Studies of Christianity; Or, Timely Thoughts for Religious Thinkers

He must then have known that his Gospel would carry with it blessings which this seeming disadvantage would not cancel,--blessings far surpassing the evils of division,--a peace...

Such was the system of ideas, by availing himself of which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews would persuade his correspondents to forsake their legal observances. "You ca...

[14] "Either he" ("the Deity of the Unitarians") "must show no mercy, in order to continue true; or he must show no truth, in order to exercise mercy. If he overlook man's guilt...

The problem then being to find a pupil of the Bishop of Lyons among the ecclesiastics of Rome, at the beginning of the third century, two names are given in as answering the con...

And now, friends and brethren, let us say a glad farewell to the fretfulness of controversy, and retreat again, with thanksgiving, into the interior of our own venerated truth....

"That we may fully realize what manner of equivalent to the dishonor done to the law and name of God by sin an adequate repentance and sorrow for sin must be, and how far more t...

[57] The question has been raised, whether the author of "The Restoration of Belief," who presents himself to us through the Cambridge publisher, is really a University man? To...

We are warned, however, not to start back from this representation, or to indulge in any rash expression at the view which it gives of the justice of the Most High; for that, be...

The manifestation of supernatural realities to the human soul involves so much which is mysterious and unique, that only under great qualification can we compare it with the kno...

"The plague made its appearance with tremendous violence, and desolated the city, so that, as Dionysius, the Christian bishop, writes, there were not so many inhabitants left of...

On this principle alone, unhappily but little congenial with the spirit and traditions of Protestant churches, can Christianity coexist with natural ethics. Faith adopts morals,...

To the moral _sentiments_ which should occupy the soul, it may make little difference how long the world is to last. But to the course of _action_ which should engage the hand,...

Our Lord's whole ministry, then, (to which we may add that of his Apostles,) was conceived in a spirit quite opposite to that of priesthood. A missionary life, without fixed loc...

The result of this sharp separation of the ethical from the spiritual province of life is, that both are deprived of elements indispensable to their proper culture. Our devout p...

An accomplished and thoughtful observer of nature--Hugh Miller, the geologist--has somewhere remarked, that religion has lost its dependence on metaphysical theories, and must h...

Even during our Lord's personal ministry his approaching death is mentioned as the means of introducing the Gentiles into his Messianic kingdom. He adverts repeatedly to his cro...

There was, however, still a defect in this gospel of conscience. Regarding the world and life as the object of a divine administration, and seeking to interpret them by a scheme...

In looking for the whereabouts of the atonement, we are guided, as in search for the pole-star, by two pointers whose indications we are to follow. Its function was double,--to...

Baptism is regarded, throughout the Book of Common Prayer, as the instrument of regeneration: not simply as its sign, of which the actual descent of the Holy Spirit is independe...

The Pauline Epistles are interesting, apart from all assumption of inspired authority, because the elements are seen fermenting there of the greatest known revolution both in th...

The side of the alternative which Edwards abandoned, our author takes up and follows out. The work of Christ, as a ground of remission, consisted in the offering on behalf of hu...

Here, then, is a fearful contradiction between the religion of conscience and the religion of the understanding; the one pronouncing evil to be the antagonist, the other to be t...

"The pursuit of truth is easy to a man who has no human sympathies, whose vision is impaired by no fond partialities, whose heart is torn by no divided allegiance. To him the re...

Our Christian advocate, however, is not content with reserving to his side the sole power of _discerning_ the duty of religious veracity; he further claims the sole right to _pr...

Notwithstanding, however, our threefold chance, we have only a solitary evidence on this point. Attached to Photius's copy of the "Treatise on the Universe" was a note, to the e...

To this sacerdotal devotion there necessarily attach certain characteristic sentiments, both moral and religious, which give it a distinctive influence on human character, and a...

With emphasis, not less earnest than that of Paul, does the Apostle John repudiate the notion of any _claim_ on the Divine admission by law or righteousness; and insist on humbl...

Of the Apostle's mode of thought when fresh from his conversion no memorial exists; his earliest extant writing being of a date fourteen or fifteen years later, and the report i...

But only observe how, in the present instance, the matter stands. In the popular religion we discern, mixed up together, two constituent portions: certain _peculiar_ doctrines w...

In a separate discussion of the question of miracles they are restored to the subordinate position, as compared with moral evidence, assigned to them by the early Protestant div...

It may be quite true that the essential power of Christianity resides in the image, ever present to the heart of Christendom, of a God resembling Christ, and loving those who as...

The central truth may be described under the phrase, _The Personal nature of sin_. In affirming this, I mean both that _each man is a person, and not a thing_; and that _his sin...

If unity be the character of truth, no generation was ever so far gone in errors as our own: nor is the weariness surprising, with which statesmen and philosophers turn away fro...

The Protestant, of the approved English type, arrives, under guidance of a different thought, at the same flat and indifferent result. Though he gives a more subjective characte...

Every one is sensible of a change in the whole climate of thought and feeling, the moment he crosses any part of the boundary which divides Christian civilization from Heathendo...

Our author cannot then change the _venue_ of the great Christian cause from the first century to the third, and, on the evidence present there, give even preliminary judgment. T...

So speaks this doctrine of the Spirit. It matters not now under which of its many theologic forms we conceive it; simplest perhaps, that the Indwelling God, who in Christ was th...

For these reasons we are of opinion that the question about the date and authenticity of the fourth Gospel is wholly unaffected by the newly-discovered work. On this side, no ne...

With all that is admirable in our author's book, he contemplates the whole subject from a point of view which exhibits it in very imperfect lights. He professes to treat of "The...

It is in conformity with this doctrine of the _moral_ origin of our belief in the first principles of religion, that to every man his God is _his best and highest_, the embodime...

The newly-found work, like other productions of the same period, can have only a disturbing interest for the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Protestant. For, in conjunction with pre...

In rude ages, and amid feudal customs, it has perhaps been no unhappy thing that this image of servitude has been transmitted into the conceptions of faith: it may have touched...

In the Apostle's habit of thought there is a certain antique _realism_ which renders many of his doctrines and reasonings almost unpresentable before a modern imagination. With...

There is no reason, then, why anything should be supplied in our thoughts, to alter the plain meaning of the announcements of prophets and holy men, of God's unconditional forgi...

No one who appreciates the real sources of a healthy national life, and knows what to expect from the dissolution of ancient faiths, can look without anxiety at a prospect like...

And this brings us at once to a question of historical research, which, though far too intricate and extensive to be discussed here, we feel bound to notice, as far as it is aff...

The reason then is evident why the Church of England cannot be referred to any of the heads of classification we have given; neither coinciding with Romanism, nor exemplifying d...

The American Unitarian Association in 1835 reprinted from the English edition, among their Tracts, a Sermon on "The Existing State of Theology as an Intellectual Pursuit and of...

[45] M. Bunsen must have some authority which has escaped our memory for attributing to "the whole school of Tübingen" the opinion "that the fourth Gospel was written about the...

V. But we hasten to observe, finally, that WE HAVE FAITH in HUMAN IMMORTALITY, as exemplified in the heavenly life to which Jesus ascended. To assure us of this great truth, it...

Neither, then, from his own direct assertion, nor from comparison of his several writings, _inter se_, do we learn anything of the alleged _development_ of the Apostle's doctrin...

For, be it observed, this system has no intrinsic and necessary unity, which would hold it together when abandoned to the free action of the mind, whose requirements it is said...

I cannot leave this concluding part of my subject, without remembering that I am animadverting on a fault which has been peculiarly charged on my own sacred profession. The mini...