James Freeman Clarke

“ There are the ‘chains of darkness,’ thick, heavy, hard, and smothering as the gloom of blank and black despair—chains strong as the cords of omnipotence, hot as the crisping flames of vengeance, indestructible and eternal as justice. With chains like these, every iron link burning into the throbbing heart, is bound each doomed, damned soul, on a bed of burning marl, under an iron roof, riven with tempests, and dripping with torrents of unquenchable fire. ”

“ We know that there is something good in man, something which God loves, some pure aspiration even in the natural heart, some throbs of generosity, some warnings of conscience, some pure love, some courageous virtue, in the humblest, the most depraved, the most abandoned. There are some flowers of sweetest perfume which spring up in the uncultivated soil of the natural heart on which God and his angels smile, for the seeds of those flowers God himself planted. ”

“ Moreover, shall we suppose that after death we are to have no more communion with the material universe, no more knowledge of this vast order and beauty, which is a perpetual manifestation of God, the garment which he wears, one of his grand methods of revelation? These myriads of suns and worlds, these constellations of stars peopling space, this city of God full of wonder and infinite variety, are they to be nothing to us after the few years of mortal life are over? ”

“ If the heathen are ignorant, what multitudes in Catholic countries also do not read the Bible! How many are there even in Protestant churches who can give a reason for their belief? If the heathen worship degrades mankind because it is a superstition, with fear for its motive, how large a part of Christian preaching consists also of an appeal to terror! Is not the fear of everlasting torment in hell the motive power of much which is called Christianity? Consider Catholics eating their God: is that the worship of the Father in spirit and truth? ”

“ We answer, no one statement, but something underlying all statements—no one system of theology, but certain convictions, perhaps, pervading all the ruling systems. Man's mind, capable of insight, sees with the inward eye the same great spiritual realities, just as with his outward eye he sees the same landscape, sky, ocean. According to the purity and force of his insight, and the depth of his experience, he sees the same truth. There is one truth, but many ways of stating it—one spirit, but many forms. ”

“ We need a living, practical faith in God's truth and love. We need to see it as we now see the outward world. We believe in the inevitable retribution of God's laws. We need to see this; to see that selfishness is death, and generosity life; to see that humility is exaltation, and that pride is abasement. Having seen law, we need also to see grace, the reality of forgiveness, the reality of a Father's love. We need to see immortality and eternity, while we are yet surrounded with the world of sense and time ”

“ But Christianity comes to teach us something else,—to teach us that God is our Father, and so to see in him benevolence swallowed up in love. God does not love his children because he is benevolent, but because they are his children. He does not love them for the sake of others, but for their own sake. His love does not depend upon their being good, pious, or Christian; it depends only upon the fact that they are his children. This is the doctrine of the prodigal son; in which wonderful parable it is more distinctly stated than in any other part of the New Testament. ”

“ Are we to study, read, reflect, in order to know the truth? Are we to go to church and listen to sermons, join Bible classes and study the Scriptures, read compends of doctrine and books of Christian evidence? Or are we to seek for emotion, to pray for a change of heart, to put ourselves under exciting influences, to go where a revival is in progress, to attend protracted meetings, to be influenced through sympathy till we are filled full of emotions of anxiety, fear, remorse, followed by emotions of hope, trust, gratitude, pardon, peace, joy? ”

“ We have seen that the account of creation in the book of Genesis is probably erroneous. It contains one great faith, luminous throughout—namely, that there is one God, Creator of all worlds and of mankind. But as to the order of creation,—the six days, the garden of Eden,—all we can say is, that there may be some way by which Moses could, in vision, have seen these things, represented in picture, as they happened long before. There may be such a kind of unveiling of the past before the inner eye of the soul. We do not deny it, for it is not wise to deny where we know nothing. ”

“ To wish to come to the study of the Bible without prepossession in its favor is, therefore, a foolish wish; for, without prepossession in its favor, we should have little motive for studying it at all. It is our faith in the Bible that leads us to read it; and faith here, as everywhere, is the motive power which reason has only to guide and restrain. Faith is the brave steed which carries us forward, full of fire and full of pride. ”

“ Unmortified appetites, hungry as death, insatiable as the grave, torture it. Every passion burning, an unsealed volcano in the heart. Every base lust a tiger unchained—a worm undying, let loose to prey on soul and body. Pride, vanity, envy, shame, treachery, deceit, falsehood, fell revenge, and black despair, malice, and every unholy emotion, are so many springs of excruciating and ever-increasing agonies, are so many hot and stifling winds, tossing the swooning, sweltering soul on waves of fire. And there will be deadly hunger, but no food ”

“ But it is very seldom that such full reparation can be made. The consequences of our wrong acts cannot usually be removed or effaced. Wrong-doing is like the gate of hell—easy to open, but difficult, if not impossible, to close again. “She opened, but to shut excelled her power.” Instead of reparation, therefore, the conscience substitutes retribution—either reparation or the penalty; and the natural form of the penalty is an equivalent. Natural justice says, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” This the conscience thinks right; this is justice. ”

“ How much there is of evil under the smooth surface [pg 155] of refined society! How many thoughts of sin pass to and fro in the heart while the countenance seems pure and calm! Who ever looked into the interior depths of our most moral community, and saw all the secret sins and pollutions which are hidden there? Every now and then there occurs in the midst of the most refined classes some startling revelation of long-concealed wickedness which makes men look each other in the face and draw a long breath, as though they should say, “Which of us will next fall?” ”

“ Could we know the good done by the mere sound of the church bells on Sunday, by the quiet assembling of peaceful multitudes in their different churches; could we measure the amount of awe and reverence which falls over every mind, restraining the reckless, checking many a half-formed purpose of evil, rousing purer associations and memories, calling up reminiscences of innocent childhood in the depraved heart of man; could we know how many souls are roused to a better life, made to realize their immortal nature, reminded of a judgment to come ”

“ But there is a continual tendency to fall back again from faith upon works. Ever as the life of religion weakens, ever as the strength of holy confidence decays, men betake themselves to some outward forms or efforts. When they cease to lean on the love of God, they begin to lean on sacraments and ceremonies, on opinions and doctrines, on feelings and experiences, on morality and works of duty. Ever, as the cold winter of worldliness and sin causes the stream of holy faith to shrink back into its channel, the ice of forms accumulates along its shores ”

“ That group of graces—reverence, humility, submission, trust, prayer—which lend such an ineffable charm to the moral nature, which purify and refine it to its inmost depths,—these spring almost wholly from the sense of dependence on a higher and better being than ourselves. These being absent, the elevating principle is wanting; the man cannot rise above himself. There may be truth, courage, conscience, purity, but they are all stoical and self-relying. It is only he who relies on a higher power, clings to a higher being, and draws his moral life from above, who can ascend. ”

“ Christ has abolished death. There is now to the Christian no such thing as death, in the common sense of the term. The only death is the sense of death, the fear of death, which insnares and enslaves. Jesus delivers us from this by inspiring us with faith. We rise with him when we look with him at the things unseen. Faith in eternal things brings into the soul a sense of eternity. Death is only a sleep: outward death is the sleep of the bodily life; inward death is the sleep of the higher life. We awake and rise from the dead when Christ gives us life ”

“ If we had seen with our own eyes a dead man raised to life, or if M. Renan's committee of scientific men had testified that they had seen it, we should either say they were deceived, or we should say, with the Jews, “It is done by some devilish power, not by a divine power. It is not supernatural, it is preternatural.” But Christianity itself is the great miracle of human history. It is more marvellous than raising a dead man, for it was the resurrection of a dead world—of a dead humanity. Read Gibbon. He is an infidel writer, but he is a perfect historian. ”

“ There is nothing obscure in the statement of the fact, that the universe is unbounded. So the way in which a flower grows from its seed is mysterious. We cannot comprehend how the wonderful principle of life can be wrapped up in those little folds, and how it can cause the root to strike downward, and the airy stalk to spring lightly upward, and the leaves to unfold, and, last of all, the bright, consummate flower to open its many-colored eye. But certainly we can understand very well the statement that a flower grows, though we do not comprehend how it grows. ”

“ Are there more piety and more morality in Protestant than in Catholic countries? In which communities do you find the most humility, simplicity, religious faith, reverence for religious institutions, fear of God? In which do you find most of sympathy, kindliness, good will from man to man? The fierce civilization of Protestantism is hard, cold, and cruel. It tramples under its feet the weak. It accumulates wealth and power; but are these Christianity? Is London or Rome the best model of a Christian city? ”

“ Thus, when George Fox went to the rector of his church to ask advice for the distress of his soul, he was told to amuse himself and divert his mind. But Jesus saw all the extent of sin, and yet was ready to encourage and help the sinner. He knew that his remedy was equal to the emergency. The gospel of Christ can give to us love to God and love to man; can soften our hearts in humility, can enable us to fight with and conquer even the hereditary evil of our organization; can ultimately redeem us from all evil. ”

“ But every calling of God is good and noble. He calls us to work; he calls us to Christian goodness; he calls us to heavenly joy, to glory, honor, and immortality. These are the three great callings of man—Christian work first, Christian goodness next, Christian glory last. Since God made every one of us, he made every one of us for something; he has appointed a destiny for each one, and he calls us to it. If we do not hear the gentle call, the whisper of his grace, he calls us by trial, by disaster, by disappointment. ”

“ An unknown God is the highest result of theology and of philosophy. “If religion and science are to be reconciled, the basis of the reconciliation must be their deepest, widest, and most certain of all facts—that the power which the universe manifests is utterly inscrutable.”
Thus Mr. Spencer proposes to take back human thought eighteen centuries, and ignoring the conquests of Christian faith in civilization, theology, and morals, carries us to Athens, in the time of Paul, to worship at the altar of an unknown God. He makes a solitude in the soul, and calls it peace. ”

“ Without attempting here to enter into the tormented question of fate and freedom, of necessity so irrefragably demonstrated by the logic of Edwards and others,—of free-will perpetually reasserted by the intuitive reason in the soul,—we may say this: Whether there be such a thing as metaphysical freedom or not, there is such a thing as moral freedom. In proportion as man sinks into the domain of nature, he is bound by irresistible laws. In proportion as he rises into the sphere of reason, justice, truth, love, he is emancipated, and can direct his own course. ”

“ If we deny, therefore, the doctrine of everlasting suffering, evil virtually disappears from the universe; if we accept it, good virtually disappears, as far as the sufferers are concerned. If all evil is finite, the goodness of God can be fully justified; but, if to any one it is infinite, no such theodicy is possible.
This is the fatal objection to the doctrine of everlasting punishment. It clouds the face of the heavenly Father with impenetrable gloom. It takes away the best consolations of the gospel. ”

“ Those who do not know him at all, by any personal experience, may have a very correct belief concerning him. But which saves the soul? Which governs the life? Which affects the heart? Evidently not the belief, but the knowledge.
We are not saved by any belief whatsoever concerning God or Christ, concerning sin or salvation, concerning duty or destiny. Belief brings us into contact with the images of things, not the things themselves. Belief has no saving power. But knowledge has. “This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” ”

“ It is a duty to repent; but to become regenerate is not a duty: that is a gift, to be received afterwards. God commands conversion: he bestows regeneration. Submission is an act of our own: faith is the gift of God. A change of outward life and conduct we can accomplish ourselves; at least, we can endeavor to accomplish it; but the change of heart God himself will bestow.
Conversion, a turning round, is necessarily instantaneous: it is a change. But regeneration, or reception of divine Love, is a state, not sudden, but passing by gradations into a deeper and deeper life of faith and joy. ”