put to the stretch...

James Walker was born on this day in 1794 (find a biography here.) Rev. Walker has often appeared in these pages and today I excerpt his sermon "Difficulty, Struggle, Progress" found in the collection, "Sermons Preached in the Chapel of Harvard College"

"THOU, THEREFORE, ENDURE HARDNESS, AS A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST" — 2 Timothy ii. 3
Men would be less likely to complain of life as it is, if they knew, or would consider, what are its great objects...

To guard against this error, we must consider well two important distinctions, which, in the eagerness and distractions of human pursuits, are very apt to be overlooked or neglected. In the first place, though we very properly labor and strive for this object and that, the great end of life does not consist in our obtaining these particular objects, but in the self-improvement realized in the process of obtaining them, or of making the attempt. And, secondly, while happiness is one legitimate object of our existence, progress is another: so that the great end of our being is not answered in our becoming happy as we are; our very capacities of happiness must be enlarged and elevated; and in this way we are to be fitted for a higher life...

Who has yet to learn that education, properly so called, does not consist in putting things into the mind, but, as the name implies, in bringing things out, — in the development of the power and habit of self-activity, self-reliance, and self-government; and to effect this object, the faculties on which these traits of character depend must be stimulated, exercised, and put to the stretch. In this case, though all the information should be lost, the discipline will remain.

Thus it appears that the very difficulties of life, of which we are so apt to complain, are converted into the means of that discipline, that self-culture and self-improvement, which is the great end of life. The particular and immediate objects of our pursuit, which are so apt to engross our attention, such as knowledge and wealth, pleasure and fame, are not ends, but means,—means to the attainment of the one great end of Out being, the development of the latent energies of the soul; and this end they are adapted to promote just in proportion to the difficulty of compassing them ; that is to say, just in proportion to the mental activity they call forth...

Difficulty, struggle, progress, — this, I repeat it, is the law. By this we conquer; by this it is that the spirit gradually obtains ascend ency over the flesh; by this it is that the creatures of earth and dust gradually begin a heaven for themselves here ; by this it is that the slaves of ignorance and fear and sin throw off the spirit of bondage, and aspire to be children of God; " and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him that we may be glorified together."

Blessings

Perfection

Perfectionism is an idea and a doctrine at once noble and fraught with danger. Taken to various extremes theological and personal, it can be nearly debilitating. I, myself, have struggled with a very high view of church work wedded to a deep sense of my unworthiness and inability to live up to that work. One of the reasons that the "Boston Unitarians" are my "teachers" is their view of doctrines such as "perfectionism." Beginning with respect for human nature, they emphasized our capacity (and our duty) to do that which before was placed entirely in the hands of God. And what's more, they spoke of the joy of living such a life. It is a view of the religious life that is at once practical and "divine." As a colleague said of James Walker (see all posts Walker) 'He had the rare faculty of making his hearers feel as if these eternal verities were a fresh revelation. " Some excerpts from Walker on "Perfection the Christian's Aim:"

" Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection." — Hebrews vi. 1.

"HOWEVER unlikely or impossible it is that we shall ever meet with a perfect man on this earth, still, if we were to meet with one, we should see, that, instead of being a monster, he would be of all men the most entirely natural, the most truly human...
We set aside... all expectation of actually meeting with perfection among men; we confidently believe that under Christianity, as under Judaism, " there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not."- Still there is nothing to hinder us from maintaining, as the Scriptures seem to do, the doctrine of human perfectibility. Perfectibility, as here used, differs from perfection in this, — that a man may be pronounced perfectible though he never attains to perfection in fact, provided only that there is nothing in his nature itself to exclude the possibility of his perfection, and nothing in his circumstances to exclude the possibility of his continually going on towards perfection.
While, therefore, we give up human perfection, we stand fast for human perfectibility...This is all which I understand the Scriptures to mean in the text, and in other passages where they enjoin it upon us to be perfect, to go on unto perfection, and to become perfect men in Christ Jesus. They do not hold up this perfection as something of which any Christian can as yet be personally conscious, or on which he can look back as already attained; but as the goal in the distance after which all can and should continually aspire...Let me add, that I express the doctrine too tamely when I say that a man is capable of unlimited progress. There burns within him an instinctive desire of growth, of ceaseless progress.

The idea of perfection is held up before us, not to be the object of vain longings and sighings, but to cheer and sustain us in the many weary steps we must take in its pursuit. We are still to reflect that we must actually traverse, with our own feet, the almost measureless distance that separates us from the far-off goal; and also, that, if a man is to go round the globe, he cannot take any longer strides than if he were going to the next village. Besides, perfection after all is our ultimate object; not our next and immediate object. Our next and immediate object, both as men and as Christians, is always the faithful discharge of the common and obvious and present duties which press upon us in that particular sphere of activity, be it high or low, in which Divine Providence has placed us."

May you be cheered and sustained. Blessings

Walking in the light...

The First Letter of John contains one of those summaries of the faith often seen in Paul's letters and the Gospels as well, that serves to focus or to concentrate the eye and heart of the reader. 1 John: 1: 5-7 "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and are cleansed from all sin." The walk is the important thing, practicing the truth. James Walker makes this point in his sermon, "Means of Strengthening an Infirm Faith"



"Dismiss from your minds every vestige of the conceit of scepticism. Do not allow your minds to dwell exclusively or unduly on the difficulties of the subject; or be willing, at any rate, to consider that, if there are difficulties in the way of believing, there are greater ones in the way of not believing. Above all, begin, begin today, to live up to the measure of light and faith to which you have already attained... If still he does not believe enough, and is anxious to believe more, his next step should be to make the most of what he does believe...Religion, I hardly need say, is not so much a matter of speculation as of practice... Let him begin by reducing to practice what he does believe, be it little or much. If as yet he believes but little, let him begin by bringing his life into faithful and strict accordance with that little, as a condition of believing more. And here let me remind you again, that a faithful and strict conformity to this little, to one or two doctrines of natural religion, will not turn out to be a small matter...
But this is not all. I do not count on the power of the sceptic to persevere in a righteous course on the strength of his doubts, supposing his doubts to continue. My argument is, that he should make the most of the measure of faith he already has, as the appointed and necessary condition of his having more. The habit of obedience, the habit of piety, the habit of prayer, generates a conviction of the reality of moral and spiritual things, which nothing else can give. Who has not found that, in his best moods,— when, for example, he is in the midst of a good work, or when his heart is full of generous affections and purposes, or when he is under the influence of good and holy men, —he finds no difficulty in believing what religion teaches ? We have, therefore, but to make our best moods our constant moods, and our doubts would never return."



There is much to be said for the adage that it is better to act your way into thinking than to think your way into acting...Walk in the light.
Blessings,

Dead Rationalism

I was honored to preach from our pulpit last Sunday and spoke on elements of living a religious life, one of which was to embrace a vigorous uncertainty or doubt out of which comes the "work" of religion. This morning, reading James Walker's sermon "Spiritual Death" (see all posts: Walker) I came across much the same idea, better said. Some excerpts:

"What, then, is spiritual death? It consists in the absence of that sensibility of soul by which men are made capable of feeling and appreciating spiritual things. Sometimes this arises from the fact that the spiritual element in our nature has never been excited and developed; the man has never been spiritually born. But it is more frequently owing to a torpor or palsy which, from some cause, comes over the spiritual faculties after their partial development, to such a degree as, in some instances, entirely to destroy and suspend their vital and legitimate functions.

Let us now advert briefly to some of the causes conspiring to induce that indifference and insensibility to spiritual things, which constitutes, as we have seen, spiritual death...And first, I would say, that less is to be feared, in this connection, from erroneous than from lifeless training. A writer, of whom our country and the age may justly boast (William Ellery Channing), has said: "I do not think that so much harm is done by giving error to a child, as by giving truth in a lifeless form. What is the misery of the multitudes in Christian countries ? Not that they disbelieve Christianity, or that they hold great errors, but that truth lies dead within them.

Give us the living truth ; but, if we cannot have that, give us, in God's name, living error. As liberal Christians we are, beyond question, over- critical and fastidious in this matter. It may not be so with other denominations, but our chief danger grows out of an under current that is continually setting towards a dead rationalism. Give us, I repeat it, living error, rather than dead truth ; for the same maxim holds good in regard to our higher as well as our lower nature: " so long as there is life, there is hope." Besides, do we not know that a ship under sail, though a little off from its course, can get into it again in half the time it will take another vessel at anchor under a headland, or waterlogged in a calm, to get under way?
Again, so far as religious indifference and insensibility are concerned, there is less to fear, as it seems to me, from the influence of an avowed and active scepticism than from the influence of a scepticism which is unacknowledged and merely passive. Well and truly was it said by Archbishop Leighton : " Where there is a great deal of smoke, and no clear flame, it argues much moisture in the matter, yet it witnesseth certainly that there is fire there...Men that know nothing in sciences have no doubts. He never truly believes who was not made first sensible, and convinced of his unbelief. Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the disposition to believe, and doubt in order that you may end in believing the truth." l If we must have an active or a passive scepticism, give us the first. An active scepticism will often cure itself, work itself clear of its difficulties; but there is no hope whatever for a man who will neither believe nor inquire. An active scepticism, moreover, does not imply an indifference to truth, nor prevent men from discriminating; so that, while it leads them to deny this thing and doubt that, it leaves their confidence in other things unimpaired, and perhaps strengthened and quickened. "

It's time to pull our anchors out of the seas of dead rationalism and set sail...Blessings

Shalom (Balance pt. 2)

Paul, in his letter to the Philippians (and elsewhere) promises to those who will walk in steadfastness and unity, the peace of God which transcends all understanding. In the commentary I am using, the author places this statement in the context of God's perfect shalom, his "wholeness and well being"
Shalom, or 'wholeness" is a guiding motivation of many Boston Unitarians and is one of the reasons I love them.
James Walker (see all posts: Walker) speaks of balance and wholeness in continuing excerpts from "The Daily Cross":

"But, when we speak of the worth of a man, we always make it to depend on what he is in himself; that is to say, on the habits he has formed ; not on the amount of discipline which he has undergone, simply and abstractly considered, but on the effect this discipline has had on his character; on the degree of harmony, purity, and elevation of soul which he has actually gained; in one word, to adopt the language in which the Scriptures express the change, on his having been " born again," on his having become " a new creature."...we see at once that self-denial is not the Christian character, nor an essential part of it, but only one of the instrumentalist's by which the Christian character is formed. Self-denial does not belong to us as Christians; that is to say, as perfect Christians : for, in the perfect Christian, duty and pleasure become one; no place is therefore left for self-denial: it belongs to us as persons who aspire to be Christians, who are learning to be Christians...In saying this, however, I do but say that, in point of fact, it belongs to us all; for what can be truly said of the best of us, except that we are learning or aspiring to be Christians ? — some in the midst of the process, some just beginning, others only thinking about beginning, if indeed so much as that. In respect to all such persons without exception, the gospel teaches that it is only by self-denial, — that is, by crossing, restraining, and subduing the lower tendencies of our nature whenever they interfere with the higher tendencies of our nature, — that each one can bring his character into harmony with itself, and subject the whole to the law of Christ..."

Shalom. And Blessings

Balance

The historian Daniel Walker Howe identifies "balance" as a dominant characteristic of the Harvard Unitarians of the 19th century (his book "The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805-1861" is required reading for understanding the Boston Unitarians,)
One of my favorite BU Sermons is James Walker's (see posts Walker) "The Daily Cross" which is an admirable application of the idea of balance to the Christian requirement of self-denial. Some excerpts:

"And he said unto them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me" Luke 9:23

"Never was the earnest inculcation of this precept more needed than at the present day. Surrounded, as many Christians now are, by ease, security, and abundance, they are tempted not only to neglect the self-denying virtues, but almost to forget their obligations and the important place they hold in the Christian life..that we are frequently called upon to submit to self-denial not from necessity but from choice, or, in other words, to take up our cross voluntarily, and to take it up daily, is not so generally conceded...What, then, is meant by that self-denial which is so frequently enjoined upon all men, in the New Testament ? Everyone is required to take up his cross daily; but what to crucify ?
Every one must be conscious of being under the influence of two orders of propensities and desires: the higher, or those which belong to him as a rational and moral being; and the lower, or those which belong to him as a sensual and selfish being. Even the lower tendencies of our nature are not bad in themselves ; they are bad only when they interfere with the proper development, or with the proper gratification, of the higher. Here then it is, that Christian self-denial begins and ends ; we are to deny the solicitations of our lower nature, whenever they interfere with the aspirations of our higher nature. Christian self-denial does not require us to deny our nature as a whole, but only to be true to our nature as a whole ; that is, to take care that the rightful subordination amongst its various springs of action shall be maintained. Christian self-denial does not require us to deny our happiness; that is to say, our highest happiness ; but only to be true to that happiness, by repressing every appetite or passion which puts itself in opposition to it, or which tends to frustrate or endanger it.
...the moral value of self-denial consists in its tendency to bring about this discipline : to teach every part of our nature to know its place, and keep its place, and thus to co-operate harmoniously and spontaneously in promoting the highest good of the individual. The moral value of self-denial does not consist in the pain it costs, but in its tendency to induce a habit of virtue, under the influence of which the practice of virtue will become agreeable and easy; so as, in the end, that is to say in heaven, to dispense with the necessity of self-denial altogether.
Self-denial, therefore, is not an end but a means; the end being to convert, through the power of habit, a painful and constrained obedience into a joyful and free obedience. The highest form of virtue is not the virtue of self-denial, but of earnest and irrepressible love; when duty has ceased to be a task and become a pleasure, a kind of necessity. Hence that sublime doctrine of the New Testament. " Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."

Amen. Blessings

On Keeping the Promises We Make to Ourselves

So how is the New Year's Resolution going? I have firmly come to believe that making resolutions is a religious act-religion is a framework for putting our deepest and highest impulses "to work" and what else are resolutions?
The Apostle Paul (in his letter to the Philippians) puts it thus: "Not that I...am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal..."
This morning's devotions also included a sermon by the Unitarian minister, theologian, and Harvard President, James Walker (1794-1874)
Walker was a founder of the AUA and editor of the Christian Examiner. Minister of the Harvard Church in Charlestown, MA for many years, he became President of Harvard in 1853. Andrew Preston Peabody said of him,
"Dr. Walker’s great work in college, both as Professor and as President, was his preaching. His sermons were unsurpassed in directness and impressiveness. They were, for the most part, on those great truths and laws of religion, Christianity and moral right, which are generally admitted to be undeniable, and therefore as generally ignored. He had the rare faculty of making his hearers feel as if these eternal verities were a fresh revelation. "
True enough! This morning's sermon was, appropriately for the season, On Keeping the Promises We Make to Ourselves Some exerpts:

"a large portion of the most solemn promises which we make consists of those which we make to ourselves ; and my object in the present discourse will be to set forth our duty in respect to this class of promises, — the promises which we make to ourselves...Nobody will deny that they are made, for the most part, in good faith, and with a serious purpose of fulfilling them ; that they are entered into in our best moods, that they are the dictates of our best judgment, and that it would be best for us on every account to keep them. Yet the readiness and frequency with which they are broken has become a proverb.
When... in a moral and religious view of our responsibilities, we promise ourselves to fulfil a particular duty, it appears to me that this promise is of the nature of a bond on the soul. It is an engagement voluntarily entered into, in a fair and full view of the circumstances ; and there is also a witness, or rather there are witnesses, to the engagement, — God and our own consciences,—to whom we are pledged for its fulfilment, and often under all the solemnities of a religious vow. Habit or custom may make it seem a light thing to trifle with such engagements ; but in morals it is not a light thing; in the sight of God it is not a light thing...if I solemnly promise myself that on a certain occasion, or at a certain time, I will do a particular thing, and fail to do it, I know and feel that I have broken my word. I know and feel that I cannot be relied on ; and, what is more and worse, that I cannot rely on myself.
Religion itself is not more exacting of us than we often are of ourselves. Were we to listen now to all the good resolutions we have at any time formed, all the clear, distinct, and solemn promises we have made to ourselves, we should find that nothing is required of us in the gospel, except to keep our own word. This wonderful consent and harmony between the Bible and the aspirations of the human soul in its best moods is, perhaps, to most minds the strongest, or at least the most convincing, evidence of the heavenly origin of both."

(The full text can be read at: http://books.google.com/books?id=tI-F_DL0TsgC&pg=PA156&dq=james+walker+reason+faith+and+duty&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html)

Blessings.