will retain what is positive and peculiar to itself, but give up what is merely negative and antagonistic.

Shall I say now what Orthodoxy has, in which we, as Unitarians, are deficient? It understands the meaning of the Gospel, as differing from the Law, better than we do, and sees its special adaptation to the needs of the sinner, as we have not generally apprehended it. It sees that God actually came into the world in Christ, infusing a new life-element, commencing a new movement, beginning a new scries of influences. Hence it perceives that Christianity is really a supernatural gift, coming from above the natural order of things, and that those who receive it are actually born into a higher life. Thus it transforms duty into love; instead of a conscientious effort to do right, it creates a grateful affection, which carries us forward, as the advancing tide bears a navy on its bosom. It animates man with the power of faith in unseen and eternal things, and so gives an energy and force which no merely earthly considerations can produce.

Shall I as frankly speak of the defects of Orthodoxy -defects which the Unitarian movement was sent to supply? Orthodoxy undervalues man's nature and capacities; exalting the Son, it does not worship the Father; it does not see God in Nature, God in History, God in Providence. It creates a fervent piety, but is deficient in conscientiousness, in truthfulness, in a regard for man as man. Unitarianism, with all its

defects, can teach Orthodoxy a lesson. If it learns of Orthodoxy to see God in Christ, it may teach it to see man in Christ. It may teach it humanity while it learns piety, may teach it conscientiousness while it learns penitence and faith. And if that seems a small matter, remember that Christianity did not differ from previous religions by creating a more fervent piety so much as in creating a deeper and purer humanity.

So, too, the Transcendental or Spiritual Movement of our day must be accepted and received by the comprehensive Church. It will be received, not for its denials or negations, but for its noble sight of an infinite worth in man, of a divine power in the human soul. Man, trampled into the earth by the crushing heel of the tyrant, is lifted up and placed a little lower than the angels as soon as God's ideas are found in him. That God is now in the world, that he is now in our hearts, that he is ready now to inspire us by his Spirit, that he is uniformly near, the light within us, the life of our life - these are the teachings of Transcendentalism, for the sake of which we can casily overlook its extravagant opposition to miracles, and what seems to me its unreasonable denial of the supernatural element in history.

Does any one think it impossible that the Church shall ever realize in its large hospitality such diverse doctrines? I say that if the Jewish Prophets, hundreds of years before Christ's coming, dared to predict an age in which the sword should be beaten into a

plough-share and the spear into a pruning-hook and nations no longer wage war together, we Christians, nearly two thousand years after Christ may dare to anticipate a time in which Christian sects may be comprehended in one fold, and coöperate toward a common end. If Isaiah could say that the lion and the lamb should feed together, we may say that at some indefinite period of the future even the Unitarian and the Trinitarian may stand together on a common platform.*

That common platform is indeed already laid — that foundation was placed when the words of our text were first spoken. "Faith in Christ" is the bond of union - the one article of the Church's creed. This was the basis of the Apostolic Church, and to this basis we must return. That stone, so often refused by the builders, who have despised it for its simplicity, must become again the head stone of the corner. Whatever sect, whatever individual, accepts Christ as the Master, stands on the foundation and is within the limits of the true Church.

There can be no union among Protestants till they agree to this as the one basis of union. No Protestant sect, as a sect, does now agree to it.

The Ortho

dox demand, not only that we Unitarians should take Christ for our Master and go to him for truth, but that

* The leading idea in the preceding train of remarks corresponds with that of Dr. Bushnell's late admirable Essay on "Christian Comprehensiveness."

we should agree to accept certain doctrines as truth which they call the essential and peculiar doctrines of Christianity. But this is virtually substituting themselves in the place of Christ as our teachers, and shows that either they have no faith in the power of their doctrines to convince an honest seeker, or that they do not believe in our honest intentions-i. e. they want cither faith in God, or faith in man. Nor are Unitarians, as a body, willing to take faith in Christ as the basis of union, for many of them insist on knowing the grounds on which a man believes before they will accept him as a Christian. If he does not believe in Christ, on the basis of miracles, having doubts of their reality, though he may believe fully in Christ on the ground of the truth which he taught, and accept him as a perfect teacher, many Unitarians will call him a Deist and Infidel. This is giving to outward miracles an importance which neither Augustine, the father of Catholic theology, nor Luther, the father of the Reformation, ever gave to them, and which even the Jewish Rabbins would not ascribe to them.*

* In the Talmud is the following story, to show that miracles are not to be regarded as legitimate evidences of Truth.

A violent debate arose in the Rabbinical school between Rabbi Eliezer and an opponent, concerning the doctrine of clean and unclean beasts. Rabbi Eliezer brought all possible arguments to support his opinion, and at last, finding them ineffectual, cried, "May this apple tree show that I am right." Whereupon the apple tree moved, and left its place, and was thrown to a distance.

"Well," said the opponent, "What does that prove?"

Faith in Jesus as the Christ is therefore to be the basis of the Future Church? What is to be its office?

It will be a Working Church. It will be employed, not in circulating a creed, not in building up a sect, not in going through with religious forms, but the

"Then" returned Rabbi Eliezer, "if you believe not the tree, may this brook show that I am right."

Whereupon the brook stopped, and began to run backward.

"But what does water, running backward, prove?" said the unconvinced opponent.

"Then may the walls of this room prove that I am right," said Eliezer.

The corners of the house were shaken and the walls began to totter. But Eliezer's opponent cried, "Walls! walls! why do you interfere in the discussions of the wise?" And the walls, bowing in obedience to one wise man, rose again and stood firm out of reverence for the other.

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May then the voice of God decide between us!" said Eliezer. And from the depths of the Heaven a voice was heard to speak, and to say, "Why contend against my servant Eliezer? He alone is right!"

But Rabbi Joshua arose, and replied to the voice, “It is not in Heaven!" quoting from the passage in Deuteronomy, which says, "My word is not hidden from thee, nor afar off. It is not in Heaven, that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up to Heaven for us and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it. But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it."

And God was pleased with Joshua, who believed in the inward word of God in his heart, more than in outward signs and wonders.

This story I find in "Engel," quoted as from the Talmud. I believe that the miracles of the gospels are not myths but matters of fact, for they seem to me reasonable, natural, and beautiful manifestations of the character of Jesus Christ. I am not alarmed at hearing them doubted. I am sure the Church will never give up her faith in them. But I do not believe that Jesus ever intended that a belief in them should be made a test of discipleship. Miracles are to be believed on the ground of Christianity, not Christianity on the ground of miracles. So says Augustine, so says Luther; so feels every spiritual man, however he may have been taught a different opinion.