He

patience with mere rhetoric than in these A man who undertakes to treat the latter days. People may say that whole whole of human life from the moral standspeeches of Mr. Giadstone are mere rhet-point has set himself no easy task. oric, but what seems only rhetoric to per- who would do justice to all the various sons out of sympathy with the Premier theological tendencies of his own age, has (1871), is not rhetoric to him or to those entered upon a field of difficult and perilwho understand him, it is merely the ex- ous action, from which he can scarcely expression of a power to will and to do. pect to issue perfectly unscathed, and yet When a man's words are understood to it is astonishing how on the whole Mr. mean this he will be listened to in the Beecher manages to justify his own deSenate or in the Pulpit, and he will have scription of himself as reasonably orthothe privilege of conveying his meaning in dox. The late Mr. F. W. Robertson manany way he pleases. Mr. Ward Beecher aged to draw the teeth of many an offenfully avails himself of this privilege. sive dogma by attaching a highly spiritual Nothing comes amiss to him. As for the meaning to the doctrinal letter. This is dignity of the pulpit, he knows of no digni- not always Mr. Beecher's method, but the ty save the dignity of doing good, of win- most exasperating shibboleths become ning men by all means, of talking common harmless in his hands, owing to his singusense in the most forcible manner possible. lar faculty of seeing a common-sense side Like almost every great preacher, Mr. to every question; in short, his gospel is Beecher is a real humourist; his satire emphatically the Gospel of Common burns, but it does not harden; he will Sense. In his highest flights of thought, laugh men out of their sins if he cannot in his deepest expressions of religious feelotherwise persuade them, and he will show ing, he never loses a certain solid sobriety. how very ridiculous an action may be, To combine this with an impetuous temwhen he feels that no other kind of denun- perament and a burning enthusiasm, such ciation is likely to affect his hearers. as he undoubtedly possesses, is a rare if not There is one very amiable and singular an original gift. How well Mr. Beecher trait about his teaching. It is the justice employs thought and passion, common usually done to his opponents. He will sense and a quiet mystical religious fershow what he thinks good in them; he vour, perhaps they only can quite estimate will state their case for them, better per- who, to use a slang expression, "sit under haps than they could state it for them- him." But as the echoes of his voice travselves, and when the point of antagonism el across the Atlantic, we shall try and is reached, instead of scolding them with gather up the subject-matter of his teachpolemical invective, he will hold not them, ing in a succinct form, and as the manner but their erroneous opinions, up to the is altogether untranslatable, we mildest, most good-natured, but most ir- leave that to the imagination of our readresistible ridicule. ers. The matter will range itself conveniently under two principal heads: I. RELIGIOUS TRUTH. Dealing with theological doctrines and their application.

But it is now time to turn from general characteristics to the subject-matter itself of Mr. Ward Beecher's preaching, which we venture to say will bear a little close attention. His fertility and freshness are

alike remarkable.

must

II. SECULAR TRUTH. Dealing with all sorts of social and political topics of very various interest and importance.

RELIGIOUS TRUTH.

It being prefaced that the doctrine-hunter will have to put on his very best spectacles and go a long way before he finds anything corresponding to his idea of sound doctrine, we may proceed to inquire what views does Mr. Beecher hold concerning I. The Trinity. II. The Person of Jesus Christ. III. The Atonement. IV. Regeneration. V. The Bible. VI. The Church

I asked," says a casual attendant at Mr. Beecher's church, " I asked a gentleman who sat behind me whether he was a regular attendant, and if so, whether he remarked any difference in the quality of the sermons or any repetition. He said 'I have sat here five years and I never heard any man repeat himself so little. I have heard other celebrated preachers, and have heard no one equal to him; as for the sermon to-day it was not better or worse than his discourses in general. It was an aver- Sects and Sacraments. VII. Infidelity age sermon." And this is quite the im- and the Devil. Under one or other of pression left on the reader who chooses to these heads we shall contrive to say all study-we will not say wade through, for that properly belongs to what may strictly it is more light reading than wading-speaking be called Mr. Ward Beecher' the six volumes before us.

theology.

"Because our acquaintance with vital intelligent sentient life is limited, because the class

of beings with which we are familiar exists in unity-unity and diversity as far as faculty is ty-we are not to suppose that this exhausts all concerned, but unity without diverse persoualipossible modes of being."

And then, after showing the enormous complexity of all high life (human nature, for instance), he adds, with very remarkable force and clearness, "Infinite complexity" (such as must be involved in the notion of God, the loftiest existence)

"Infinite complexity may be easily imagined in one being — but a range higher than this— to be not merely an agglomeration of faculties so that beings shall be agglomerated in a being, and that there shall be personalities grouped into unity."

parts I.- The Doctrine of the Trinity. but three Persons in one God, that is, a Unity of Being, whether perMr. Beecher's definition of this doctrine sonal or not hardly appears, but if personwould satisfy the most exacting ortho- | al, at all events, not one Person but three doxy; for he states in so many words that Persons. To meet this conception of three "the Unit of the Old Testament has been Persons, so understood, in one God Mr. superseded in the New Testament by a Beecher makes the following ingenious Divine Being represented by the terms conjectures; it is his one contribution to Father, Son,' and Holy Spirit,' a one the general metaphysics of this abstruse God with three manifestations," and (no doctrine: doubt anxious to avoid Sabellianism) he is careful to add, "which manifestations answer to our idea of personalities" (i. 408). He does not venture upon the historical ground. He does not tell us, with one of the most learned of modern writers (Emanual Deutsch), that "the Christians of the second and third centuries were far from having a clearly recognized and understood doctrine on this high subject" (Chamber's Encyclopædia,' "Article Doctrine of the Trinity); nor does he care to remind us that it was not until A.D. 325 that the Church, at the Council of Nice, was led to define the relation of the Son to the Father. These matters Mr. Beecher probably felt would prove as uninteresting to his congregation as they evidently are to himself. Neither do we get an elaborate argument such as F. W. Robertson has provided us with in his Third Series; where the doctrine of the Trinity is elaborately explained by a reference to the complex nature of man, and found to be altogether in agreeable harmony with the laws of the human mind. Neither historical investigation nor metaphysical subtlety is much to Mr. Beecher's taste, yet before he dismisses the theory of this difficult and perplexing dogma, he does not forget to point to the great law according to which, as we ascend in the scale of animated being, we find an ever-pass on to his views about growing distinctness in the variety of parts bound in some higher unity. And II. The Person of Jesus Christ. up again carefully avoiding the Sabellian her- Mr. Ward Beecher treats the great cenesy, of saying that God is but one person tral figure of our faith from his own pecuunder the three manifestations, Father, liar point of view. He is very fond of fallSon, and Holy Ghost, he introduces a ing back upon authority whenever authorreally subtle remark about the possibility ity will help him out of a difficulty. He is of three Persons - not parts - being bound equally impatient when it thwarts the free up in some higher essential Unity of Be- development of his religious or social inings called one God. It is of course im-stincts. The authoritative declaration aginable that God is one Person revealed about Jesus Christ in the Scriptures is gento man under three different aspects; but erally held to be that He is God- that this is heresy; it is also imaginable that He is the Saviour of man. In what sense the Deity may be composed of separate He is God is nowhere clearly explained in impersonal forces comprehended in one Mr. Beecher's sermons. In the passage larger force called a personality; but that already quoted about the Virgin and Child, appears to be also heresy, as also every the Child was God, but then other mothother possible way of defining God, save ers are to look on their children, and see as three Persons-not manifestations or the God within them. Yet Mr. Beecher

But clever as is this contribution to theological metaphysics, Mr. Beecher has evidently no great delight therein. He does not kindle over his metaphysics like Robertson; he is glad to be off to the ready and powerful applications of God's Holy Spirit to the actual wants and diseases of the human heart. The greater part of the sermon on the Trinity is taken up with such practical teaching—which is admirable, but not new; and therefore we may

One of the finest of Mr. Beecher's sermons is on "Vicarious Suffering" (Hea ton, vol. i.); yet, although we get an ample exposition of a doctrine of substitution, or vicarious suffering, we get no nearer any exposition of the Atonement in the sense of Christ's death procuring God's On the doctrine of the Atonement and pardon for sinners, in a way external to the general scheme of Redemption, Mr. man's own righteousness and repentance. Beecher expresses himself with a certain In a passage of great force and high cumufreedom and laxity calculated to astonish lative eloquence, which we cannot quote and alarm the orthodox believer; and yet at length, our preacher gives the view of it would be difficult to accuse him of wil-vicarious suffering which has most imful obstinacy and spiritual blindness for pressed his own mind:

run.

men.

It

er with his materials for rebutting the charge of want or deficiency in Christ's character. The limitation of His sympathies will probably not be felt by those who perceive that He was under historical as well as individual limitations. would have been mere waste of time for Him to have unfolded a number of interests for which the world was not ripe, to have propounded systems of government which at the time would not have been adopted, or truths of political economy which would not have been understood. Suffice it to say that all good government is to this day assisted and fostered by the principles of the Christian life, benignly unfolded beneath them like flowers beneath the sun; and that no hitherto ascer tained precept of political economy is otherwise than in perfect harmony with the spirit, if not the letter, of an enlightened, a developed, nay, an ever-developing Christianity.

"If it be impugning the character of God to teach that there is a doctrine of substitution and vicariousness, by which the just suffer for the unjust then it is a doctrine which strikes clear through outward creation. Who pay for vice? Not the vicious. The virtuous pay for it. Who pay the taxes of the community? The men whose vices are the leakages? This community is a vast hull, and at every seam there is leaking and leaking. Whose work is it to calk it up? Why, it is the industrious man that pays for the waste of the shiftless man in the long It is the vice of the community that is the tax-gatherer of the community If it were not for good men, communities would break down under the vices and crimes of bad And if you say that it is against the idea of divine benevolence that God should let just men suffer for unjust men, then your idea of divine benevolence is a false one. It is not in accordance with past reason; it is not in accordance with the facts of human life; it is not in accordance with your own ideas. When you call to mind your own feelings as a father, and when you take lessons from the household, then your conception of a being that The imitation of Christ is in one sense is true to the laws of the universe must recog- impossible, nor, if possible, would it be nize the principle of suffering one for another. desirable; but He is in a profound sense What would you not do for a child? How much an example, since in Him were all the facwould you not suffer? How long would you ulties that are in us. "As He was, so are not bear with him if only through your instru- we in this present world." All that propmentality he might be saved? Now lift that erly belongs to human nature was tried. sublime form of parental life which is familiar He was tempted in all points (though not to you up into the sphere of the Infinite. in all circumstances), like us, yet without Crown it and enthrone it and call it God, Saviour, and how glorious it becomes! Is it not adorable and praiseworthy when it rises to the proportions of divinity, and becomes typical

of the character of the Creator Himself?"

The noble grasp which Mr. Ward Beecher has over what we call the human side of every divine question is never more striking than in his treatment of Jesus Christ as the ideal man. Around this central figure all high moral and spiritual life must revolve. The ideal will never be outgrown. For it is an ideal which lays hold of the whole range of human powers and aspirations. Nothing is more denied than this in the present day. It is said that Christ's character was in many ways deficient, his intellectual sympathies limited, his circumstances so different from ours that no fair comparison between our lives and His is possible. To all which Mr. Beecher in many places gives a summary contradiction. "Here is the sum and substance of Christianity," he says, "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. It is the whole of Christianity in the same way that an acorn is the whole of a tree

352). The Christ planted in a man is the (iii. one thing needful. The author of "Ecce Homo" has probably inspired Mr. Beech-l

sin. Only an extensive acquaintance with these sermons will convince us how thoroughly Mr. Beecher sees his way to harmonizing every legitimate sphere of modern life with the spirit and power of Christianity, not as it is found in this or that sect, but as it is found in Jesus Christ; and he who will undertake to do this in the present day, without losing his sympathy with, or misconceiving the scope of modern doubts and difficulties, and the complexities of modern civilization, most certainly be accounted a great Christian teacher.

oxysms of repentance, and coming out new men. There remains in them, of course, a certain proneness and proclivity to evil; they have got to watch and with God; they often do unconsciously pray like others, but they walk consciously what is right, following the higher law of a nature which has become the subject of spiritual influences.

What must I do to secure eternal life?' You must repent,' says the minister. So the man cries, and cries, and cries, and feels bad, and feels bad, and feels bad. That is the way he pays for his insurance. By and-by he feels better, and he asks the minister, Is that the evidence that I have my policy?' 'Yes,' says the minister, 'you have had your bad state, and you have come to your joyful state, and now you have your hope.' And the man goes home, and says to his wife, My dear, I have passed from death unto life; and, come what may, I am going to be saved. I may wander, to be sure; but I have my evidence, my hope, my inBurauce,' Oh!" exclaims the preacher, "is there any heresy comparable with this spiritual indifference and spiritual security?" (Heaton, the purification through trial and sorrow

vol. i. 276.)

ness;

That is an instance of the good-humoured way in which an ignorant, bigoted, but once very common view of conversion, is treated. The opponent is not raved at or excommunicated, but he is quietly put out of court with a few words selected from his own favorite vocabulary. No spiritual state can supersede watchfulno experience here on earth can place us beyond the reach of harm; but, this granted, let the soul be opened to every breath of divine influence, let the wind sweep through it and purify its innermost caverns, let the sun shine out and render fertile its barren plains, let the blessed dews of regenerating grace work their gracious will. How different from our last quotation is the earnest tone of the following passage, in which the true doctrine concerning regeneration is propounded:

"Sometimes men complain of the doctrine of a regenerated life, as if it were a requisition it is not- it is a refuge. Oh, what would not a criminal, who at thirty-five years of age found himself stung with disgrace, and overwhelmed with odium, give, if in the policy of human society there should be any method by which he could begin back again, as if he had not begun at all, and with all his accumulated experience build his character anew! But in the economy of God in Christianity there is such a thing as a man at fifty and sixty years of age-hoaryheaded in transgression, deeply defiled, struck through and through with the fast colours of depravity-having a chance to become a true child again. God sets a partition-wall between him and past transgressions, and says, I will (Heaton,

remember them no more for ever." 999 vol. i. 192.)

Some men are regenerate from their birth; they have always grown up surrounded by good influences, and appropriating them. We must not insist upon their going through convulsions and par

There are others who have learned the dignity of the moral law, but who grow up for some time without becoming the subjects of any of the higher spiritual influences. To them the raptures and ecstasies of the devotee are unknown; to them

is a mystery; prayer is an unvitalized form of words; their conversion is to come; perhaps, like Peter's, it may come through some startling fall, some unexpected failure to obey the moral law. Perhaps the light of eternity may first break upon the soul through the darkness of pain and loss, through the rent clouds of agony and despair. There is in all men the higher nature; there is in most men the sleep of that higher nature, until the voice rings out, "Awake, thou that sleepest; arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life," and that awakening is conversion. Without giving chapter and verse for the above general statements, we believe they do substantially embody Mr. Beecher's views upon the doctrine of conversion through the regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit.

V.-The Bible.

There is one sermon of Mr. Beecher's on the Bible so eloquent, so attractive, and so typical of his teaching in every way, that we need make no further apology for presenting our readers with an exceedingly bold, and in some respects satisfactory, view of the much-vexed question of the inspiration of the Bible. To say that Mr. Beecher's utterances in this sermon are altogether consistent with many of his inferences elsewhere, would be going too far. In places where dogmatic doctrines, such as the "Divinity of Christ and "Miracles," have to be stated and accepted without discussion, Mr. Beecher falls back upon Bible statements with real, child-like simplicity: yet in this sermon he frankly admits that the authority and authenticity of the Bible books is by no means unimpeachable, and he gives us the vaguest and least critical hints about how we are to decide upon what is theologically true to be believed. He is so completely satisfied about what is morally and spiritually true in the