Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

to them, or by the general inculcation of their essential spirit, without formulating them and enjoining them upon all who may be disposed to enter the proposed church; without incorporating them in a creed, and making them part and parcel of a definite statement of belief? For the reason that by so doing they would naturally fall out of notice, be ignored, neglected, treated as of no account; especially by the less thoughtful, conscientious, and devout of professors. Their value . recognized, they should be made prominent, put in the foreground, kept ever in mind, and given pre-eminence in the organization of the church, as well as in sermons, exhortations, or other formal means of religious instruction, study, and improvement. As error has had place in the fundamental law of the church of the past, and been confirmed, strengthened, clothed with power thereby, so let it be with all vital truth in the church of the future the church of the new dispensation which the world so much needs, and for which the noblest and most Christlike souls in no far distant day will be ready to labor as well as to pray.

DISCOURSE XIII.

EXPOSITION OF PERSONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous — 1 John, iii, 7.

The declaration of divine truth which I propose as the proper platform of the true church of Christ. presents eight articles of Personal Righteousness, to be acknowledged as sacred and obligatory by all those who are in orderly, organic connection with it. In some of my earlier published writings they were stated in a more condensed form than is given them in the series of discourses now in hand, and in Vol. II of this work on Primitive Christianity they are discussed at considerable length, as the reader has probably already found, or may find, at his pleasure. What I have now to offer concerning them in the way of exposition, verification, and defence will vary somewhat from the presentation there made, and will, I trust, contribute to a more perfect understanding of my views touching the practical nature and value of the religion which I most earnestly desire to see restored to its original simplicity and purity.

The first principle, or doctrine of Personal Righteousness, as tabulated in the present volume, is stated thus:

I. "God, the universal Father, must be worshiped in spirit and in truth; not in formal pretence or glittering display, to be seen of men; not in any merely external solemnity or demonstration; not necessarily at any hallowed time or place; but always and everywhere, with profound reverence and adoration for His moral attributes and perfections of character as an omnipresent, conscious Spirit; and in proportionate degree with a like reverence and adoration for all that is absolutely Divine."

[ocr errors]

This enjoined duty I proceed to analyze, define, illustrate, and apply in a few brief, expressive sentences, according to the best light and judg. ment at my command.

"God, the universal Father, must be worshiped;" that is, must be recognized, acknowledged, regarded, and looked up to as the infinite, self-conscious Supreme One, "in whom we all live and move and have our being." Not because He needs to receive homage, but because finite moral natures need to render it, in order to their own development, purification, and happiness. "In spirit and in truth;" that is, from within; by the understanding, the affections, and the will, with the mind and the heart, in all unaffectedness and sincerity. Nothing else is true worship; nothing else is acceptable to God or profitable to men. "Not in formal pretence, etc., to be seen of men;" not to attract the attention, win the admiration, or command the awe of fellow human beings; for this is hypocrisy and guile. "Not in any merely

[ocr errors]

external solemnity or demonstration; such worship is superficial, vain, worthless. "Not necessarily at any hallowed time or place;" for while certain seasons or localities may reasonably be set apart and consecrated to sacred uses, they are not of themselves holy, and the observance of them is not necessarily worship. True worship

[ocr errors]

is independent of them, although it may be helped by them. "With profound reverence and adoration for His moral attributes and perfections of character;" not with wonder, awe, anxiety, fear, or terror, in view of His greatness, His almightiness, His power to harm or destroy, His - anger or wrath, but with the profoundest possible regard, admiration, desire for union and communion with, in view of His goodness - His perfect justice, wisdom, love - manifest in His all-perfect character. "As an omnipresent, conscious Spirit;" not as an organic personality, representable by any outward image or likeness; not as a localized being seated on some throne at the center of the universe; not as some blind, unconscious principle or power of nature, or plexus of eternal laws; not merely as omniscient, Deific intelligence distributed through unbounded space; but as the living Soul of the universe - the Supreme Mind and Heart, acting voluntarily according to the dictates of perfect wisdom and love, at every conceivable point of immensity, from eternity to eternity. And “a like reverence and adoration" "in proportionate degree" is due towards everything that is "absolutely Divine;" that is, towards whatever is of

the same nature as God, or proceeds directly from Him, as distinguished from all inferior grades of being, secondary causes, and the operations of merely human agencies. We are to recognize as essentially divine the sublime order of the world, the laws and forces of the material universe, the moral government of rational and responsible beings, the teachings of science, the evolutions of history, the diversified allotments in the life of mankind. As .we are the revelations that God makes of Himself by His Spirit to the children of men, and by the lives and inspired teachings of poet and sage, of apostle and evangelist, and of all the "prophets that have been since the world began." All saintly and truly noble men and women are worthy of subordinate reverence and adoration, because they are animated by the Spirit of the immanent God, and because they illustrate something of the indwelling divinity in their lives and characters. The influence and workings of God's Spirit, what is termed the Holy Ghost, the Word (Logos), or Wisdom of God, wherever manifest and however ascertained, are divine in degree, and are to be proportionally reverenced and adored. Such manifestation was most strikingly displayed, and is most clearly seen, in Jesus of Nazareth, whose pre-eminent endowments, exalted character, and inimitable lessons concerning God, man, duty and destiny concerning life, death, and immortality, attest, beyond all peradventure, the fact that God was with him and in him by the richness and fullness of the Holy Spirit, making him, indeed,

« ForrigeFortsæt »