What is a creed? Let us "begin at the beginning,"—the dictionary. Creed comes from the Latincredo, and signifies to believe. It is "a summary of Christian belief, or of the articles of faith. Any profession of that which is believed; a statement of the articles of belief, as thecreedsof political parties." All religionists have creeds of some kind; from the most liberal to the most exclusive of them. Take the most radical "free religionist"you can find, and ask him, immediately after you have heard him berating creeds and adjudging all as bigots who would be bound by them, what he believes, and as surely as he says anything, he will state to youwhat. And this is his creed, whether he calls it so or not. He might as well deny that he has a head by calling it something else, or by not allowing it to have any name. A creed he has, if he believes anything. The same of all men.
What, then, is the objection to creeds? Why, that the Church has been full of bad creeds, narrow creeds, unreasonable creeds, contradictory creeds, creeds dishonorable to God and to humanity. There is no doubt of this; and the evil still abounds. But what then? Away with all creeds? You cannot do it. A creed you will have, at last, after all you have thought and said and done against having one. It is inevitable.
Most of the creeds of the Church, for centuries past, have contained doctrines revolting to the common sense and to the holiest affections of mankind. The Church and the world are outgrowing them, and they must be put away. There will be no rest nor peace for those who hold and defend them until they are put away. But what more? Will there be nothing instead of these falsehoods, in the forms of human creeds? Are there no TRUTHS to take the place of them? Every reasonable mind concludes that there are. Better views of God and man will be taken, more reasonable and scriptural doctrines will be accepted, and these will go to make up the new creeds. If these new creeds have errors in them, then there will be new siftings in the controversies that will be continued on the old apostolic principle, "Prove all things; hold fast that which isgood." Notice;to be continually questioningis not the great object of Christian investigation. There is somethingto be held fast. It is that truth which will commend itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. This will constitute the perfected Christian creed at last, just as surely as that "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Because the churches have not yet the right creed is no reason why they may not be seeking for it, and may not one day find and adopt it. We do not mean, of course, that all minds can be alike, but that all minds will unite in acknowledging certain truths, such as the Divine Paternity, the Human Brotherhood, the necessity of personal holiness, the divine and human mission of Jesus, the immortality, holiness, and happiness of mankind. If these are truths, as we believe they are, they will constitute a part, at least, of the Christian creeds of the churches.
To what, then, does this sweeping denunciation of creeds amount? May not much of it be of very questionable utility and soundness? We know that good and wise men talk thus. But are good and great men, even, always sure of being right in their statements and conclusions? One of our distinguished public men, Mr. Wendell Phillips, said in his discourse on "Christianity a battle, not a Dream," that the New Testament was nothing but the New Testament, and that "nothing like a creed could be tortured out of it,—nothing like Universalism, Catholicism, or Unitarianism." We have as little faith in the torturing process as he; but we utterly deny that a Universalist creed cannot be clearly and undeniably found in the New Testament. Wehave already stated a part of it. If the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of the race, the unceasing obligation of man to love God and his fellow-creatures, the lordship and mission of Christ the Saviour of the world, the immortality of all mankind, are not positive doctrines of the New Testament, then no doctrines, no precepts, no principles can be proved from it. This is the very question at issue between Universalists and those who deny that their faith has its foundations in the New Testament. We are ready to stand on this issue with all who will meet us there as honest inquirers after truth.
A gifted and highly honored member of the fraternity of Friends took occasion some time since to speak lightly of an attempt on their part to "tinker a creed" for themselves. And why might they not do it? If not satisfied with their present statement of faith they have a right to search for that which will enable them to make a better one. Tinkering! What are we all doing in our investigations and conclusions but just this? Rather poor workmen, most of us; but here, in this great workshop God has given us, we have a right to keep hammering and welding away,—a right and a duty to see how perfect a piece of work we may show as the result of our patient and persistent labor. Newton deemed himself but a picker-up of pebbles, while the great ocean of truth lay all unexplored before him. Our best searching will only give us indications of that truth which is infinite. Yet this is no reason why we should not be looking for it, and stating it when we think we have found it. God will accept even our homeliest work, when honestly done.
"When done beneath his laws,Even servile labors shine."
"When done beneath his laws,Even servile labors shine."
"When done beneath his laws,
Even servile labors shine."
So, in reason's name, do not let us be afraid of "tinkering" on creeds, any more than we should be ashamed to be diggers, hammerers, furnace-workers and explorers in the fields of science. Truth will come of it all; truth that shall be worked into a good creed at last.
Universalists have a creed. Its articles, we believe, are reasonable and uncontradictory, commending themselves to the clearest intellect and to the holiest affections of mankind. Their principal creed or "Confession" is a short one, yet remarkably comprehensive. It can be and is enlarged, and in this form adopted in many of the churches. The world asks what Universalists believe. They have been in existence as a sect long enough to tell them; and ought to be in readiness to do this. Yea, anxious to do it, because of their convictions of the need of this truth in the understandings and hearts of men. Our Unitarian neighbors have been much troubled with the fact that many of their own people, especially their younger ones, have not known what Unitarians believed,—what were the articles or doctrinal statements of their creed. Just one thing, surely, that they and others ought to know. If Universalists have had any defect of this kind, it should cease to be with them, especially if they have definite convictions of Christian doctrines such as the Divine Paternity, the Brotherhood of Man, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Regeneration, Retribution, Forgiveness, Atonement, Salvation, Immortality. If they have not definite convictions respecting them, let them say so, honestly, as in the hearing of all men. Otherwise, let them have a positive creed to state and defend.
A positive creed, we say. For, to have a creed made up of statements that are questionable in the minds ofits defenders, is to have anything but a New Testament—a truly Christian creed. The Apostles had no such creed. Their creed reads thus: "To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we by Him.—Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.—Now is Christ risen, and become the first fruits of them that slept.—God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. God shall be all in all." With them these were not questions open for self-settlement in their minds, but truths of which they were thoroughly convinced, and in the promulgation of which they were most thoroughly in earnest. This is the Christian ministry now needed, not a ministry made up of inquirers and sceptics mainly, who are "ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth," but of those who have settled convictions of what the truth of God is, and who are in readiness to state and maintain a creed which they believe to be every way in accordance with reason, with the Scriptures, and in answer to the most earnest and anxious inquiries of the human soul.
"But creeds are binding," says one. Of course they are if we believe them to be the truth, and are truthful ourselves in the acceptance and use of them. Buthoware creeds binding? Erroneous, evil creeds bring the souls who hold them into bondage. We understand this. But what about true and good creeds? It appears to us that these give liberty, aye, the largest liberty. Jesus says, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Who says, in the light of this statement, that the truth of Christ adopted in a creed tends to bondage? God's truth, dear reader, is binding on you, and on us all, according to our convictions of it.What freedom do you desire? That which will give you indulgence in perpetual scepticism, unsettlement in regard to anything? Call you this liberty? We regard it as about the worst of bondage; because we are thus in uncertainty; we have no permanent habitation in God's love and life. We have, indeed, the poor liberty of an outcast, but not that of "a child at home." This last is a liberty which a creed embracing Christian truth will allow us. We want no greater. It will help us in all our interpretations of God and His works and ways in the universe which is open before us.
Two considerations, then, we may bear in mind; one is, that of the reasonableness and propriety of Christian creeds. This indiscriminate denunciation of them is not wise. It is one of the flurries of the present age, but will not endure the long run of theological investigation. Creeds may not all be written, but they will exist, even with those who denounce them. The logic of fact and human experience effectually settles this, so that a further superfluity of breath on this subject does not seem to be really needed. A faith in the unseen that is most in accordance with nature, human intuitions, sound philosophy, and the Word of God, is the one after which all souls may rightfully seek.
Next, of the Universalist creed, let us understand that it is not only a theological affirmation, but a constant teacher of the most thorough virtue,—a call to the purest, highest, and most heavenly life. The Universalist Church needs nothing so much as to be vitalized by its spirit; the world needs nothing more than this vitality for its present salvation.
2. And this leads us to speak, briefly, of the trueChristian life which this Church should seek to commend to the world. Here is the Apostle's direction which opens to us most clearly the practical influence of the faith of the gospel: "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."[68]It is the indwelling heavenly love, the love which Christianity is ever indicating and proving, that will find its expression in the true Christian believer. It is the practical interpretation of that text from John, "We love him because he first loved us."[69]It is the faith with works, proving its spiritual vitality. It is at war with sin and wrong; it comprehends the scriptural statement, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." And it realizes how evil is to be overcome and put away. It aims to live here and now as it becomes the soul born of God to live, "soberly, righteously, godly." What words more expressive of its life can be given? They sum up the whole of the Christian life.
This religion which the Christian Gospel recommends is reverential and worshipful. The flippant inquiry of atheism of olden or modern time, "What is the Almighty that we should pray to him or serve him?" it answers, rationally and emphatically, "The Lord he is God; serve him with gladness; for he is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations." Worship is the natural utterance of the true believer as he looks upward to the Father. Forms of worship are means by which his adoration finds expression. Monotony, routine, repetitions, drony formality,will not be in the offering, for the reason that his whole soul is seeking God, and finds the enjoyment of his holy presence and ineffable light.
This religion is affectional and emotional. It is intellect awakened into love; it is sober thought seeking most earnest expression; it is logic on fire. Those who have no taste for the emotional in religion have only a partial conception of the most effective expression which the Christian religion seeks, and in which it may properly and profitably indulge. The needy, empty-souled, impulsive world-masses are not to be reached and warmed, uplifted and inspired, by clearly exact and well-stated and well-worked-out theological problems. The multiplication table is true, and useful, but we do not look for any spiritual inspiration in it. The religion that has most blessed the world is a religion that appeals to and draws out the affections; that, while it repudiates imprudent zeal and fanaticism, insists on that earnestness which everywhere meets us in the New Testament Gospels and apostolic records and epistles; which reaches men's hearts and convinces them of their need of heavenly aid; awakens the question asked by the converted soul, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and realizes the significance of those apostolic declarations, "Be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts unto God the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." All this signifies living interest, fervor of spirit, emotional, wakeful expression.
This religion is, moreover, eminently practical. It is not only ready to say, "Lord, Lord!" but to do the Lord's work as well. It forecloses this inconsideratecriticism sometimes heard, "Why all this wordy demonstration and noise about religion? Good works are of a thousand times more avail; the best religion is to do good." True, indeed, and this is what Christianity is constantly teaching. No one taught it more forcibly than Jesus himself. The parable of the Good Samaritan is emphatic on this point, that the reputed unbeliever who did good was worthy of more praise than the most punctilious professor of religion who was deficient in the essentials of the Christian kingdom,—Justice, Mercy, and Love. "What doth it profit, though a man say he have faith and have not works? Can faith save him? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."[70]But good works do not exclude these other manifestations of the true religion. "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."
3. Once more: this religion is reformatory and progressive. Reformation and progress are words always indicative of the Christian dispensation with man; the call to holiness and the response to it, growth in God's grace, new achievements,—never resting in present attainments, but ever striving with fresh inspiration for new accomplishments in the heavenly course. Most religions (especially under the Christian name) have some of these characteristics; but the religion nearest to that which Christ taught and exemplified will have them all. To secure the highest blessings of the Christian kingdom, the churches must be based on the principles, and conform to the requirements, of this kingdom. The Universalist Church must. Its true prosperity has been and will be in accordance with its fidelity in this particular.One of its earnest preachers of the present time has truly said:—
"Opinions as faith will never serve to build up any Christian character. There is not a saved soul in any paradise anywhere which was ever saved by any opinion. It is only when opinions become faith—become rooted forces of the soul—that they have any effect."
It should have the Christian missionary inspiration and action, should open its eyes to the magnitude and glory of the missionary outlook which no faith short of that of Christian Universalism presents to every lover of this humanity now groaning in bondage, and waiting "for the manifestation of the sons of God." It should rise to a new and grander conception than has been realized by those who have borne to souls in the darkness of heathenism the limited doctrines of human wisdom. "Go yeinto all the world, and preach the Gospelto every creature." To no other church in Christendom does this great text of the ages speak more explicitly than to the Universalist. It has the truth of the Human Brotherhood, which all the world should understand and embrace, for which all heathendom is waiting, and to which in the long run it will come if this favored church is true to its heavenly calling. That it may be thus true, it is not to deceive itself with any false ideas of the leavening process which is to go on in other churches, while it is inclined to do the least and not the most to keep the leaven in healthy and constant operation. When Rev. Otis A. Skinner was canvassing New England to raise the first one hundred thousand dollars for Tufts College, he was met with such suggestionsas this from certain ones who professed friendliness to the success of his movements: "Is it really necessary to make this attempt to build a new college? Why not keep quiet, and wait until the time comes when Harvard College will fall into our hands?" Supposing such short-sightedness and apathy had prevailed, where would Tufts College with all its benefits have been to-day? Universalists should be about their own church missionary business. It is theirs, and no others are called upon to do it for them. Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Records of the Church in the Third Century,"—many of whose members were avowed believers in the final reconciliation of all souls,—states that they were among the most zealous and devoted Christians of that age in personal piety and in active missionary labors. They sent out the Gospel to the remotest shores of the then known world. Here is the same world to be reached by the messengers of this very Gospel to-day. "How shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?" No corner of the earth is exempt from the benefits of this message; no means should be left unemployed to send it forth. Are Universalists acquainted as they might be with the missionary work that has been already done by the other churches around them? Are they familiar with their reports and other publications involving the missionary enterprise, showing what good they have accomplished in opening the Christian Scriptures and aiding a Christian civilization in other lands? Do they realize that if these missionaries have propagated errors in theology, they have cleared the way in part for a better dispensation of Divine Truth by the translations of the Bible into other languages, which they have made? Theseare important considerations, and Universalists will do well to act upon them.
As the Lord liveth, the now "open questions" will one day be settled, and settled on the side of the Divine Beneficence. The love of God in Christ has come into the world, and will not go out of it until its work is here done; love that is long-suffering, that rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; that beareth, believeth, hopeth, and endureth all things, and that never faileth; love that will bring the last lost one home, that will obliterate all the hells, and people all the heavens in the universe.
[59]These significant words of an advocate of Universalism more than two centuries ago are in striking agreement with those of an advanced orthodox thinker of the present time. "It should never be forgotten that in the Biblical philosophy of salvation the life of the individual is bound up with the life of the whole, and reaches its fulness and completion only in the liberty for which the whole creation waits."—"The Orthodox Theology of To-day;" by Rev. Newman Smyth, D. D.[60]Article in the "Universalist Quarterly," for July, 1882, "The Divine Responsibility," by Rev. C. W. Biddle.[61]Published opinions of the Professors of Andover Theological Seminary, April 10, 1882.[62]"Christian Leader."[63]Rev. A. A. Miner, D. D.[64]Rom. viii. 38.[65]Rev. Hosea Ballou, D. D. Reply to Dr. Hawes's Arguments against Universalism. It was nearly a half-century ago that these words were written. And now at this very time there comes this echo of them in confirmation of the truth of the prophecy: "Little by little the pulpit shrinks from the mediæval theology. Ministers first gloss it by new interpretations, then they prudently hold it in suspense, then doubt it, then cast it away." Rev. H. W. Beecher, in "North American Review," July, 1882.[66]Oration of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop at Yorktown, Va., October 19, 1881.[67]Rev. F. B. Hornbrooke, in Unitarian Review, August, 1882.[68]Titus, ii. 11, 12.[69]1 John, iv. 19.[70]James, ii. 14, 26.[71]Rev. James Pullman, D. D.
[59]These significant words of an advocate of Universalism more than two centuries ago are in striking agreement with those of an advanced orthodox thinker of the present time. "It should never be forgotten that in the Biblical philosophy of salvation the life of the individual is bound up with the life of the whole, and reaches its fulness and completion only in the liberty for which the whole creation waits."—"The Orthodox Theology of To-day;" by Rev. Newman Smyth, D. D.
[60]Article in the "Universalist Quarterly," for July, 1882, "The Divine Responsibility," by Rev. C. W. Biddle.
[61]Published opinions of the Professors of Andover Theological Seminary, April 10, 1882.
[62]"Christian Leader."
[63]Rev. A. A. Miner, D. D.
[64]Rom. viii. 38.
[65]Rev. Hosea Ballou, D. D. Reply to Dr. Hawes's Arguments against Universalism. It was nearly a half-century ago that these words were written. And now at this very time there comes this echo of them in confirmation of the truth of the prophecy: "Little by little the pulpit shrinks from the mediæval theology. Ministers first gloss it by new interpretations, then they prudently hold it in suspense, then doubt it, then cast it away." Rev. H. W. Beecher, in "North American Review," July, 1882.
[66]Oration of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop at Yorktown, Va., October 19, 1881.
[67]Rev. F. B. Hornbrooke, in Unitarian Review, August, 1882.
[68]Titus, ii. 11, 12.
[69]1 John, iv. 19.
[70]James, ii. 14, 26.
[71]Rev. James Pullman, D. D.
University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.