Theurgy

“ After coming through thousands of years of groping in physic and surgery, we are adopting to a considerable degree the methods of the ancient priests, the theurgy, laying on of hands, or invoking the force of mind over matter, or stated Christly methods of curing the sick. ”

“ Behold the reflections which ought to occupy your faith; and, when you enter the assembly of believers, you ought, while trembling over the past, to demand of yourself, — am I going to hear a word which shall judge me, or truths which shall deliver me? ”

“ While theologians are discussing the evidences of creeds, let teachers be conducting them to their applications. Let their respective resources of feeling and conception be unfolded before the soul of mankind; let it be tried what mental energy they can inspire, what purity of moral perception infuse, what dignity of principle erect, what toils of philanthropy sustain. ”

“ All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.—I observe a truly wise practice on every hand, in education, in religion, and the morals of society, enough embodied wisdom to have set up many an ancient philosopher. ”

“ And this is my purpose when I use my philosophy merely to illustrate the office of reason. For indispensable as individual religious experience is, in all the capriciousness of its feelings--indispensable also as social religious experience is, with all its insistence upon human love and also upon human religious convention--the synthetic use of the reason, that is, the systematic effort "to see life steadily and see it whole," is also indispensable. ”

“ My son, thou hast taken upon thee the profession which is of all the most ancient and acceptable to the divinity. Thou hast sworn to be faithful, brave, and secret; to pursue to destruction every human being whom chance, or thy ingenuity, may throw into thy power, with the exception of those who are forbidden by the laws of our profession, which are now to thee sacred. ”

“ That teaching which promised to unite all in one faith and love—that very teaching, in the person of its best representatives, told me that these men were all living a lie; that what gave them their power of life was a temptation of the devil; and that we alone possess the only possible truth. ”

“ Let conscience be employed both to search and to try, and let it have leave to deal faithfully, to accomplish a diligent search and to make an impartial trial. Let us try our ways, that by them we may try ourselves, for we are to judge of our state not by our faint wishes, but by our steps, not by one particular step, but by our ways, the ends we aim at, the rules we go by, and the agreeableness of the temper of our minds and the tenour of our lives to those ends and those rules. ”

“ Now who will hesitate to ascribe this entire authority to the soul, from the name of which the whole man has received his own designation in common phraseology? How many souls, says the rich man, do I maintain? ”

“ Let it be in leaving with you the lesson that belief in conscience and belief in God—belief in the moral order of the universe and belief in a moral Governor and Judge—are most intimately connected and mutually support each other. ”

“ Essays of the most incoherent character, some of them utterly unintelligible even, have vied for circulation with others, which, under the guise of a rational physiology, or philosophy, or religion, inculcate doctrines the most pernicious alike to body, mind, and soul. ”

“ But while we anticipate, on grounds of strong hope, a time of refreshing from above, which shall subdue the depraved repugnances of the human mind, we may also anticipate, on grounds of common reasoning, a natural process of reform in theology—considered as a science, which shall place the intrinsic incoherence of heresy in the broad light of day, henceforward to be contemned and avoided. ”

“ Of austere and commanding virtue, irreproachable in his self-denying life, trained in all the learning of the schools, and gifted with rare persuasive eloquence, he became the terror of the hierarchy, and found the laity ready enough to listen and to act upon doctrines which satisfied their worldly aspirations as well as their spiritual longings. ”

“ One becomes a lawyer, another a clergyman, another a physician, another a merchant, and the treasure which the childlike soul has lost is sought to be regained in some general and far-off way by society at large. ”

“ If, then, our thought is habitually concentrated upon principles rather than on particular things, realizing that principles are nothing else than the Divine Mind in operation, we shall find that they will necessarily germinate to produce their own expression in corresponding facts, thus verifying the words of the Great Teacher, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." ”

“ It follows from what has been said that previous knowledge of, and deliberation about, the object proposed by the intellect to the will, is necessary to free and moral action, which is defined by divines to be action which proceeds from man's deliberative will. [4]
5. Human acts are by theologians divided into various classes:
(a) Internal acts are performed by the internal powers of the soul; external, by the bodily organs. ”

“ When I speak of all the faculties, I mean all those which enter into and form the character created in the image of God, not merely those which minister to the selfish ends of life. There are faculties for business; there are others which open to us the avenues of knowledge,—others which connect us by chains soft as silk, but strong as iron, to the social and domestic circle,—others still which reveal to us, in vistas of infinite variety and inconceivable extension, our duties to God and man. ”

“ As then we bring those things which reason hunts after, to sense, and by it judge what kind of things they are, whether the things spoken be true or false, and then sit in judgment no longer, giving full credit to its decision; so also we refer all that is said regarding men and the world to the truth, and by it judge whether it be worthless or no. ”

“ Practica determines the correct way of living and the form of discipline, according to the institution of the virtues. Mechanica occupied with fleeting things, strives to provide for the needs of the body. For the end and aim of all human actions and studies, which reason regulates, ought to look either to the reparation of the integrity of our nature or to alleviating the needs to which life is subjected. The integrity of our nature is repaired by Wisdom, to which Theorica relates, and by Virtue, which Practica cultivates. ”

“ For polished words and sentences, or words strung together in admirable order, are not doctrine, for these things are for the most part found with evil-doers and sinners; but this is doctrine, which is the correction of the natural habits and disposition, and the leading of a life of spiritual excellence according to rule, by which I mean the possession of the faculty which shall make a man superior to affliction and to emotion, and to timidity, and to wrath ”

“ They all postulate in the interests of their volitional nature a harmony between the latter and the nature of things. The theologian does no more. And the reflex doctrine of the mind's structure, though all theology should as yet have failed of its endeavor, could but confess that the endeavor itself at least obeyed in form the mind's most necessary law. ”

“ Here we touch the gist of the ordering of topics in the Speculum doctrinale, which treats of all the arts and sciences:
“For the obtaining of these three remedies every art and every disciplina was invented. In order to gain Wisdom, Theorica was devised; and Practica for the sake of virtue; and for Need’s sake, Mechanica. Theorica driving out ignorance, illuminates Wisdom; [Pg 321] Practica shutting out vice, strengthens Virtue; Mechanica providing against penury, tempers the infirmities of the present life. Theorica, in all that is and that is not, chooses to investigate the true. ”

“ For what else do we say is incumbent on the rational creature—I mean man—than the contemplation of the Divine? I say, too, that it is requisite to contemplate human nature, and to live as the truth directs, and to admire the Instructor and His injunctions, as suitable and harmonious to each other. According to which image also we ought, conforming ourselves to the Instructor, and making the word and our deeds agree, to live a real life. ”

“ Can we exaggerate the importance of a contention in which every thoughtful person must take part whether he will or not? In a matter so solemn as that of religion, all men, whose temporal interests are not involved in existing institutions, earnestly desire to find the truth. ”

“ One cardinal lesson of the parable, apart from the representation of actual conditions present and future, is that of patience, long-suffering, and toleration—each an attribute of Deity and a trait of character that all men should cultivate. ”

“ In order that the student may grasp this subject in its fullness, and the better understand this controversy between Luther and the Catholic church, we shall make a careful statement of the facts which enter into the question of God's grace and the free will of man.
1. Power of Deliberation—The mind is conscious of a power of deliberation, before the intellect passes the different motives of action, interests, passions, opinions, etc. The intellect considers, compares, estimates, and finally judges them. ”

“ Our first rule is: to employ all the strength of our faculties in the study and investigation of natural religion: till we become impressed sincerely and practically with our awful responsibility, as reasonable beings, to our Creator, Benefactor, and Judge eternal. ”

“ In them, Commandments ye get the essence Of the Truth as given ter man; And if a poor sinner lives up ter ’em, And labors the best that he can— No matter if he is out of the church, Whar the wicked ones are cryin’ For mercy! ”

“ He may still, and will still, daily discover, as he studies the Word of God and is illumined by the Holy Spirit, acts of his, habits of life, forms of feeling, speech and action, that are not in conformity with this central purpose of his will, and these must be confessed to God as blameworthy and put away, and this department of his being and life brought, by God's Spirit and the indwelling Christ, into conformity with God's will as revealed in His Word. ”

“ The omissions, which, in the period of fervour for duty and religion, would have excited in you the warmest compunctions, are now no longer regarded even as faults. The principles, the judgment, the light of the mind, are all changed. ”

“ Preachers preach the doctrine,—teachers teach it,—Nature silently and gloriously manifests it hourly; but we,—we continue to shut our ears and eyes,—we prefer to retreat within ourselves,—our little incomplete ignorant selves,—thinking we shall be able to discover some way out of what has no egress, by the cunning arguments of our own finite intellectual faculties. We fail always;—we must fail. ”

“ The main result of the sermons is therefore the psychological system, in which the conscience is represented as holding a supreme position by its own self-evidencing authority among the various faculties which constitute human nature; while other passions, and in particular self-love and benevolence, are independent but subordinate. ”

“ While we preach obedience to human laws, and to that portion of the divine laws set forth in the New Testament, the natural laws of genius, of love and friendship, we do not preach nor insist upon. How many a seeming heartlessness is to be explained by the very abundance of the heart. ”

“ These are things that we profess more or less to be governed by. We profess to have a portion of the Spirit of Truth, and we pray frequently that that Spirit may guide and direct us in our movements among the children of men. ”

“ The laws of our various appetencies, affections, and emotions, and their relations to their special ends or objects, the nature of the several intellectual faculties and their subservience to mental culture, and still more the general constitution of the mind as a system consisting of a multitude of powers under the government of reason and conscience, present to us vast fields filled with the evidences of Divine Wisdom. ”

“ To the superficial student, the doctrine of verbal inspiration may appear questionable or even absurd; any regenerated and Spirit-taught man, who ponders the words of the Scripture day after day and year after year, will become convinced that the wisdom of God is in the very words, as well as in the thought which the words endeavour to convey. ”

“ Knowledge is justified or condemned according to its ultimate purpose. Likewise every deed, business, occupation, which can fill out the active life of man. As they make for Christ and salvation, the functions of ruler, warrior, lawyer, artisan, priest, are justified and blessed—or the reverse. ”

“ First day, the 27th. My mind while sitting in our meeting to-day, was led into a view of the great necessity there was of more faithfulness and attention to the inward principle of divine [Pg 307] truth, or inward teacher in the mind, as professed by us as a people. For want of this, many were led into divers errours and deficiencies, which in their tendency not only led to great weakness, but to the encouragement of evil doers in their evil practices; a sight and sense of which had for some time been a cause of much exercise to my mind. ”

“ A recent able author speaks of "that congeries of organs whose union forms the brain and whose action constitutes the mind." 10 The mind, then, is an action! Can an action love and hate, choose and resolve, rejoice and grieve, remember, repent, and pray? Is not an agent necessary for an action? ”