Volume Ii Part 1 (2/2)

that theirs was the church of unbelief--not the church of Christ, but of No-Christ; that they had a Bible of their own, and a thin, poor Bible, too; that their ways were ways of destruction; ”Touch not, taste not, handle not,” was to be written on their doctrines; that they had not even the grace of lukewarmness, but were moral and stone-cold; that they looked fair on the side turned towards man, but on the G.o.dward side it was a blank wall with no gate, nor window, nor loop-hole, nor eyelet for the Holy Ghost to come through; that their prayers were only a show of devotion to cover up the hard rock of the flinty heart, or the frozen ground of morality. Their faith, it was said, was only a conviction after the case was proven by unimpeachable evidence, and good for nothing; while belief without evidence, or against proof, seems to be the right ecclesiastical talisman.

For a long time the Unitarian sect did not grumble unduly, but set itself to promote the cultivation of reason and apply that to religion; to cultivate morality and apply it to life; and to demand the most entire personal freedom for all men in all matters pertaining to religion. Hence came its merits; they were very great merits, too, and not at all the merits of the times, held in common with the other sects.

I need not dwell on this, and the good works of Unitarianism, in this the most Unitarian city in the world; but as a general thing the Unitarians, it seems to me, did neglect the culture of piety; and of course their morality, while it lasted, would be unsatisfactory, and in time would wither and dry up because it had no deepness of earth to grow out of. The Unitarians, as a general thing, began outside, and sought to work inward, proceeding from the special to the general, by what might be called the inductive mode of religious culture; that was the form adopted in pulpits, and in families so far as there was any religious education attempted in private. That is not the method of nature, where all growth is the development of a living germ, which by an inward power appropriates the outward things it needs, and grows thereby. Hence came the defects of Unitarianism, and they were certainly very great defects; but they came almost unavoidably from the circ.u.mstances of the times.

The sensational philosophy was the only philosophy that prevailed; the Orthodox sects had always rejected a part of that philosophy, not in the name of science, but of piety, and they supplied its place not with a better philosophy, but with tradition, speaking with an authority which claimed to be above human nature. It was not in the name of reason that they rejected a false philosophy, but in the name of religion often denounced all philosophy and the reason which demanded it. The Unitarians rejected that portion of Orthodoxy, became more consistent sensationalists, and arrived at results which we know. Now it is easy to see their error; not difficult to avoid it; but forty or fifty years ago it was almost impossible not to fall into this mistake. Sometimes it seems as if the Unitarians were half conscious of this defect, and so dared not be original, but borrowed Orthodox weapons, or continued to use Trinitarian phrases long after they had blunted those weapons of their point, and emptied the phrases of their former sense. In the controversy between the Orthodox and Unitarians, neither party was wholly right: the Unitarians had reason to charge the Orthodox with debasing man's nature, and representing G.o.d as not only unworthy, but unjust, and somewhat odious; the Trinitarians were mainly right in charging us with want of conscious piety, with beginning to work at the wrong end; but at the same time it must be remembered, that, in proportion to their numbers, the Unitarians have furnished far more philanthropists and reformers than any of the other sects. It is time to confess this on both sides.

For a long time the Unitarian sect did not complain much of the decline of piety; it did not care to have an organization, loving personal freedom too well for that, and it had not much denominational feeling; indeed, its members were kept together, not so much by an agreement and unity of opinion among themselves, as by a unity of opposition from without; it was not the hooks on their s.h.i.+elds that held the legion together with even front, but the pressure of hostile s.h.i.+elds crowded upon them from all sides. They did not believe in spasmodic action; if a body was dead, they gave it burial, without trying to galvanize it into momentary life, not worth the spark it cost; they knew that a small cloud may make a good many flashes in the dark, but that many lightnings cannot make light. They stood apart from the violent efforts of other churches to get converts. The converts they got commonly adhered to their faith, and in this respect differed a good deal from those whom ”Revivals” brought into other churches; with whom Christianity sprung up in a night, and in a night also perished. Some years ago, when this city was visited and ravaged by Revivals, the Unitarians kept within doors, gave warning of the danger, and suffered less harm and loss from that tornado than any of the sects. Unitarianism seems, in this city, to have done its original work; so the company is breaking up by degrees, and the men are going off, to engage in other business, to weed other old fields, or to break up new land, each man following his own sense of duty, and for himself determining whether to go or stay. But at the same time, an attempt is made to keep the company together; to cultivate a denominational feeling; to put hooks and staples on the s.h.i.+elds which no longer offer that formidable and even front; to teach all trumpets to give the same sectarian bray, all voices to utter the same war-cry. The attempt does not succeed; the ranks are disordered, the trumpets give an uncertain sound, and the soldiers do not prepare themselves for denominational battle; nay, it often happens that the camp lacks the two sinews of war--both money, and men. Hence the denominational view of religious affairs has undergone a change; I make no doubt a real and sincere change, though I know this has been denied, and the change thought only official. The men I refer to are sincere and devout men; some of them quite above the suspicion of mere official conduct. This sect is now the loudest in its wailing; these Christian Jeremiahs tell us that we do not realize spiritual things, that we are all dead men, that there is no health in us. These cold Unitarian Thomases crowd unwontedly together in public to bewail the spiritual weather, the dearth of piety in Boston, the ”General decline of religion” in New England. Church unto church raises the Macedonian cry, ”Come over and help us!” The opinion seems general that piety is in a poor way, and must have watchers, the strongest medicine, and nursing quite unusual, or it will soon be all over, and Unitarianism will give up the ghost. Various causes have I heard a.s.signed for the malady; some think that there has been over-much preaching of philosophy, though perhaps there is not evidence to convict any one man in particular of the offence; that philosophy is the dog in the manger, who keeps the hungry Unitarian flock from their spiritual hay, and cut-straw, which are yet of not the smallest use to him. But look never so sharp, and you do not find this dangerous beast in the neighborhood of the fold. Others think that there has been also an excess of moral preaching, against the prevalent sins of the nation, I suppose--but few individuals seem liable to conviction on that charge. Yet others think this decline comes from the fact that the terrors have not been duly and sufficiently administered from the pulpit; that while Catholics and Methodists thrive under such influences, the Unitarian widows are neglected in the weekly ministration of terror and of threat; that there has not been so much an excess of lightning in the form of philosophy or morality, but only a lack of thunder.

This temporary movement among the Unitarians of Boston is natural; in some respects it is what our fathers would have called ”judicial.” The Unitarians have been cold, have looked more at the outward manifestations of goodness than at the inward spirit of piety which was to make the manifestations; they have not had an excess of philosophy, or of morality, but a defect of piety. They have been more respectable than pious. They have not always quite rightly appreciated the enthusiasm of sterner and more austere sects; not always done justice to the inwardness of religion those sects sought to promote. When their churches get a little thin, and their denominational affairs a little disturbed, it is quite natural these Unitarians should look after the cause and pa.s.s over to lamentations at the present state of things; while looking at the community from the new point of view, it is quite natural that they should suppose piety on the decline, and religion dying out. Yes, in general it is plain that, if men have no eyes but conventional eyes, no spirit but that of the ecclesiastical order they serve in, and of the denomination they belong to, it is natural for them to think that because piety does not flow in the old ecclesiastical channel, it does not flow anywhere, and there is none at all to run.

Thus it is easy to explain the complaint of the Catholics at the great defection of the most enlightened nations of Europe; the lamentation of the Protestants at the heresy of the most enlightened portion of their sect; and the Unitarian wail over the general decline of piety in the city of Boston. Some men can only judge the present age by the conventional standard of the past, and as the old form of piety does not appear, they must conclude there is no piety.

Let us now recur to the other or natural standard, and look at the manifestation of piety in the form of morality. Last Sunday I spoke of our moral condition; and it appeared that morals were in a low state here when compared with the ideal morals of Christianity. Now as the outward deed is but the manifestation of the inward life, and objective humanity the index of subjective divinity, so the low state of morals proves a low state of piety; if the heart of this town was right towards G.o.d, then would its hand also be right towards man. I am one of those who for long years have lamented the want of vital piety in this people. We not only do not realize spiritual things, but we do not make them our ideals. I see proofs of this want of piety in the low morals of trade, of the public press; in poverty, intemperance, and crime; in the vices and social wrongs touched on the last Sunday. I judge the tree by its fruit. But it is not on this ground that the ecclesiastical complaint is based. Men who make so much ado about the absence of piety, do not appeal for proof thereof to the great vices and prominent sins of the times; they see no sign of that in our trade and our politics; in the misery that festers in putrid lanes, one day to breed a pestilence, which it were even cheaper to hinder now, than cure at a later time; n.o.body mentions as proof the Mexican War, the political dishonesty of officers, the rapacity of office-seekers, the servility of men who will tamely suffer the most sacred rights of three millions of men to be trodden into the dust. Matters which concern millions of men came up before your Congress; the great Senator of Ma.s.sachusetts loitered away the time of the session here in Boston, managing a lawsuit for a few thousand dollars, and no fault was publicly found with such neglect of public duty; but men see no lack of piety indicated by this fact, and others like it; they find signs of that lack in empty pews, in a deserted communion-table, in the fact that children, though brought up to reverence truth and justice, to love man and to love G.o.d, are not baptized with water; or in the fact that Unitarianism or Trinitarianism is on the decline! How many wailings have we all heard or read, because the Puritan churches of Boston have not kept the faith of their grim founders; what lamentations at the rising up of a sect which refuses the doctrine of the Trinity, or at the appearance of a few men who, neglecting the common props of Christianity, rest it, for its basis, on the nature of man and the nature of G.o.d: though almost all the eminent philanthropy of the day is connected with these men, yet they are still called ”Infidel,” and reviled on all hands!

The state of things mentioned in the last sermon does indicate a want of piety, a deep and a great want. I do not see signs of that in the debt and decay of churches, in absence from meetings, in doubt of theological dogmas, in neglect of forms and ceremonies which once were of great value; but I do see it in the low morals of trade, of the press; in the popular vices. On a national scale I see it in the depravity of political parties, in the wicked war we have just fought, in the slavery we still tolerate and support. Yes, as I look on the churches of this city, I see a want of piety in the midst of us. If eminent piety were in them, and allowed to follow its natural bent, it would come out of them in the form of eminent humanity; they would lead in the philanthropies of this day, where they hardly follow. In this condition of the churches I see a most signal proof of the low estate of piety; they do not manifest a love of truth, which is the piety of the intellect; nor a love of justice, which is the piety of the moral sense; nor a love of love, which is the piety of the affections; nor a love of G.o.d as the Infinite Father of all men, which is the total piety of the whole soul.

For lack of this internal divinity there is a lack of external humanity.

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? This is what I complain of, what I mourn over.

The clergymen of this city are most of them sincere men, I doubt not; some of them men of a superior culture; many of them laborious men; most, perhaps all of them, deeply interested in the welfare of the churches, and the promotion of piety. But how many of them are marked and known for their philanthropy, distinguished for their zeal in putting down any of the major sins of our day, zealous in any work of reform? I fear I can count them all on the fingers of a single hand; yet there are enough to bewail the departure of monastic forms, and of the theology which led men in the dimness of a darker age, but cannot s.h.i.+ne in the rising light of this. I find no fault with these men; I blame them not; it is their profession which so blinds their eyes. They are as wise and as valiant as the churches let them be. What sect in all this land ever cared about temperance, education, peace betwixt nations, or even the freedom of all men in our own, so much as this sect cares for the baptizing of children with water, and that for the baptizing of men; this for the doctrine of the Trinity, and all for the infallibility of the Bible? Do you ask the sects to engage in the work of extirpating concrete wrong? It is in vain; each reformer tries it--the mild sects answer, ”I pray thee have me excused;” the sterner sects reply with awful speech. A distinguished theological journal of another city thinks the philanthropies of this day are hostile to piety, and declares that true spiritual Christianity never prevails where men think slavery is a sin. A distinguished minister of a highly respectable sect declares the temperance societies unchristian, and even atheistical. He reasons thus: The church is an instrument appointed by G.o.d and Christ, to overcome all forms of wrong, intemperance among the rest; to neglect this instrument and devise another, a temperance society, to wit, is to abandon the inst.i.tutions of G.o.d and Christ, and so it is unchristian and atheistical. In other words, here is intemperance, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, in our way; there is an old wooden beetle, which has done great service of old time, and is said to have been made by G.o.d's own hand; men smite therewith the stone or smite it not; still it lies there a stone of stumbling and a stone of shame; other men approach, and with a sledge-hammer of well-tempered steel smite the rock, and break off piece after piece, smoothing the rough impracticable way; they call on men to come to their aid, with such weapons as they will. But our minister bids them beware; the beetle is ”of the Lord,” the iron which breaks the rock in pieces is an unchristian and atheistical instrument. Yet was this minister an earnest, a pious, and a self-denying man, who sincerely sought the good of men. He had been taught to know no piety but in the church's form. I would not do dishonor to the churches; they have done great service, they still do much; I would only ask them to be worthy of their Christian name. They educate men a little, and allow them to approach emanc.i.p.ation, but never to be free and go alone.

I see much to complain of in the condition of piety; yet nothing to be alarmed at. When I look back, it seems worse still, far worse. There has not been ”A decline of piety” in Boston of late years. Religion is not sick. Last Sunday, I spoke of the great progress made in morality within fifty years; I said it was an immense progress within two hundred years.

Now, there cannot be such a progress in the outward manifestation without a corresponding and previous development of the inward principle. Morality cannot grow without piety more than an oak without water, earth, sun, and air. Let me go back one hundred years; see what a difference between the religious aspect of things then and now!

certainly there has been a great growth in spirituality since that day.

I am not to judge men's hearts; I may take their outward lives as the test and measure of their inward piety. Will you say the outward life never completely comes up to that? It does so as completely now as then.

Compare the toleration of these times with those; compare the intelligence of the community; the temperance, sobriety, chast.i.ty, virtue in general. Look at what is now done in a munic.i.p.al way by towns and States for mankind; see the better provision made for the poor, for the deaf, the dumb, the blind, for the insane, even for the idiot; see what is done for the education of the people--in schools, academies, colleges, and by public lectures; what is done for the criminal to prevent the growth of crime. See what an amelioration of the penal laws; how men are saved and restored to society, who had once been wholly lost. See what is done by philanthropy still more eminent, which the town and State have not yet overtaken and enacted into law; by the various societies for reform--those for temperance, for peace, for the discipline of prisons, for the discharged convicts, for freeing the slave. See this Anti-slavery party, which, in twenty years, has become so powerful throughout all the Northern States, so strong that it cannot be howled down, and men begin to find it hardly safe to howl over it; a party which only waits the time to lift up its million arms, and hurl the hateful inst.i.tution of slavery out of the land! All these humane movements come from a divine piety in the soul of man. A tree which bears such fruits is not a dead tree; is not wholly to be despaired of; is not yet in a ”decline,” and past all hope of recovery. Is the age wanting in piety, which makes such efforts as these? Yes, you will say, because it does no more. I agree to this, but it is rich in piety compared to other times. Ours is an age of faith; not of mere belief in the commandments of men, but of faith in the nature of man and the commandments of G.o.d.

This prevailing and contagious complaint about the decline of religion is not one of the new things of our time. In the beginning of the last century, Dr. Colman, first minister of the church in Brattle street, lamented in small capitals over the general decline of piety:--”The venerable name of religion and of the church is made a sham pretence for the worst of villanies, for uncharitableness and unnatural oppression of the pious and the peaceable;” ”the perilous times are come, wherein men are lovers only of their own selves.” ”Ah, calamitous day,” says he, ”into which we are fallen, and into which the sins of our infatuated age have brought us!” He looks back to the founders of New England; they ”were rich in faith, and heirs of a better world,” ”men of whom the world was not worthy;” ”they laid in a stock of prayers for us which have brought down many blessings on us already.” Samuel Willard bewailed ”the checkered state of the gospel church;” it was ”in every respect a gloomy day, and covered with thick clouds.”

We retire yet further back, to the end of the seventeenth century; a hundred and sixty or seventy years ago, Dr. Increase Mather, not only in his own pulpit, but also at ”the great and Thursday lecture,” lamented over ”the degeneracy and departing glory of New England.” He complained that there was a neglect of the Sabbath, of the ordinances, and of family wors.h.i.+p; he groaned at the lax discipline of the churches, and looked, says another, ”as fearfully on the growing charity as on the growing vices of the age.” He called the existing generation ”an unconverted generation.” ”Atheism and profaneness,” says he, ”have come to a prodigious height;” ”G.o.d will visit” for these things; ”G.o.d is about to open the windows of heaven, and pour down the cataracts of His wrath ere this generation ... is pa.s.sed away.” If a comet appeared in the sky, it was to admonish men of the visitation, and make ”the haughty daughters of Zion reform their pride of apparel.” ”The world is full of unbelief” (that is, in the malignant aspect and disastrous influence of comets), ”but there is an awful Scripture for them that do profanely condemn such signal works!”

One of the present and well-known indications of the decline of piety, that is often thought a modern luxury, and ridiculously denounced in the pulpit, which has done its part in fostering the enjoyment, was practised to an extent that alarmed the prim shepherds of the New England flock in earlier days. The same Dr. Mather preached a series of sermons ”tending to promote the power of G.o.dliness,” and concludes the whole with a discourse ”Of sleeping at sermons,” and says: ”To sleep in the public wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d is a thing too frequently and easily practised; it is a great and a dangerous evil.” ”Sleeping at a sermon is a greater sin than speaking an idle word. Therefore, if men must be called to account for idle words, much more for this!” ”Gospel sermons are among the most precious talents which any in this world have conferred upon them. But what a sad account will be given concerning those sermons which have been slept away! As light as thou makest of it now, it may be conscience will roar for it upon a death-bed!” ”Verily, there is many a soul that will find this to be a dismal thought at the day of judgment, when he shall remember so many sermons I might have heard for my everlasting benefit, but I slighted and slept them all away. Therefore consider, if men allow themselves in this evil their souls are in danger to perish.” ”It is true that a G.o.dly man may be subject unto this as well as unto other infirmities; but he doth not allow himself therein.” ”The name of the glorious G.o.d is greatly prophaned by this inadvertency.” ”The support of the evangelical ministry is ... discouraged.” He thought the character of the pulpit was not sufficient explanation of this phenomenon, and adds, in his supernatural way, ”Satan is the external cause of this evil;” ”he had rather have men wakeful at any time than at sermon time.” The good man mentions, by way of example, a man who ”had not slept a wink at a sermon for more than twenty years together,” and also, but by way of warning, the unlucky youth in the Acts who slept at Paul's long sermon, and fell out of the window, and ”was taken up dead.” Sleeping was ”adding something of our own to the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d;” ”when Nadab and Abihu did so, there went out fire from the Lord and consumed them to death.” ”The holy G.o.d hath not been a little displeased for this sin.” ”It is not punished by men, but therefore the Lord himself will visit for it.”

”Tears of blood will trickle down thy dry and d.a.m.ned cheeks forever and ever, because thou mayest not be so happy as to hear one sermon, or to have one offer of grace more throughout the never-ending dayes of eternity.” Other men denounced their ”Wo to sleepy sinners,” and issued their ”Proposals for the revival of dying religion.”

Dr. Mather thought there was ”A deluge of prophaneness,” and bid men ”be much in mourning and humiliation that G.o.d's bottle may be filled with tears.” He thought piety was going out because surplices were coming in; it was wicked to ”consecrate a church;” keeping Christmas was ”like the idolatry of the calf.” The common-prayer, an organ, a musical instrument in a church, was ”not of G.o.d.” Such things were to our worthy fathers in the ministry what temperance and anti-slavery societies are to many of their sons--an ”abomination,” ”unchristian and atheistic!”

The introduction of ”regular singing” was an indication to some that ”all religion is to cease;” ”we might as well go over to Popery at once.” Inoculation for the smallpox was as vehemently and ably opposed as the modern attempt to abolish the gallows; it was ”a trusting more to the machinations of men than to the all-wise providence of G.o.d.”

”When the enchantments of this world,” says the ecclesiastical historian, ”caused the rising generation more sensibly to neglect the primitive designs and interests of religion propounded by their fathers; a change in the tenor of the divine dispensation towards this country was quickly the matter of every one's observation.” ”Our wheat and our pease fell under an unaccountable blast.” ”We were visited with multiplied s.h.i.+pwrecks;” ”pestilential sicknesses did sometimes become epidemic among us.” ”Indians cruelly butchered many hundreds of our inhabitants, and scattered whole towns with miserable ruins.” ”The serious people throughout the land were awakened by these intimations of divine displeasure to inquire into the causes and matters of the controversie.” Accordingly, 1679, a synod was convened at Boston, to ”inquire into the causes of the Lord's controversie with his New England people,” who determined the matter.[1]

A little later, in 1690, the General Court considered the subject anew, and declared, that ”A corruption of manners, attended with inexcusable degeneracies and apostacies ... is the cause of the controversie.” We ”are now arriving at such an extremity, that the axe is laid to the root of the trees, and we are in eminent danger of peris.h.i.+ng, if a speedy reformation of our provoking evils prevent it not.” In 1702, Cotton Mather complains that ”Our manifold indispositions to recover the dying power of G.o.dliness, were successive calamities, under all of which, our apostacies from that G.o.dliness, have rather proceeded than abated.” ”The old spirit of New England has been sensibly going out of the world, as the old saints in whom it was have gone; and, instead thereof, the spirit of the world, with a lamentable neglect of strict piety, has crept in upon the rising generation.”

You go back to the time of the founders and fathers of the colony, and it is no better. In 1667, Mr. Wilson, who had ”A singular gift in the practice of discipline,” on his death-bed declared, that ”G.o.d would judge the people for their rebellion and self-willed spirit, for their contempt of civil and ecclesiastical rulers, and for their luxury and sloth,” and before that he said, ”People rise up as Corah, against their ministers.” ”And for our neglect of baptizing the children of the church,... I think G.o.d is provoked by it. Another sin I take to be the making light ... of the authority of the Synods.” John Norton, whose piety was said to be ”Grace, grafted on a crab-stock,” in 1660, growled, after his wont, on account of the ”Heart of New England, rent with the blasphemies of this generation.” John Cotton, the ablest man in New England, who ”Liked to sweeten his mouth with a piece of Calvin, before he went to sleep,” and was so pious that another could not swear while he was under the roof, mourned at ”The condition of the churches;” and, in 1652, on his death-bed, after bestowing his blessing on the President of Harvard College, who had begged it of him, exhorted the elders to ”Increase their watch against those declensions, which he saw the professors of religion falling into.”[2] In 1641, such was the condition of piety in Boston, that it was thought necessary to banish a man, because he did not believe in original sin. In 1639, a fast was appointed, ”To deplore the prevalence of the small-pox, the want of zeal in the professors of religion, and the general decay of piety.” ”The church of G.o.d had not been long in this wilderness,” thus complains a minister, one hundred and fifty years ago, ”before the dragon cast forth several floods to devour it; but not the least of these floods was one of the Antinomian and familistical heresies.” ”It is incredible what alienations of mind, and what a very calenture the devil raised in the country upon this odd occasion.” ”The sectaries” ”began usually to seduce women into their notions, and by these women, like their first mother, they soon hooked in the husbands also.” So, in 1637, the Synod of Cambridge was convened, to despatch ”The apostate serpent:” one woman was duly convicted of holding ”About thirty monstrous opinions,” and subsequently, by the civil authorities, banished from the colony. The synod, after much time was ”spent in ventilation and emptying of private pa.s.sions,” condemned eighty-two opinions, then prevalent in the colony, as erroneous, and decided to ”Refer doubts to be resolved by the great G.o.d.” Even in 1636, John Wilson lamented ”The dark and distracted condition of the churches of New England.”

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