Part 4

Last Sunday, in the name of the poor, I asked you for your charity. To-day I ask for dearer alms: I ask you to contribute your piety. It will help the town more than the little money all of us can give. Your money will soon be spent; it feeds one man once; we cannot give it twice, though the blessing thereof may linger long in the hand which gave. Few of us can give much money to the poor; some of us none at all. This we can all give: the inspiration of a man with a man's piety in his heart, living it out in a man's life. Your money may be ill spent, your charity misapplied, but your piety never. After all, there is nothing you can give which men will so readily take and so long remember as this. Mothers can give it to their daughters and their sons; men, after spending thereof profusely at home, can coin their inexhausted store into industry, patience, integrity, temperance, justice, humanity, a practical love of man. A thousand years ago, it was easy to excuse men if they chiefly showed religion in the conventional pattern of the church. Forms then were helps, and the nun has been mother to much of the charity of our times. It is easy to excuse our fathers for their superstitious reverence for rites and forms. But now, in an age which has its eyes a little open, a practical and a handy age, we are without excuse if our piety appears not in a manly life, our faith in works. To give this piety to cheer and bless mankind, you must have it first, be cheered and blessed thereby yourself. Have it, then, in your own way; put it into your own form. Do men tell you, "This is a degenerate age," and "Religion is dying out?" tell them that when those stars have faded out of the sky from very age, when other stars have come up to take their place, and they too have grown dim and hollow-eyed and old, that religion will still live in man's heart, the primal, everlasting light of all our being. Do they tell you that you must put piety into their forms; put it there if it be your place; if not, in your place. Let men see the divinity that is in you by the humanity that comes out from you. If they will not see it, cannot, God can and will. Take courage from the past, not its counsel; fear not now to be a man. You may find a new Eden where you go, a river of God in it, and a tree of life, an angel to guard it; not the warning angel to repel, but the guiding angel to welcome and to bless.

* * * * *

It was four years yesterday since I first came here to speak to you; I came hesitatingly, reluctant, with much diffidence as to my power to do what it seemed to me was demanded. I did not come merely to pull down, but to build up, though it is plain much theological error must be demolished before any great reform of man's condition can be brought about. I came not to contend against any man, or sect, or party, but to speak a word for truth and religion in the name of man and God. I was in bondage to no sect; you in bondage to none. When a boy I learned that there is but one religion though many theologies. I have found it in Christians and in Jews, in Quakers and in Catholics. I hope we are all ready to honor what is good in each sect, and in rejecting its evil not to forget our love and wisdom in our zeal.

When I came I certainly did not expect to become a popular man, or acceptable to many. I had done much which in all countries brings odium on a man, though perhaps less in Boston than in any other part of the world. I had rejected the popular theology of Christendom. I had exposed the low morals of society, had complained of the want of piety in its natural form. I had fatally offended the sect, small in numbers, but respectable for intelligence and goodness, in which I was brought up. I came to look at the signs of the times from an independent point of view, and to speak on the most important of all themes. I thought a house much smaller than this would be much too large for us. I knew there would be fit audience; I thought it would be few, and the few would soon have heard enough and go their ways.

I know I have some advantages above most clergymen: I am responsible to no sect; no sect feels responsible for me; I have rejoiced at good things which I have seen in all sects; the doctrines which I try to teach do not rest on tradition, on miracles, or on any man's authority; only on the nature of man. I seek to preach the natural laws of man. I appeal to history for illustration, not for authority. I have no fear of philosophy. I am willing to look a doubt fairly in the face, and think reason is sacred as conscience, affection, or the religious faculty in man. I see a profound piety in modern science. I have aimed to set forth absolute religion, the ideal religion of human nature, free piety, free goodness, free thought. I call that Christianity, after the greatest man of the world, one who himself taught it; but I know that this was never the Christianity of the churches, in any age. I have endeavored to teach this religion and apply it to the needs of this time. These things certainly give me some advantages over most other ministers. Of the disadvantages which are personal to myself, I need not speak in public, but some which come from my position, ought to be noticed with a word. The walls of this house, the associations connected with it, furnish little help to devotion; we must rely on ourselves wholly for that. Other clergymen, by their occasional exchanges, can present their hearers with an agreeable variety in substance and in form. A single man, often heard, becomes wearisome and unprofitable, for "No man can feed us always." This I feel to be a great disadvantage which I labor under. Your kindness and affectionate indulgence make me feel it all the more. But one man cannot be twenty men.

When I came here I knew I should hurt men's feelings. My theology would prove more offensive and radical than men thought; the freedom of speech which men liked at a distance would not be pleasing when near at hand; my doctrines of morality I knew could not be pleasing to all men; not to all good men. I saw by your looks that in my abstractions I did not go too far for your sympathy, or too fast for your following. I soon found that my highest thought and most pious sentiment were most warmly welcomed as such; but when I came to put abstract thought and mystical piety into concrete goodness, and translate what you had accepted as Christian faith into daily life; when I came to apply piety to trade, politics, life in general, I knew that I should hurt men's feelings. It could not be otherwise. Yet I have had a most patient and faithful hearing. One thing I must do in my preaching: I must be in earnest. I cannot stand here before you and before God, attempting to teach piety and goodness, and not feel the fire and show the fire. The greater the wrong, the more popular, the more must I oppose it, and with the clearer, abler speech. It is not necessary for me to be popular, to be acceptable, even to be loved. It is necessary that I should tell the truth. But let that pass. You come hither week after week, it is now year after year that you come, to listen to one humble man. Do you get poor in your souls? Does your religion become poor and low? Are you getting less in the qualities of a man? If so, then leave me, to empty seats, to cold and voiceless walls; go elsewhere, and feed your souls with a wise passiveness, or an activity wiser yet. Such is your duty; let no affection for me hinder you from performing it. The same theology, the same form suits not all men. But if it is not so, if I do you good, if you grow in mind and conscience, heart and soul, then I ask one thing--Let your piety become natural life, your divinity become humanity.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Synod declared: "That God hath a controversie with his New England people is undeniable." "There are visible manifest evils, which without doubt the Lord is provoked by." 1. "A great and visible decay of the power of Godliness amongst many professors in these churches." 2. "Pride doth abound in New England. Many have offended God by strange apparel." 3. "Church fellowship and other divine institutions are grossly neglected." "Quakers are false worshippers," "and Anabaptists ... do no better than set up an Altar against the Lord's Altar." 4. "The holy and glorious name of God hath been polluted;" "because of swearing the land mourns." "It is a frequent thing for men to sit in prayer-time ... and to give way to their own sloth and sleepiness." "We read of but one man in Scripture that slept at a sermon, and that sin had like to have cost him his life." 5. "There is much Sabbath-breaking; since there are multitudes that do profanely absent themselves from the public worship of God,... walking abroad and travelling ... being a common practice on the Sabbath Day." "Worldly unsuitable discourses are very common upon the Lord's Day." "This brings wrath, fires, and other judgments upon a professing people." 6. "As to what concerns families and Government thereof, there is much amiss." "Children and servants ... are not kept in due subjection." "This is a sin which brings great judgments, as we see in Eli's and David's family." 7. "Inordinate passions, sinful heats and hatreds, and that amongst church members." 8. "There is much intemperance:" "it is a common practice for town-dwellers, yea, and church members, to frequent public houses, and there to misspend precious time." 9. "There is much want of truth amongst men." "The Lord is not wont to suffer such an iniquity to pass unpunished." 10. "Inordinate affection unto the world." "There hath been in many professors an insatiable desire after land and worldly accommodations; yea, so as to forsake churches and ordinances, and to live like heathen, only so that they might have elbow-room in the world. Farms and merchandisings have been preferred before the things of God." "Such iniquity causeth war to be in the gate, and cities to be burned up." "When Lot did forsake the land of Canaan and the church which was in Abraham's family, that so he might have better worldly accommodations in Sodom, God fired him out of all." "There are some traders that sell their goods at excessive rates; day-laborers and mechanics are unreasonable in their demands." 11. "There hath been opposition to the work of reformation." 12. "A public spirit is greatly wanting in the most of men." 13. "There are sins against the gospel, whereby the Lord has been provoked." "Christ is not prized and embraced in all his offices and ordinances as ought to be."

[2] In 1646, Mr. Samuel Symonds wrote to Governor Winthrop, as follows: "I will also mention the text preached upon at our last fast, and the propositions raised thereupon, because it was so seasonable to New England's condition. Jeremiah 30:17; For I will restore health to thee, and heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord; because they called thee an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom noe man careth for.

"1. Prop. That sick tymes doe passe over Zion.

"2. That sad and bitter neglect is the portion, aggravation and affliction of Zion in the tyme of his sicknesse and wounds, but especially in the neglect of those that doe neglect it, and yet, notwithstanding, doe acknowledge it to be Zion.

"3. That the season of penitent Zion's passion, is the season of God's compassion.

"This sermon tended much to the settling of Godly minds here in God's way, and to raise their spirits, and, as I conceive, hath suitable effects."

II.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE MOST CHRISTIAN USE OF THE SUNDAY.--A SERMON PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 1848.

MARK II. 27.

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

From past ages we have received many valuable institutions, that have grown out of the transient wants or the permanent nature of man. Amongst these are two which have done a great service in promoting the civilization of mankind, which still continue amongst us. I speak now of the institution of Sunday, and that of preaching. By the one, a seventh part of the time is separated from the common pursuits of life, in order that it may be devoted to bodily relaxation, and to the culture of the spiritual powers of man; by the other, a large body of men, in most countries the best educated class, are devoted to the cultivation of these spiritual powers. Such at least is the theory of those two institutions, be their effect in practice what it may. This morning, let us look at one of them, and so I invite your attention to some thoughts relative to the Sunday--to the most Christian and profitable use of that day.

There is a stricter party of Christians amongst us, who speak out their opinions concerning the Sunday; this comprises what are commonly called the more "evangelical" sects. There is a party less strict in many particulars, comprising what are commonly called the more "liberal" sects. They have hitherto been comparatively silent on this theme. Their opinions about the Sunday have not usually been so plainly spoken out, but have been made apparent by their actions, by occasional and passing words, rather than by full, distinct, and emphatic declarations. The stricter party, of late years, have been growing a little more strict; the party less strict likewise advance in the opposite direction. Recently, a call has been published by a few men, for a convention to consult and take some steps towards the less rigid course, for the purpose, as I understand it, of making the Sunday even more valuable than it is now. I take it for granted that both parties desire to make the best possible use of the Sunday--the use most conducive to the highest interests of mankind; that they desire this equally. There are good men on both sides, the more and the less strict; pious men, in the best sense of that word, may be found on both sides. There is no need of imputing bad motives to either party in order to explain the difference between the two.

Such is the aspect of the two parties in the field, looking opposite ways, but at one another. It seems likely that there will be a quarrel, and, as is usual in such cases, hard words on each side, hard thoughts and unkind feelings on both sides. Before the quarrel begins, and our eyes are blinded by the dust of controversy; before our blood is fired, and we become wholly incapable of judgment--let us look coolly at the matter, and ask, Do we need any change in respect to the observance of the Sunday? Are the present opinions respecting the origin, nature, and original design of that institution just and true? Is the present mode of observing it the most profitable that can be devised? The inquiry is one of great importance.

To answer these questions, it is necessary to go back a little into the history of the Hebrew Sabbath and the Christian Sunday. However, it is not needful to go much into detail, or consume this precious hour in a learned discussion on antiquarian matters which concern none but scholars.

With the Hebrews the actual observance of Saturday--the Sabbath--as a day rest, seems to be of pretty late origin. The first mention of it in authentic Hebrew history, as actually observed, occurs about two hundred years after Samuel, and about six hundred after Moses--a little less than nine hundred before Christ. The passage is found in 2 Kings 4: 23; a child had died, as the narrative relates--the mother wished to send for Elisha, "the man of God." Her husband objects, saying, "Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day? it is neither new moon nor Sabbath." This connection with the new moon is significant. In the earlier historical books of Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, and the first of Kings, there is no mention of the Sabbath, not the least allusion to it.

This seems to have been the origin of its observance:--The worship of one God, with the distinctive name Jehovah, gradually got established in the Hebrew nation; for this they seem largely indebted to Moses. Gradually this worship of Jehovah became connected with a body of priests, who were regularly organized at length, and claimed descent from Levi--some of them from Aaron, his celebrated descendant, the elder brother of Moses. The rise of the Levitical priesthood is remarkable, and easily traced in the Old Testament. Some books are entirely destitute of a Levitical spirit, such as Genesis and Judges; others are filled with it, as Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the books of Chronicles. With the priesthood it seems there came the observance of certain days for religious or festal purposes--New Moon days, Full Moon days, and the like. These seem to have been derived from the nations about them, with whom the moon--deified as Astarte, the Queen and Mother of Heaven, and under other names--was long an object of worship. The observance of those days points back to the period when Fetichism, the worship of Nature, was the prominent form of religion. With the other days of religious observance came the seventh day, called the Sabbath. No one knows its true historical origin. The statement respecting its origin, in the fourth commandment, and elsewhere in the Old Testament, can hardly be accepted as literally true by any one in this century. No scientific man, in the present stage of philosophic inquiry, will believe that God created the universe in six days, and then rested on the seventh. Did other nations observe this day before the Hebrews; was it also connected with some Fetichistic form of worship; what was the historical event which led to the selection of that day in special? This it is easy to ask, but perhaps not possible to answer. These are curious questions; they are of little practical importance to us at this moment.

After the Hebrew institutions of religion got fixed--the worship of Jehovah, the Levitical priesthood, and the peculiar forms of sacrifice--it became common to refer their origin back to the time of Moses, who lived fourteen or fifteen hundred years before Christ. Since few memorials from his age have come down to us, it is plain we can know little of him. But from the impression which his character left on his nation, and through them on the whole world; from the myths so early connected with his name, it seems pretty clear that he was one of the greatest and most extraordinary men that ever lived. Mankind seldom tell great things of little men. It is difficult to say what share he had in making the laws of the Hebrew nation which are commonly referred to him,--and, as it is popularly taught, revealed to him directly by Jehovah. Perhaps we are not safe in referring to him even the whole of the ten commandments; surely not in any one of their present forms.[3] Was the Sabbath observed as a day of rest before Moses? Was its observance enforced by him? Was it even known to him? These questions are not easily answered. This is only certain: from the time of Moses to that of Jehoram, a period of about six hundred years, there is no historical mention of its observance, not the least allusion to it. Yet we have documents which treat of that period,--the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings,--some of them historical documents, which go into the minute detail of the national peculiarities, and were evidently written with a good deal of concern for strict integrity and truth; they refer to the national rite of circumcision. Now, if the Sabbath had been observed during that period, it is difficult to believe it would have received no passing notice in those historical books. But not only is there no mention of it therein, none even in the times of David and Solomon, who favored the priesthood so strongly; but in the book of Chronicles, the most Levitical book in the Bible, at a date more than two hundred years later than the time of Jehoram, it is distinctly declared that the Sabbath had not been kept for nearly five hundred years.[4] But even if this statement is true, which is scarcely probable, it is plain from the frequent mention of the Sabbath in the writings of the latter part of that period--Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others--that the institution was one well known and highly regarded by religious men. After the return from the Babylonian exile, it seems to have been kept with considerable rigor; this we learn from the book of Nehemiah.

The Hebrew law, as it is contained in the Pentateuch, is a singular mixture of conflicting statutes, evidently belonging to different ages, many of them wholly unsuitable to the condition of the people when the laws are alleged to have been given. However, they are all referred back to the time of Moses in the Pentateuch itself, and by the popular theology at the present day. In the law the command is given to keep the seventh day as a day of rest, and that command is referred distinctly to Jehovah himself. The reason is given for choosing that day:--"For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed;" the Sabbath, therefore, was to be kept in commemoration of the fact, that after Jehovah had spent the week in creating the world, "he rested and was refreshed." It was to be a day of rest for master and slave, for man and beast. A special sacrifice was offered on that day, in addition to the usual ceremonies, but no provision was made for the religious instruction of the people. The Sabbath was what its Hebrew name implies, a rest from all labor. The law, in general terms, forbade all work; but, not content with that, it descends to minute details, specifically prohibiting by statute the gathering or preparation of food on the Sabbath, even of food to be consumed on that day itself; the lighting of a fire, or the removal from one's place; and, by a decision where the statute did not apply, forbade the gathering of sticks of wood. The punishment for violating the Sabbath in general, or in any one of these particulars, was death: "Whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death." However, amusement was not prohibited, nor eating and drinking, only work. The command, "Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day," at a later period, was liberally interpreted, and a man was allowed to go two thousand cubits, a Sabbath-day's journey.

Long after the time of Moses, some of the Hebrews returned from exile amongst a more civilized and refined people. It seems probable that only the stricter portion returned and established themselves in the land of their fathers. Nehemiah, their leader, enforced the observance of the Sabbath with a strictness and rigor of which earlier times afford no evidence. But the nation was not content with making it a day of idleness. They established synagogues, where the people freely assembled on the Sabbath and other public days, for religious instruction, and thus founded an excellent institution which has shown itself fruitful of good results. So far as I know, that is the earliest instance on record of provision being made for the regular religious instruction of the whole people. Experience has shown its value, and now all the most highly civilized nations of the earth have established similar institutions. However, in the synagogues the business of religious instruction was not at all in the hands of the priests, but in those of the people, acting in their primary character without regard to Levitical establishments. A priest, as such, is never an instructor of the people; he is to go through his ritual, not beyond it.