1849.] True Counteraction of the Subjective Tendencies. 705 words and formulas alone have but slight force against such an inwrought and potent tendency. And they are no effectual guards against heresy, since, as has been well observed, heresy can as readily enter, and does as often couch itself under the guise of old terms as of new. Let us rather seek to know the real sense of the formulas; let us come to have a deeper sense of the grand realities of our faith. To come to these is our safety, our defence. To see and feel and know what Christianity really is in its inward and distinctive character; to study those central truths which lie at its foundation; here is our strength. Let us come unto Jesus. When Christ is to us more than a doctrine, and the atonement more than a plan; when the Incarnation assumes as high a place in revealed, as creation does in natural theology; when the Trinity is viewed not as a formula, but as a vital truth, underlying and interwoven with the whole Christian system; when from this foundation the whole edifice rises up majestically, grand in its proportions, sublime in its aims, filled with God in all its parts; when we feel its inherent force streaming out from its living centres; then, then are we saved from those extreme tendencies which are the most significant and alarming sign of our times; then, then are we elevated above those lesser controversies which have narrowed our minds and divided our hearts. Here also we have a real inward experience as well as an objective reality; for the best and fullest inward experience is that which centres in Christ; and the centre of the experience is then identical with the centre of the divine revelation. Never are we so far from having any abstract ethical or metaphys ical principles exercise an undue influence; never are we so far from a too fond reliance on self and never is self so full and satisfied; never are we in a better position for judging all our controversies with a righteous judgment, or nearer to the highest Christian union; never do the divine decrees shine in so mild a lustre, so benignant with grace, so solemn and severe in justice; never can we be more wisely delivered from the material attractions of an outward rite, or from the ideal seductions of a pantheistic system; never is doctrine so full of life, and life so richly expressed in doctrine; never does systematic theology so perfectly present the full substance of the Christian faith in a truly scientific form; and never are philosophy and faith so joined in hymeneal bonds, where they may "exult in over-measure;" as when Christ is set forth as the living centre of all faith and of all theology, in whom the whole body is fitly joined together, compacted by that which every joint supplieth. Here, if anywhere, we may discern, Concord in discord, lines of differing method Having traced, as far as we may, the course of the blood in the veins of the system, and scrutinized the delicate and intricate organism by which it is diffused through every part, we are better prepared to go back to the grand arterial structure, to the great central heart, where resides the life-imparting energy; and there, too, we shall learn whence comes the blood which courses through the veins. Having the necessity, we need not want the flexure. Having the anatomy of the Christian system, let us have also its physiology; for physiology is the science of life. We have thus gone over the ground proposed, imperfectly, rapidly; and yet have been only too long for the occasion. We have spoken of the characteristics, the opposition, the reconciliation, and the respective rights of Faith and Philosophy. We have, then, maintained the positions, that their full reconciliation is the true aim of systematic theology, whose office it is to present the substance of the Christian faith in a scientific form, and in harmony with all other truth; that the central principle of the system, as of the revelation and of the believer's consciousness, is to be found in the Person of Christ; and that such a view of Christianity will encourage whatever is healthful, and restrain what is noxious in the prevailing tendencies of our times. And now, in conclusion, we say, the Christian system, thus viewed, gives us all that philosophy aims after, and in a more perfect form ; that it also gives us more than philosophy can give; and this more that it gives is what man most needs and what reason alone never could divine. And, therefore, we conclude that it is not within the scope of the human mind to conceive a system more complete, richer in all blessings. It gives us all that philosophy aims after, and in a more perfect form. For, in a harmonious system of Christian truth, nature, with all its laws and processes, is not denied or annulled; it is only made subservient to higher, to moral ends; its course is interrupted for a nobler purpose than a fixed order could ensure; and thus a higher dignity is imparted to it than when we consider it as only a mere succession of material changes. And its very order and harmony are best explained when regarded as the product of infinite wisdom and benev olence, acting with the wisest and most benevolent intent. All ethical truth and all great moral ends, human rights and human happiness and a perfect social state, are included in the Christian system 1849.] Christianity solves the Problem of our Destiny. 707 as truly as in philosophy; and a new glory is cast around them when they are made integral parts of a divine kingdom, established in justice and animated by love, which is not only to be realized here upon the earth, but is to reach forward even to eternity. Moral principles and ends thus retain all their meaning and value; but they are made more effective and permanent when contemplated as inherent in the nature and government of a wise and holy God, and as the basis and aim of an eternal kingdom. We thus have not merely a perfect social state here, but a holy state, animated with the very presence and power of God, forevermore. All that natural religion can prove or claim is retained, all that an internal revelation and inspiration ever boasted itself to have is allowed by the Christian system; but the truths of natural religion are fortified by a higher authority; and the inward revelation is illumined by a clearer light, when it is seen in the brightness of that express manifestation of God in the person of his Son, whose teachings have both chastened and elevated all our views of God and of religion. Thus may Christianity give us all that philosophy can give, and in a more perfect form. But it also gives us more; and this more that it gives is what man most needs, and, unaided, never could attain. God is infinite, man is finite; how, then, can man come unto and know his Creator and sovereign? Man is sinful and God is holy; how can a sinful man be reconciled to a holy God? how can a sinful nature become regenerate? Man is mortal, as well as sinful; how can he obtain certainty, entire certainty, as to a future life and his eternal destiny? Here are the real and vital problems of human destiny; before them reason is abashed, and conscience can only warn, and man can only fear. The urgency, the intense interest of these questions no thinking mind can doubt; the uncertainty and timidity of human reason, when it meets them, are almost proverbial. If these questions are not answered, if these problems are not solved in Christianity, they are absolutely answered nowhere. And precisely here it is that we contend that the Christian system has a permanent power, and a perfect fitness to man's condition; for you cannot name a vital problem of our moral destiny which it does not profess to solve, and to solve in a way beyond which human thought can conceive of nothing greater, and the human heart can ask for nothing more; in a way which is to the simplest heart most simple, and to the highest intellect most profound. The highest ideas and ends which reason can propound are really embraced, the deepest wants which man can know are truly satisfied, the sharpest antagonisms which the mind can propose, are declared to be reconciled, in the ideas, the means, and the ends which are contained in that revelation which centres in the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord. For, the highest idea which man can frame is that of a union of divinity with humanity; this is the very verge of a possible conception for the human intellect; and in the Person of our Saviour we have this idea realized in all its fulness, and with such a marvellous adaptation to human sympathies that they are made the very means of drawing us within the hallowed sphere of the glories of divinity. Through Jesus Christ, and Him alone, does finite man come to the Infinite I am. The highest moral problem which we can know is contained in the question, how can a sinful man be reconciled to a holy God? Here is absolutely the highest moral antagonism of the universe. And in the sacrificial death of this same Person, our great High Priest, this highest moral question is presented to us as entirely solved, and solved in such a way, that the sense of sin is not lessened but heightened, and the majesty of the law not impaired but made more glorious. While in the regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit we have the means of applying the benefits of this atonement in such a way to the heart of the sinner that his very love of sin will at last be wholly eradicated. The highest kingdom we can conceive to exist is one which aims at the holiness of all who belong to it, which has love for its common principle; which has for its head a being who unites all human with all divine perfections; who has himself suffered for all the members of this kingdom and in their stead; and who will reign over and within them, not only for this life but also for that which is to come. In such a kingdom all are bound together by the strongest ties for the highest objects. And such is the kingdom of which Jesus Christ is the head and redeemed men the body. And all these questions are solved, these ideas realized, these antago nisms adjusted, and this kingdom is established in one and the same Person; all this system is concentrated in thatGod-man, who came from heaven to earth that he might raise us from earth to heaven, who adapted himself to our infirmities and necessities that He might be made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. And, therefore, dare we assert that beyond the idea of such a systein, centering in such a Being, human thought is impotent to advance and the human heart has nothing real to desire; it satisfies all within us which is not sinful, and it is its crowning glory that it subdues our sinfulness itself. Such a system brings together, recapitulates, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth; and by such a Person, all things are reconciled to God, by him, the apostle says, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. 1849.] Bunsen's Late Work upon Egypt. 709 Whence, whence came to our sinful race the idea of such a Being, of such a kingdom? Has man's reason framed it; and the human imagination, hath that gendered it? With cold eye and heart I might gaze on the face of nature in her grandest or her loveliest scenes; with intellectual delight I may scan the principles and follow out the deductions of an abstract scheme of philosophic speculation; with sublime wonder 1 may follow the astronomer as he describes the laws and order of firmaments and systems radiant in their solar light; I may feel all my human sympathies enlisted by any philanthropic scheme which would bring justice and love into this world so full of oppression and hatred; but when I think of the wonders of our Saviour's Person and of the glories of his redemptive work, of all his love, his love for me a sinner, his love to all so great that He could die for all, and of that blessed and perpetual kingdom which his blood has purchased and of which He is the ever living Head; when, in some rapt moment, my heart can realize this in all its fulness, then, if ever, is my whole being filled with the profoundest emotions of awe, of gratitude, and of love. Never is the soul so conscious of its full capacities of thought and feeling, never does it throb with such unwonted and divine life, as when it has most fully grasped the majestic reality of the Christian faith, as a wondrous and harmonious whole, tending to the highest imaginable end, and centering in that glorious Being who unites divinity with humanity and reconciles heaven with earth. In comparison with the fulness, fitness, and sufficiency of such a system, the most colossal structure which pantheism ever reared is but as a palace of ice, cold and cheerless, contrasted with that heavenly city, whose gates are pearl, whose streets are gold, thronged with a company innumerable and exultant, vocal with the melodies of the redeemed, of which the Lamb is the light, and God the glory. ARTICLE V. REMARKS ON BUNSEN'S LATE WORK UPON EGYPT. THE Chevalier Bunsen, who has been for some years the Prussian minister at the court of St. James, is publishing in German and in English, a work on Egypt, which has been anticipated with much pleasure by all who are acquainted with his talents, or who have taken VOL. VI. No. 24. 60 |