Farewell to the First Congregational Church in Norwalk, Conn. (bound with other addresses)

[P. 255.] " Itis only another aspect ofthesametruth, when Christ is repre-^ sented, objectively, as our righteousness. As the sacred blood, yielded for sin, stood in the place of a righteousness, in virtue of the impressions produced by it, so also does Christ; and as the offering was a Uturgic exercise of faith and penitence, so likewise Christ is a power to regenerate character and restore us to righteousness of life. What, then, shall we call him, if not our righteousness ; TRANSFEBRiNG, again, what is only subjective, in us, and beholding Jt in it* objective source — that is, in the form of divine art and expression, by which it is wrought. 7 This is the true attitude of faith ; for if , in the utmost sim- plicity, we thus believe in him, if we take him, objectively, as a stock of righteousness for us, and hang ourselves upon him for supply, we can scarcely fail to have his life and character ingrafted in us. We may take his obedience as accruing to our benefit — we may see onr righteousness in Mm, just as we say we see our pity in things that we say are pitiful. If we go farther, if we speak of his righteous;iess as imputed to us, it will not be ill, 22 nor liave we bj his blood any real remission of sins ; these are onl)' terms, as in art, transferring objectively to Christ, the ground of justification, which is really subjective in us ; the eflFect of his death being not upon the sentence of the law, in case we hold the representation as in art^ and not as a dialectic or dogmatic state- memt. " Or, adverting to the affecting truth that Christ has come between us and our sins in his death, we shall see our sins transferred to him, and regard him as loading himself with our evils. And then, as if we had put our sins upon his head, we shall say that he bears our sins, suffers the just for the unjust, is made a curse for us. All those terms of vicarious import, that were generat- ed under the ritual sacrifice, will be applied over to him, and we shall hold him by our faith, as the victim substituted for our sins. And so, with the humblest and most subduing confessions, we shall deposit our soul tenderly and gratefully in his mercy. [256, 7,8.] " Or we may take the general doctrine affirmed as the subjec- tive verity of the Gospel, viz., that God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Then all the sacrificial terms, that represent pacification with God, will came into application at once ; Christ will now be called our priest ans- wering for us, our sacrifice, passover, lamb, blood of sprinkling. Here, too, the word propitiation, as used (I John ii. 2,) — a different word, in the original, from that which we found in the third chapter of the epistle to the Romans — will get its proper objective sense. Viewed thus objectively, Christ will be a propitiation, a piaoular, expiatory, vicarious offering, and, embracing him in this altar form, there will be a simplicity in our moral attitude, such as will favor the transforming and reconciling power of his life, as no attempt to apply him artificially and reflectively would do — therefore witli a more .certain and deeper effect. " Or, if we are occupied more especially with the desire of purification, or with present, actual deliverance from evil, and the new purity and cleanness of our heart before God, we shall speak of Christ as a lustral offering that re- moves our defilement, and declare that the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin. All things, we shall say, in our deep gratitude, are purged Tvith blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. " You perceive, in this mariner, and as a result of our experiment, that as soon as we undertake to throw the elements of our subjective doctrine into an objective representation, it passes immediately into the view commonly desig- nated by the phrase vicarious atonement, only it rather becomes a vicarious religion. And thus, after all, it proves itself to be identical, at the root, with the common Protestant doctrine — identical, I mean, not in any ■rigid and ex- act sense, but in such a sense that one is a more didactic and reflective, the other a more artiitic representation of the same subject matter. There is no conflict, UNTIL WE BEGIN TO ASSERT THE FORMER AS THE ONLY TRUTH OF THE Gospel, or to work up the latter by itself, into a speculative system of dogma, or of moral government. If we say that Christ is here, reconciling men to God, it is, for just that reason, necessary to have a way of representing that God is conciliated toward us. If we say that Christ is a power, to quicken us into newness of life, and bring us out of the bondage we are under to evil, for just that reason do we need to speak of the remission of sins obtained by his blood ; for the two seem to be only different forms of one and the same truth, and are often run together in the Scriptures — as when the blood of Christ, ' who offered himself without spot to God,' is said to ' purge the conscience from dead works, to serve the living God.' The two views are not logically or theologically equivalent, but they are not the less really so on tljat account. An objective religion, that shall stand before me, and be operated or operative for me, excluding all subjective reference of thought, must take such forms, most obviously, as are no logical equivalents 23 but upon us, making impressions on us, and working charac- ter in us [p. 255]. So we call Christ our rigliteousness, transferring to Christ, as in art, what is only subjective in us ; the righteousness by which we are justified being not in Christ, but in us [p. 255]. We only see our own righteousness in him, just as we see our own pity in things that we call pitiful [p. 255]. In no other sense or manner do we see our sins trans- ferred to Christ, or regard him as loading himself with our evils. As if we had put our sins on his head, we say that he bears our sins — suffers the just for the unjust. It is not so ; he does not bear our sins, nor suffer vicariously the just for the unjust ; but we are justified by actual righteousness wrought In us through the impressions of the sacredness of law and of the love of God, made upon us by the manifesta- tion of the same in the life and death of Christ [pp. 255, 266]. VII. — Objective Foems op Subjective Truths. The objective form, if regarded as the truth, is not true [pp. 257, 268], the representation bearing no true correspondency to of the same, considered as addressing and describing Qur internal states : for, by the supposition, an objective artistic power is siibstituted for those methods of address which appeal to consideratiori, reflection, and self-regulation." — " It is the Divine Form of Christianity, in distinction from all others, and is, in that view, substantial to it, or consubstantial with it. It is, in fact, a Dimne Ritual for theworking of the world's mind." — " The Christ must become a religion for the soul and before it ; therefore, a Rite -or Liturgy for the world's feeling, — otherwise Christianity were incomplete, or imperfect." [P. 266.] "If the soul, then, is ever to get her health and freedom in goodness, she must have the gospel, not as a doctrine only, but as rite before her, a righteousness, a ransom, a sacrifice, a lamb slain, a blood offered for her cleansing before Jehovah's altar. Then, reclining her broken heart on this, calling it her religion — hers by faith — she receives a grace broader than consciousness, loses herself in a love that is not imparted in the molds of mere self-culture, and without mating folly of Christ bj^ her own vain self-appli- cations, he is made unto Aer -wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and re- demption." , [P. 257.] " There is no conflict" [between this doctrine and " the common Protestant doctrine"] " until we begin to assert the" [latter] " as the only truth of the Gospel." [See the pasage under Justification.] . [P. 268.] " First, we have what may be called the Protestant form, ■which. takes the ritualistic side of the Gospel, the objective «ide, turns it into dogma, and re-asserts it as a theoretic or theologic truth. And then, though it be NO iiONGEK A TRUTH, the form of a truth, and, so far, a divine power lingers in it. I say a divine power; for this holy form of sacrifice is no child of hu- man art or reason, but the body prepared of God to be the vehicle of his love to men. But, alas ! the Protestant world have not been able to content them- selves in it, or to think it sufliciently wise, till they have changed it into 24 any thing real. It is only a fornn, or representation, or litargy, by whicJi impressions are produced in us. Thus, there being no real sacrifice, nor any real remission of sin as the effect of sacrifice, and the atonement being no propitiation to the di- vine justice, but a simple at-one-ment — having alt its effect upon us [see pp. 236, 237, under Atonement] not by any real altar ceremony, but only by an artistic display — a liturgic form [see pp. 252-255, under Atonement] for an effect in the direct manner of art, — to tarn these representations into dog- ma, and represent them as realitieSj is to represent as truth that which is not true [pp. 268, 257] ; and the Protestant world, who have taught that these representations of atone- ment and remission by the blood of Christ have a true corres- pondence with any thing real, and so are the truth, have done what they could to set themselves between God's wisdom and man's want [p. 268.] Howbeit, there are beams of light yet shining by them, and some, it is to be trusted, shine through » inasmuch as what they set forth as truth, though no truth, is yet a Divine Form — the body prepared by God to be the ve- hicle of his love to men. The particle of truth which Pro- testants hold, is no reason for their contending about the faith, either with Papists or Unitarians, who also hold their particle : — on the basis of this doctrine of objective forms of subjective truths, Protestants, Romanists, and Unitarians, may all unite> universalize their feelings, and become brothers [pp. 269-270]- dogma, and made it human ; in which they have done what they could to set themselves between God's wisdom and man's want. Still there are beams of light shining by them, and some, I trust, shine through." [P. 269.] " Secondly, on the left of this Protestant form, we have the speculative or philosophic form." — " Under this, as one of its varieties, the unitarian doctrine is included. Nor is there any doubt that we declare a great and real truth, when we say that the reconciliation of ma» to God ra the sole object of Christ's mission." — " Keason is not confused and baffled here, as in the Protestant dogma, but the altar of self- renunciation, and faith, she has taken down." P. 270.] " Thirdly, on the right hand of the Protestant view, we have the Romish form, the form of the mass. Here the ritual, objective view, is all in all — nay, somewhat more than all."—" We deal with blood, not as a symbol to faith and feeling, but as a real and miraculous entity. But here, again, a Ught will sometimes stream by the miracle, into the worshipper's heart— -gen- uine light from Christ our peace, and the Lamb that taketh away our sin." — " Seeing thus how at-one-ment and atonement and the mass, all, lie about the Christian tmth, receiving something from it which belongs to its verity, re- jecting much that is essential to its value and power, is it better to busy our- 35 VIII. — CiiEiSTfANiTT Esoteric and Exoteeic.