elicited the most outspoken opinions as to the result of the investigation.

Rev. W.W. Patton, D.D. of Howard University, has recently spoken very definitely on this subject, although he acknowledges that it has not been a legitimate one to be decided upon by the theologians of his school. He affirms that the Divine reason like our own (we being made in the Divine image) includes the eternal, unchangeable, and imperative idea of right, the practical synonym of which is love,—love being that which always, everywhere, and in all beings, expresses the right or sums up duty. He reaches the conclusion that God chooses love as the rule of his activity, that when he creates rational sensitive beings, by that very fact he put himself voluntarily into a relation which calls upon him to act upon the principle of love, which gives them a right to expect that he will so act.

It is an answer to the question of Abraham, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" and of Paul, "Is God unrighteous?" In agreement with this reasoning of Dr. Patton, is that of Rev. John Miller of Princeton, N. J., who just now affirms:—

"A deformed God is a great light gone out from any religion, and is the chief ally of infidelity. God is not to be worshipped because he is powerful, any more than Satan is; but because he is moral. If he wrongs me in bringing me into being, he is no sovereign to me."[60]

In the same strain comes this testimony from Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, of Andover, in a late number of the "North American Review:"—

"The Bible meets us squarely upon the deepest and the highest question which the finite intellect has the right to ask: What, having made us at all, is God's moral attitude toward us? When he thrust into space this quivering ball of pain and error, did he mean well enough by it to justify the deed? Profounder than all our philosophy, wiser than all our protest, comes the sublime and solitary answer: 'He so loved the world that He gave his only Son.' This magnificent reply, which theology has distorted out of its grand and simple proportions, to which science has refused its supreme reasonableness, the true human heart and the clear human head have accepted. The contortions of faith and the malice of doubt have almost equally united to shake the hold of this great re-assurance upon the world. The world will have it in spite of both. The world will have it, because it is the best it can get; and by all the iron laws of common sense it will keep the best till God or man can offer it something better."

Even so. Amen!

At the present time the orthodoxy of Andover Theological Institution is assuming new and strange aspects. During the recent discussions respecting the invitation to Dr. Newman Smyth to accept a professorship at the institution, this avowal on the part of the professors still in their places there is given to the public:—

"It cannot be denied that the doctrines of eternal punishment and of the judgment have lost their proper place in the teachings of the pulpit. That method alone can restore them to a reflective age which refuses to put into them more than our Saviour left in them, and which brings them into accord with the knowledge of divine truth which the spirit of Christ is ever developing in his Church. Christianity educates men to ever higher, broader, more truthful conceptions of God. The questionings of to-day in Christian hearts respecting the doctrine of eternal punishment are a consequence of the elevating and spiritualizing power of the Gospel. The Church should seek out positions that can be held. It should be in advance of its enemies."

This change, it is affirmed by the Andover professors,—

"... is a natural development of principles which the New England theology has especially cultivated. These principles have gained their rights only by hard conflicts. At every stage the cry of heresy has filled the air, but they have won the day. They have banished the dogmas of guilt for Adam's sin, of infant damnation, of passive regeneration, of the universal perdition of the heathen. They have been attended all along by concessions,—concession of the dogmas that all men sinned in Adam, that Adam was their federal head, that the death of Christ was only for the elect; concession that 'elect infants' who die in infancy include all such; that we cannot fix the time when moral agency begins; that none who die before this point is reached are excluded from salvation; and so on, through ever-advancing modifications. The path of New England theology is thus strewn with concessions,—concessions to an advancing knowledge of God's Word, concessions to truth!"[61]

Very explicit language, surely. And yet, in direct conflict with it, there is the fact that the Andover creed, to which all professors of the institution must give their assent, involves the doctrines of the Trinity and Vicarious Atonement; that "by nature every man is personally depraved, destitute of holiness, alike opposed to God; and that, previously to the renewing agency of the Divine Spirit, all his moral actions are adverse to the character and glory of God; that, being morally incapable of recovering the image of his Creator, which was lost in Adam, every man is justly exposed to eternal damnation; so that, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God; that God of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, selected some to everlasting life, and that he entered into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of this state of sin and misery by a Redeemer." Yes, the Andover creed declares there is a final separation from the love of God, which cannot wrest the erring soul from the grasp of death, cannot bridge the grave, cannot descend into the depths and bring up to life and light its own offspring. Christ himself may declare, "I will draw all men unto me;" the Andover creed says, No! No salvation for the soul that has entered death's dark realm. No matter that Christ has the keys of hell, he cannot rescue! No matter that the time has been foretold when "death and the grave shall be destroyed," when "there shall be an end of sin," when pain shall no longer pierce and tears no longer flow; in opposition to all this the Andover creed tells us, as an essential part of Christian faith, as one of the inspiring strains of the Gospel message, that "the wicked" whom Christ came to save, "will awake to shame and everlasting contempt, and with devils be plunged into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever."

How are these theological contradictions to be explained? Infidels are sneering at this double-dealing; honest Christians are asking, "What is to be the issue of this conflict? Why do not these religious leaders state plainly where they stand, and what they would have the churches accept and affirm as the truth of God?" The question has been aptly asked, "Is the moral sense at Andover Institution paralyzed? The situation is perfectly clear to every honest barber, shop-keeper, or shoemaker, and it makes a hundred infidels where the 'Age of Reason' makes one."[62] It is a matter for congratulation that the Christian world has been moved, that its thought has been so largely modified, and that it is our great honor "to stand at the centre, however men may hesitate to acknowledge it, towards which these lines of influence are tending."[63] But why, we must ask, are not these professed friends of Christian truth in all the churches more in readiness to acknowledge this indication, and plainly state what they think of it? Why hesitate and stand in the shadow of their old errors, when it is so clearly evident that they can be no longer successfully maintained, and which do not represent their real opinions? Why not say outright, "We were mistaken in accepting and teaching these doctrines of total depravity, election, and reprobation, infant and endless damnation, and have come to see that God is the Father of all men, and that in all his dealings with his children he will act in strict conformity with his paternal justice and love?" Are we to conclude that there is with them the plague of a confused moral sense, which hinders the honest and prompt avowal, on their part, of the truth of that Gospel of Divine grace "that bringeth salvation to all men?"

To avoid the admission of the truth of Universalism, there are not a few who seem disposed to tarry at the half-way ground of the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked, as though in these desperate cases of sinfulness the saving resources of the Infinite love were exhausted, and God could make no better disposition than this utter destruction of those created in his own image, and capable of knowing, serving, and enjoying him forever. Strange that God's children can so limit his saving love and power! Is there any instance of sinfulness that cannot be reached by that grace which so much more abounds than any transgression of men?

Another conclusion which inquirers reach is that of the indefiniteness in which this question of the ultimate results of the Divine government is involved. As though, on a subject of such unspeakable interest as this to every mortal, there could be indefiniteness in a Revelation involving the truth of man's origin, duty, and destiny! Why not indefiniteness in this Revelation as to the being of a God and his attributes, as to man's whole duty, as to the objects of Christ's mission, as to the immortal existence of any souls? No! the eminent Christian apostle will teach us all better, as he does in his lofty assurance of the extent of God's claims on his children and his paternal interest in them: "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."[64] Everlasting thanks to heaven for the definiteness respecting this great question, which the advocates of Christian Universalism have constantly maintained. These hesitancies, haltings, evasions, policies, will have their day, and through them and after them the truth of the Gospel will find its open avowal and vindication. Here is the prophecy, years since made by one of the ablest and worthiest of Christian ministers. "Whoso readeth, let him understand."

"A few generations more, and the system you have advocated will be among the things that are only remembered. You will abandon it, but by degrees; as the truth increases you will begin by first exploding the old notion that infants are damned, and by avowing the salvation of all who die in early life. Then you will proceed to reject so much of your doctrine as to allow that a very small part of mankind, here and there an individual, will be sent to hell. And continuing the work, you will at length determine that even these will there suffer no other pain than the remorse of conscience; next, that their remorse will be no greater, in degree, than what is experienced in this world. And finally you will give up the remainder, first, in confidential whispers among yourselves, and then, after the common people shall have generally led the way, you will come out boldly, and preach God as the Father of all and the Saviour of all."[65]

Many a one not now ready to acknowledge the claims of the faith of the Universalist Church has this, mainly, as his reason for it, that it has not been for centuries past the popular faith of the churches in Christendom. There are great numbers of Christians who have in reality no more plausible reason why they are not better acquainted and more in love with this faith. Whenever they have heard it spoken of it has been in such words as to lead them to regard it as a modern innovation. Beyond this they have not looked. Convinced of this, they have not desired to look farther. But they should. A faith making such pretensions and appeals ought to be looked after. Men are not wise and humane; they are not lovers of their race and its truest well-wishers in the Christian sense; they are not in readiness to rejoice in view of the widest and most thorough dispensation of Divine grace, in the most extensive and effectual work of salvation through the "One Lord Jesus Christ," while they regard with indifference the affirmation which the Gospel makes of this very work with all souls. Is it true? This ought to be the eager inquiry of everyone professing faith in the significance of the second commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Where this love pervades the heart, will not that heart seek every evidence that can be offered in proof of this most desirable of all results, the reconciliation of all souls to the Divine administration, the Divine love regenerating, uplifting, and glorifying all God's offspring? We press these questions home, without a word of apology, to every lover of Christ and the Christian cause.

If these hesitating ones of whom we speak would take up the examination, they would find that some of the clearest and noblest minds of the past have given their assent to this very faith, and that the doctrines in opposition to it are not to be regarded as past questioning when they have been sanctioned by generations involved in as much mental and moral darkness as most of those which have preceded us.

Christ came to teach positive truth, and his religion invites the largest and freest inquiry as to its claims. And so this theology of the past will be investigated. It is undergoing the process now in minds and in the midst of institutions where this old conviction of the superiority and sacredness of the past has been revered as it never can be again. All the sects are more or less affected with this contagion of inquiry. It will not be suppressed. To silence it for a season is but allowing it to accumulate greater force with which it shall again make itself manifest. Said a speaker, a few years since, in a Methodist Conference in New York city:—

"What reason can be given for the difference in manifestation of conviction of sin between our day and the times of our fathers? Whereas we used to preach to sinners that an endless hell awaited all who died in their sins, we now leave the fact almost wholly out of sight. We say we believe that when men thus die they go to a place of everlasting burnings, where the Almighty tortures them alive as long as he the Almighty lives. If we believe this, why do we not preach it now? Why do not our editors write about it, and our bishops thunder it from their pulpits till the people tremble?"

A brother minister present took exception to these remarks. He thought that the Christians made by what were termed the "reformed methods" of the day are as abundant in good works, and their lives redound to the glory of God full as much as was the case under the machinery of fifty years ago. "We do not propose to go back on the operation of the Holy Spirit to-day, because he acts now in ways different from those of old." A sensible conclusion. The churches are growing,—growing out of unreasonable doctrines which had their origin in the darkness of the olden time, and which must vanish away as the full day of Christian truth comes in to gladden the waiting world.

Christianity will stand all this controversy. It was made to. It is not only the wisdom and the love, but the power of God, and that endures and triumphs. It needs of itself no alteration. While it can suit itself to all the shifting phases of human history, it is of itself, like its author, "without variableness or shadow of turning." It has the same fulness and adaptiveness now that it ever had. Says Rev. Mr. Spurgeon:—

"Men in the days of Whitfield looked back to the days of Bunyan, and men in the days of Bunyan wept because of the days of Wyckliffe, Calvin, and Luther; and men then wept for the days of Augustine and Chrysostom; men in those days wept for the days of the apostles; and doubtless men in the apostles' days wept for the days of Jesus Christ; and, no doubt, some in the days of Jesus Christ were so blind as to wish to return to the days of prophecy, and thought more of the days of Elijah than they did of the most glorious days of Christ. Some men look more to the past than to the present. Rest assured that Jesus Christ is the same that he was yesterday, and will be the same forever."

Verily so; and what he is, it is our business in the present to ascertain. How much of his fulness may we now be able to comprehend?

And so again we say, "the world moves," the church moves, the spirit of the All-wise and Almighty is moving upon the heart of humanity. Man advances. This is the Divine process. For long centuries there may be but little, comparatively, accomplished; then a new activity will be realized. We do not expect to go back to the Dark Ages again. The very last half-century, as we have seen, has been more marked with progress than any other before in the world's history. Our own nation has given signal evidence of this. Our Declaration of Independence has an increased luminousness at the present hour. That the next half-century will have equal advancement, we are not sure; but all signs are hopeful that there will be more growth, continued improvement. One thing seems evident in reference to our own nation, which is, that the religion of the Gospel is needed in it more than ever before, to meet its increasing needs, and to give it strength of character and permanent life. Truer words were never spoken than those by the orator at the Yorktown Centenary celebration during the past year:—

"No advanced thought, no mystical philosophy, glittering abstractions, no swelling phrases about freedom,—not even science, with all its marvellous inventions and discoveries,—can help us much in sustaining this republic. Still less can any Godless theories of creation, or any infidel attempts to rule out the Redeemer from his rightful supremacy in our hearts, afford us any hope of security. In that way lies despair! Commonplace truths, old familiar teachings, the ten commandments, the sermon on the mount, the farewell address of Washington, honesty, virtue, patriotism, universal education, are what the world most needs in these days, and our own part of the world as much as any other part. Without these we are lost. With these, and with the blessing of God, which is sure to follow them, we may confidently look forward."[66]

If we are reading the signs of the present and the indications of the future aright, we readily conclude that it is but early day yet in the history of humanity,—we mean in its moral and spiritual history. Gross darkness, fearful wrong, appalling sin yet afflict and demean it. If we have the gain of the past to encourage us, if we would be aids in the world's progress, the new instrumentalities of the present which we possess must be used as though we had full faith in their power, that is, in the Divine indications that are in them. If the true millennium is yet afar off, it is advancing. So should we be, not as children of the night, nor of any darkness of the past, but of the Christian day, which has had its heavenly breaking, and whose rising bids us to be risen also, and to be moving on! We are debtors to the past, how great we can never fully realize. We are equally debtors to the future. What can we now do for its largest blessing, its permanent life?

Seeing that these errors, delusions, and wrongs of the past are to be dissolved, what is the work of the Universalist Church now and in the time to come? The answer is ready. It is to magnify its office, to extend the spirit and life of its holy faith. It is false to its trust if it fail to do this. It is to advance, "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." To boast of its grand conceptions of truth, its reasonable interpretations of the Bible, of its pre-eminence in any way, and still to have no quickening power in the work it is called to do, is not to seek advancement and success, but to court disappointment and failure.

This highly-favored church, then, should offer to the acceptance of the world,—

1. A positive faith. At this peculiarly transitional time in the Christian Church history, great watchfulness and discrimination are needed on the part of those who are regarded by the majority of the churches as "liberal Christians," because this word "liberal" is often quite vague in its meaning and covers very many phases of belief and unbelief, scepticism, and credulity. A candid and able writer of the Unitarian fraternity has just given to the public these very timely and wholesome suggestions:—

"Liberal Christians will make a fatal mistake if they dream of gaining strength and influence by statements so nebulous and so universally inclusive that even those who deny all spiritualities can ally themselves with them, and speak from their pulpits. If they intend to form a debating club or a school of philosophy, they might naturally and wisely pursue such a policy. But if they wish to form a church, with a faith to offer to the world, and a positive and definite work for a definite end, such a course is self-destructive."

"The effort of liberal Christianity should have been to strengthen the things that remain. Instead of that, its work has tended too much to minimize faith and to maximize doubt. Everything has become the subject of dissection, almost nothing the object of enthusiasm and trust. That religious body whose supreme function is criticism, however skilful it may be in special work, will never be a regenerating power in human society."[67]

Well said. And this leads us to speak directly and freely on the subject of creeds as connected with all Christian churches, and especially as involving the policy and duty of the so-called Liberal churches. We know that at the present time many are cutting themselves away from old creeds, such as have held them and their ancestors before them; when there is more religious inquiry abroad than ever before, and when it is becoming quite fashionable to speak lightly of all creeds, and to intimate that, on the whole, the church and the world may get along about as well without them as with them,—perhaps much better without them. It is well, as this impatience of creeds is increasing, "to think soberly," if possible, on the whole matter.

What is a creed? Let us "begin at the beginning,"—the dictionary. Creed comes from the Latin credo, and signifies to believe. It is "a summary of Christian belief, or of the articles of faith. Any profession of that which is believed; a statement of the articles of belief, as the creeds of political parties." All religionists have creeds of some kind; from the most liberal to the most exclusive of them. Take the most radical "free religionist" you can find, and ask him, immediately after you have heard him berating creeds and adjudging all as bigots who would be bound by them, what he believes, and as surely as he says anything, he will state to you what. And this is his creed, whether he calls it so or not. He might as well deny that he has a head by calling it something else, or by not allowing it to have any name. A creed he has, if he believes anything. The same of all men.

What, then, is the objection to creeds? Why, that the Church has been full of bad creeds, narrow creeds, unreasonable creeds, contradictory creeds, creeds dishonorable to God and to humanity. There is no doubt of this; and the evil still abounds. But what then? Away with all creeds? You cannot do it. A creed you will have, at last, after all you have thought and said and done against having one. It is inevitable.

Most of the creeds of the Church, for centuries past, have contained doctrines revolting to the common sense and to the holiest affections of mankind. The Church and the world are outgrowing them, and they must be put away. There will be no rest nor peace for those who hold and defend them until they are put away. But what more? Will there be nothing instead of these falsehoods, in the forms of human creeds? Are there no TRUTHS to take the place of them? Every reasonable mind concludes that there are. Better views of God and man will be taken, more reasonable and scriptural doctrines will be accepted, and these will go to make up the new creeds. If these new creeds have errors in them, then there will be new siftings in the controversies that will be continued on the old apostolic principle, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Notice; to be continually questioning is not the great object of Christian investigation. There is something to be held fast. It is that truth which will commend itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. This will constitute the perfected Christian creed at last, just as surely as that "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Because the churches have not yet the right creed is no reason why they may not be seeking for it, and may not one day find and adopt it. We do not mean, of course, that all minds can be alike, but that all minds will unite in acknowledging certain truths, such as the Divine Paternity, the Human Brotherhood, the necessity of personal holiness, the divine and human mission of Jesus, the immortality, holiness, and happiness of mankind. If these are truths, as we believe they are, they will constitute a part, at least, of the Christian creeds of the churches.

To what, then, does this sweeping denunciation of creeds amount? May not much of it be of very questionable utility and soundness? We know that good and wise men talk thus. But are good and great men, even, always sure of being right in their statements and conclusions? One of our distinguished public men, Mr. Wendell Phillips, said in his discourse on "Christianity a battle, not a Dream," that the New Testament was nothing but the New Testament, and that "nothing like a creed could be tortured out of it,—nothing like Universalism, Catholicism, or Unitarianism." We have as little faith in the torturing process as he; but we utterly deny that a Universalist creed cannot be clearly and undeniably found in the New Testament. We have already stated a part of it. If the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of the race, the unceasing obligation of man to love God and his fellow-creatures, the lordship and mission of Christ the Saviour of the world, the immortality of all mankind, are not positive doctrines of the New Testament, then no doctrines, no precepts, no principles can be proved from it. This is the very question at issue between Universalists and those who deny that their faith has its foundations in the New Testament. We are ready to stand on this issue with all who will meet us there as honest inquirers after truth.

A gifted and highly honored member of the fraternity of Friends took occasion some time since to speak lightly of an attempt on their part to "tinker a creed" for themselves. And why might they not do it? If not satisfied with their present statement of faith they have a right to search for that which will enable them to make a better one. Tinkering! What are we all doing in our investigations and conclusions but just this? Rather poor workmen, most of us; but here, in this great workshop God has given us, we have a right to keep hammering and welding away,—a right and a duty to see how perfect a piece of work we may show as the result of our patient and persistent labor. Newton deemed himself but a picker-up of pebbles, while the great ocean of truth lay all unexplored before him. Our best searching will only give us indications of that truth which is infinite. Yet this is no reason why we should not be looking for it, and stating it when we think we have found it. God will accept even our homeliest work, when honestly done.

So, in reason's name, do not let us be afraid of "tinkering" on creeds, any more than we should be ashamed to be diggers, hammerers, furnace-workers and explorers in the fields of science. Truth will come of it all; truth that shall be worked into a good creed at last.

Universalists have a creed. Its articles, we believe, are reasonable and uncontradictory, commending themselves to the clearest intellect and to the holiest affections of mankind. Their principal creed or "Confession" is a short one, yet remarkably comprehensive. It can be and is enlarged, and in this form adopted in many of the churches. The world asks what Universalists believe. They have been in existence as a sect long enough to tell them; and ought to be in readiness to do this. Yea, anxious to do it, because of their convictions of the need of this truth in the understandings and hearts of men. Our Unitarian neighbors have been much troubled with the fact that many of their own people, especially their younger ones, have not known what Unitarians believed,—what were the articles or doctrinal statements of their creed. Just one thing, surely, that they and others ought to know. If Universalists have had any defect of this kind, it should cease to be with them, especially if they have definite convictions of Christian doctrines such as the Divine Paternity, the Brotherhood of Man, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Regeneration, Retribution, Forgiveness, Atonement, Salvation, Immortality. If they have not definite convictions respecting them, let them say so, honestly, as in the hearing of all men. Otherwise, let them have a positive creed to state and defend.

A positive creed, we say. For, to have a creed made up of statements that are questionable in the minds of its defenders, is to have anything but a New Testament—a truly Christian creed. The Apostles had no such creed. Their creed reads thus: "To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we by Him.—Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.—Now is Christ risen, and become the first fruits of them that slept.—God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. God shall be all in all." With them these were not questions open for self-settlement in their minds, but truths of which they were thoroughly convinced, and in the promulgation of which they were most thoroughly in earnest. This is the Christian ministry now needed, not a ministry made up of inquirers and sceptics mainly, who are "ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth," but of those who have settled convictions of what the truth of God is, and who are in readiness to state and maintain a creed which they believe to be every way in accordance with reason, with the Scriptures, and in answer to the most earnest and anxious inquiries of the human soul.

"But creeds are binding," says one. Of course they are if we believe them to be the truth, and are truthful ourselves in the acceptance and use of them. But how are creeds binding? Erroneous, evil creeds bring the souls who hold them into bondage. We understand this. But what about true and good creeds? It appears to us that these give liberty, aye, the largest liberty. Jesus says, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Who says, in the light of this statement, that the truth of Christ adopted in a creed tends to bondage? God's truth, dear reader, is binding on you, and on us all, according to our convictions of it. What freedom do you desire? That which will give you indulgence in perpetual scepticism, unsettlement in regard to anything? Call you this liberty? We regard it as about the worst of bondage; because we are thus in uncertainty; we have no permanent habitation in God's love and life. We have, indeed, the poor liberty of an outcast, but not that of "a child at home." This last is a liberty which a creed embracing Christian truth will allow us. We want no greater. It will help us in all our interpretations of God and His works and ways in the universe which is open before us.

Two considerations, then, we may bear in mind; one is, that of the reasonableness and propriety of Christian creeds. This indiscriminate denunciation of them is not wise. It is one of the flurries of the present age, but will not endure the long run of theological investigation. Creeds may not all be written, but they will exist, even with those who denounce them. The logic of fact and human experience effectually settles this, so that a further superfluity of breath on this subject does not seem to be really needed. A faith in the unseen that is most in accordance with nature, human intuitions, sound philosophy, and the Word of God, is the one after which all souls may rightfully seek.

Next, of the Universalist creed, let us understand that it is not only a theological affirmation, but a constant teacher of the most thorough virtue,—a call to the purest, highest, and most heavenly life. The Universalist Church needs nothing so much as to be vitalized by its spirit; the world needs nothing more than this vitality for its present salvation.

2. And this leads us to speak, briefly, of the true Christian life which this Church should seek to commend to the world. Here is the Apostle's direction which opens to us most clearly the practical influence of the faith of the gospel: "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."[68] It is the indwelling heavenly love, the love which Christianity is ever indicating and proving, that will find its expression in the true Christian believer. It is the practical interpretation of that text from John, "We love him because he first loved us."[69] It is the faith with works, proving its spiritual vitality. It is at war with sin and wrong; it comprehends the scriptural statement, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." And it realizes how evil is to be overcome and put away. It aims to live here and now as it becomes the soul born of God to live, "soberly, righteously, godly." What words more expressive of its life can be given? They sum up the whole of the Christian life.

This religion which the Christian Gospel recommends is reverential and worshipful. The flippant inquiry of atheism of olden or modern time, "What is the Almighty that we should pray to him or serve him?" it answers, rationally and emphatically, "The Lord he is God; serve him with gladness; for he is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations." Worship is the natural utterance of the true believer as he looks upward to the Father. Forms of worship are means by which his adoration finds expression. Monotony, routine, repetitions, drony formality, will not be in the offering, for the reason that his whole soul is seeking God, and finds the enjoyment of his holy presence and ineffable light.

This religion is affectional and emotional. It is intellect awakened into love; it is sober thought seeking most earnest expression; it is logic on fire. Those who have no taste for the emotional in religion have only a partial conception of the most effective expression which the Christian religion seeks, and in which it may properly and profitably indulge. The needy, empty-souled, impulsive world-masses are not to be reached and warmed, uplifted and inspired, by clearly exact and well-stated and well-worked-out theological problems. The multiplication table is true, and useful, but we do not look for any spiritual inspiration in it. The religion that has most blessed the world is a religion that appeals to and draws out the affections; that, while it repudiates imprudent zeal and fanaticism, insists on that earnestness which everywhere meets us in the New Testament Gospels and apostolic records and epistles; which reaches men's hearts and convinces them of their need of heavenly aid; awakens the question asked by the converted soul, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and realizes the significance of those apostolic declarations, "Be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts unto God the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." All this signifies living interest, fervor of spirit, emotional, wakeful expression.

This religion is, moreover, eminently practical. It is not only ready to say, "Lord, Lord!" but to do the Lord's work as well. It forecloses this inconsiderate criticism sometimes heard, "Why all this wordy demonstration and noise about religion? Good works are of a thousand times more avail; the best religion is to do good." True, indeed, and this is what Christianity is constantly teaching. No one taught it more forcibly than Jesus himself. The parable of the Good Samaritan is emphatic on this point, that the reputed unbeliever who did good was worthy of more praise than the most punctilious professor of religion who was deficient in the essentials of the Christian kingdom,—Justice, Mercy, and Love. "What doth it profit, though a man say he have faith and have not works? Can faith save him? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."[70] But good works do not exclude these other manifestations of the true religion. "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

3. Once more: this religion is reformatory and progressive. Reformation and progress are words always indicative of the Christian dispensation with man; the call to holiness and the response to it, growth in God's grace, new achievements,—never resting in present attainments, but ever striving with fresh inspiration for new accomplishments in the heavenly course. Most religions (especially under the Christian name) have some of these characteristics; but the religion nearest to that which Christ taught and exemplified will have them all. To secure the highest blessings of the Christian kingdom, the churches must be based on the principles, and conform to the requirements, of this kingdom. The Universalist Church must. Its true prosperity has been and will be in accordance with its fidelity in this particular. One of its earnest preachers of the present time has truly said:—

"Opinions as faith will never serve to build up any Christian character. There is not a saved soul in any paradise anywhere which was ever saved by any opinion. It is only when opinions become faith—become rooted forces of the soul—that they have any effect."

It should have the Christian missionary inspiration and action, should open its eyes to the magnitude and glory of the missionary outlook which no faith short of that of Christian Universalism presents to every lover of this humanity now groaning in bondage, and waiting "for the manifestation of the sons of God." It should rise to a new and grander conception than has been realized by those who have borne to souls in the darkness of heathenism the limited doctrines of human wisdom. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." To no other church in Christendom does this great text of the ages speak more explicitly than to the Universalist. It has the truth of the Human Brotherhood, which all the world should understand and embrace, for which all heathendom is waiting, and to which in the long run it will come if this favored church is true to its heavenly calling. That it may be thus true, it is not to deceive itself with any false ideas of the leavening process which is to go on in other churches, while it is inclined to do the least and not the most to keep the leaven in healthy and constant operation. When Rev. Otis A. Skinner was canvassing New England to raise the first one hundred thousand dollars for Tufts College, he was met with such suggestions as this from certain ones who professed friendliness to the success of his movements: "Is it really necessary to make this attempt to build a new college? Why not keep quiet, and wait until the time comes when Harvard College will fall into our hands?" Supposing such short-sightedness and apathy had prevailed, where would Tufts College with all its benefits have been to-day? Universalists should be about their own church missionary business. It is theirs, and no others are called upon to do it for them. Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Records of the Church in the Third Century,"—many of whose members were avowed believers in the final reconciliation of all souls,—states that they were among the most zealous and devoted Christians of that age in personal piety and in active missionary labors. They sent out the Gospel to the remotest shores of the then known world. Here is the same world to be reached by the messengers of this very Gospel to-day. "How shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?" No corner of the earth is exempt from the benefits of this message; no means should be left unemployed to send it forth. Are Universalists acquainted as they might be with the missionary work that has been already done by the other churches around them? Are they familiar with their reports and other publications involving the missionary enterprise, showing what good they have accomplished in opening the Christian Scriptures and aiding a Christian civilization in other lands? Do they realize that if these missionaries have propagated errors in theology, they have cleared the way in part for a better dispensation of Divine Truth by the translations of the Bible into other languages, which they have made? These are important considerations, and Universalists will do well to act upon them.

As the Lord liveth, the now "open questions" will one day be settled, and settled on the side of the Divine Beneficence. The love of God in Christ has come into the world, and will not go out of it until its work is here done; love that is long-suffering, that rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; that beareth, believeth, hopeth, and endureth all things, and that never faileth; love that will bring the last lost one home, that will obliterate all the hells, and people all the heavens in the universe.