the book of human nature...

Channing's great message was the dignity of human nature and in this continuation of yesterday's sermon he states it in noble terms. 

"II.-—This leads us to consider the voice of Wisdom that utters itself from the Spiritual World, the world of moral and intelligent beings, the Humanity of which we each form a part. This topic is immense. For the book of Human Nature has no end. New pages are added to it ever day through successive generations. The moral and religious truths, which Wisdom may draw from the human soul, from human life, from human experience, cannot be exhausted. Prom these I shall select one great lesson only, which all history attests. This lesson is that there is in human nature-an.element truly Divine, and^worthy of all reverence /that the Infinite which is mirrored in the outward Universe is yet more brightly imaged in the inward Spiritual world; or, in other words, that man has powers and.principles, predicting a destiny to which no bound"can be prescribed, which are full of mystery, and even more incomprehensible than those revealed through the material creation...

[A reason that we have this false view of human nature] "is that most men rest in a half-wisdom, which is worse than ignorance. They who speak most contemptuously of man tell the truth, but only half the truth. The wounds and sores of human nature, which they delight to expose, are real. In condemning human crimes they invent nothing, they exaggerate nothing. History and experience do testify to a widespread taint of selfishness and injustice in our Race. They, who assert the greatness of human nature, do not differ on this point from its vituperators. They do not bandage their eyes. They see as much of guilt as the man of worldly wisdom. But here lies the difference between them and the worldly wise. Amidst the passions and selfishness of men they see another element—a Divine element, a Spiritual Principle. They.see powers and affections always struggling against evil in the human heart, which are celestial in their nature, and which speak of an immortal destiny. In these they discern the true interpretation of Human Nature, in its origin and its end. Let us avoid half-wisdom. It is the root of the most fatal prejudice. We wrong individuals not so much by falsely ascribing to them defects, as by taking one-sided views of their characters as a whole...

But I do not stop here. If I did, I should lose the great lesson that Wisdom proclaims from every page of history. This lesson is, that Man, with all his errors, is a wonderful being, endowed with incomprehensible grandeur, worthy of his own incessant vigilance and care, worthy to be visited with Infinite Love from Heaven. The Infinite is imaged in him more visibly than in the outward Universe...

As yet, we have but approached the true greatness of Human Nature. We corne now to views of the Soul which thrill us with transport, for the utterance of which all language is feeble, and towards which all thought is but a , faint approximation. Man, though human by nature, is \/ capable of conceiving the~Idea of God, of entering into strong, close, tender and purifying relations with God, and even of participating in God's Perfection and Happiness. We hear this great truth unmoved. It is a truth to wake the dead! It ought to exalt our whole life into joy. What I have thus far said is but a preparation, for this. I have - spoken of the principle of the Right, the Good, the Holy. But without this Idea of God—the Perfect Being—the moral principle would pine and die in its conflict with evil. I have spoken of the unbounded tendencies and aspirations of this principle; but without an Infinite Father for their object and support, such aspirations would be vain yearnings, and would soon give room to despair. This moral nature within us, so alive to the Right, is still weak and imperfect, needing to be nourished, fortified and fulfilled by communion with Supreme Excellence. It needs a Perfect Being for its love...

And now it may be asked, what are the practical uses of these views ? I answer, the greatest of all truths are the most quickening. And to nothing so much as to the obscurity, that eclipses them, is the low standard of the Christian World to be traced. Again is it asked, why I am so anxious to declare these views of human nature now ? I answer, I prize these views because they confirm my faith in Jesus Christ, and give reality to the great hope that Christianity sets before us. Jesus came, as he taught us, to create men after the likeness of God, to breathe into men a divine virtue, and to prepare them for the heavenly life...

Another practical use of the views now given of human nature is this. In proportion as they are received, they will transform essentially our modes of relationship, communication, and association with our fellow-beings. They will exalt us into a New Social Life. Indeed they will give an entirely new character to social intercourse. That intercourse must be determined by the estimate we form of human nature. He, who looks on man as little better than a brute, will live with men as brutes...With this great truth in his heart a man cannot insult a fellow-man, for he beholds the Divine in the Human. He can call no being low in whom his own highest powers and affections are wrapped up. Can you conceive then of a truth so practical as this doctrine of the greatness of man as a moral being ? It will create a New Earth...

My friends, how little do we know ourselves! How unjust are we to ourselves! We study everything else but the Divine Principle within our own Persons. The truth may be on our lips. But in how few hearts does it live! We need a New Revelation—not of Heaven or of Hell— 'but of the Spirit within ourselves."

Blessings

boundless and endless communications...

The second sermon collected in William Ellery Channing's "The Perfect Life" is "God Revealed in the Universe and Humanity."  If our nature is towards religion, where is it revealed to us?  This is the first part of Channing's response...

"Wisdom is omnipresent. Everywhere it comes to meet us. It shines in the sun. It irradiates the heavens. It whispers through all sounds of nature. It beams resplendent from the characters of good and wise men, and more brightly still in our own souls Our teachers are thus all around and within, above and beneath...

Jesus said: "I am the Light of the World." And when did he say this ? At the moment when he was about to open the eyes of the blind man. To that man he was to be a light. And how ? By creating a new light for him ? No! The light existed already. The sun was shining on him then in unclouded splendour. A thin membrane was the sole barrier between that blind man and the glorious world which lay around on every side. By lifting this veil Jesus gave him light. In a similar way Jesus Christ is a light to us spiritually. He creates no new truth; for Truth is eternal. And what is still more important, he does not teach truth wholly new to men. The great principles of religion belong to Human Nature ; and they are manifested in all God's Works and in His Providence. We live in darkness, not because there is no Sun of Truth shining on and around us. For a spiritual light, brighter than that of noon, pervades our daily life. The cause of our not seeing is in ourselves. The inward eye is diseased or shut. Were that but opened, we should at once be introduced into a Spiritual Universe, fairer and more magnificent than the Creation which burst on the eye of the blind man, when Jesus said: " Receive thy sight."..

What blessedness it is to dwell amidst this transparent air, which the eye can pierce without limit, amidst these floods of pure, soft, cheering light, under this immeasurable arch of heaven, and in sight of these countless stars! An Infinite Universe is each moment opened to our view. And this Universe Is the sign and symbol of Infinite Power, Intelligence, Purity, Bliss, and Love. It is a pledge from the Living God of boundless and endless communications of happiness, truth, and virtue. Thus are we always in contact, if I may so say, with the Infinite, as comprehended, penetrated, and quickened by it. What unutterable import is there in the teachings of such a Revelation! What a Name is written all through it in characters of celestial light! A Spiritual Voice pervades it, more solemn, sublime, and thrilling, than if the roar of oceans, thunders, whirlwinds and conflagrations were concentrated in one burst of praise. This voice is all the more eloquent because it is spiritual; because it is the voice in which the All-Wise speaks to all Intelligences."

Blessings

peace, silent as dew...

In the first part of his sermon (begun yesterday) "The Religious Principle in Human Nature" William Ellery Channing spoke of our "capacity for religion."  Today, in the conclusion, the means of attaining and "perfecting" that capacity...

"III.—My friends, we all possess indeed this capacity for religion. Let us not wrong it by neglect. It is, as we have seen, the central and all-pervading principle of Human Nature. And by proper means it may be cultivated, expanded, and made supreme. To give it life and vigour should be our highest aim. Here is the great field for our activity. By turning our chief energies abroad, we frustrate the end and defraud ourselves of the proper happiness of our being. The world within is our great domain, worth infinitely more than the world without. To enthrone God in our inmost being is an immeasurably grander aim than to dispose of all outward realms.

What might we not become, were we but just to ourselves and to the means of religious life thus bountifully afforded from heaven!... we can attain to more than cold belief, to more than formal worship, or to transient emotions of gratitude. The religious principle may become the very Life of our souls. God, now so distant, and perhaps little more than a name, may become to us the nearest and most real of all beings.

Do you ask by what means this end of entering into living communion with God can be attained ?...

Would you then attain to the love of God with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, begin with purifying yourself from all known evil. Let your fervent prayer be to Him to animate you in your conflict with bad passions and habits, and in steadfast obedience to His Will. With this purifying purpose of obedience, read the Scriptures ; and the simple passages, in which Jesus speaks of his Father, will open on your minds with new brightness. In this temper study the character of Jesus ; and in him, who was the image of the Father, you will learn to see more and more distinctly the fulness and freeness of Divine Benevolence. In this spirit of obedience look on nature, and observe the works of the Creator, and their beauty and harmony will become more touching, till gradually heaven and earth will grow eloquent in their Author's praise. In this spirit look into your own minds, observe what is good and great in the minds of others, and the Infinite Mind will more and more appear to you in his crowning creation, the human soul. And finally, with this purifying purpose of duty, pray for the Divine Spirit, and you will receive it. A secret Influence will aid your efforts after oneness with the Holy One. Peace, silent as dew, will distil on you from heaven. I believe too, that with such a temper and life, you may enjoy something more than distant communications from the Father of Spirits ; that you may be favoured with those blessed seasons of universal light and strength, of which good men have often spoken, in which the mind seems warmed by a new flame, and quickened by a new energy from on high, and which, though not miraculous, still bring with them a near consciousness of the Divine Original, and come like the very Breath of God upon the soul. Through these various methods, you will ascend,/ by degrees to a living communion with our Creator, which, however low compared with what awaits you in another life, will yet be lofty in contrast with all you could have conceived of, in the beginning of your religious course.

I close with re-affirming the truth that I have aimed to impress. Religion is not an unnatural or unattainable good. Its germs exist in us all. We have, each of us, the spiritual eye to see, the mind to know, the heart to love, the will to obey God. We have a Spiritual Nature that may bear the image of Divine Perfection. Glorious privilege ! Let us not cast it away."

Blessings

a more than human glory...

What it must have been like to listen to Channing preach!  By most accounts, his voice was not powerful and he was not particularly animated.  Instead, his holiness of character and utter sincerity animated his listeners and spurred them to self examination and a higher life.  Excerpts from Sermon One in the posthumous collection, "The Perfect Life."

"THE RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE IN HUMAN NATURE.

Mark xii. 29, 30 : " The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first commandment."

THE command thus given to love God, with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, is in harmony with our whole nature. We are made for God; all our affections, sensibilities, faculties, and energies are designed to be directed towards God; the end of our existence is fellowship with God. He could not require us to devote our entire being to Himself, if He had not endowed it with powers which fit us for such devotion. Religion then has its germs in our Nature, and its development is entrusted to our own care. Such is the truth that I would now illustrate.

I.—The Principle in Human Nature, from which religion springs, is the desire to establish relations with a Being more Perfect than itself.... If there is one principle, indeed, that may be declared to be essential in human nature, it is this unwillingness to shut itself up within its own limits, this tendency j to aspire after intercourse with some Divinity. It is true that men at various periods have formed most unworthy conceptions of their objects of worship. Still, by selecting the qualities which they esteemed most highly in themselves, and by enlarging and exalting them without bounds, they have showed, as plainly as have more enlightened ages, the spontaneous longing of the human spirit to rise above itself, and to ally its destiny with a Supreme Power. This simple view is sufficient to prove the grandeur of the Religious Principle...We see this principle in the creations of genius, in forms of ideal beauty to which poetry and the arts give immortality, in fictions where characters are portrayed surpassing the attainments of real life. We see this principle in the admiration with which stupendous intellect and heroic virtue are hailed, and in the delight with which we follow in history the career of men who in energy and disinterestedness have outstripped their fellows. The desire * for an excellence never actually reached by humanity, the aspiration towards that Ideal which we express by the word Perfection, this is the seminal principle of religion.

This view conducts us to an important standard, by which to judge of the Truth and Purity of any form of religion. A religion is true, in proportion to the clearness with which it makes manifest the Perfection of God. The purity of a particular system is to be measured by the conception which it inspires of God. Does it raise our thoughts to a Perfect Being ? Does it exalt us far above our own nature? Does it introduce us to a grand and glorious Intelligence ? Does it expand our minds with venerable and generous conceptions of the Author of existence ? I know no other test of a true and pure religion but this. Religion has no excellence, but as it lifts us up into communion with a Nature higher and holier than our own. It is the office of religion to offer the soul an object for its noblest faculties and affections, a Being through whom it may more surely and vigorously be carried forward to its own perfection. In proportion then as religion casts clouds around the glory of God, or detracts from the loveliness and grandeur of His character, it is devoid of dignity and tends to depress the mind...And the wise man is distinguished by detecting continually whatever is low in his apprehension of God, and by casting it away for more exalted views.

Men are attracted by no quality so much as by sovereign greatness of will. They love whatever bears the impress of the infinite. So strong is this principle of Reverence, that when fallen from the knowledge of the true God, they have sought substitutes in their own teeming imagination, have deified fellow-men, have invented beings in whom they might concentrate and embody their conceptions, just or unjust, of Supreme dignity. Thus the heart was made for worship, and worship it will. It longs for something more excellent than it finds on earth. In works of poetry and fiction it continually creates for itself a more than human glory."

Blessings

Perfection

It is the First Sunday in Advent and my mind is on...perfection.  Advent is, of course, about waiting and looking forward and upward.  During the weeks of Advent, I have decided to excerpt the twelve sermons that make up William Ellery Channing's "The Perfect Life."  Gathered by William Henry Channing from his uncle's manuscripts, these sermons, in the words of WHC  "are precisely what they claim to be—a Minister's pulpit addresses to his own Congregation. They are neither Lectures for the learned, nor Essays for a literary circle, nor Papers for a critical Journal. Still less do they form a Theological Treatise. But they are Calls to the People to " come up higher." In them great truths are presented in the most popular form, and brought home to the common heart. "Written for delivery, week by week, during the last few years of Channing's life, it was manifestly his purpose to adapt his lessons to the apprehension of his simplest hearers. He would have all to share in the bright prospects, which had shone before him in hours of solitary thought and devout communion. And knowing that he was often charged with yielding to the charms of an ideal exaltation, which secluded him from the work-day world, he wished by cordial hospitality to make the humblest his peers. Thus reverent friendliness pervades the tenor of these appeals. And grave sincerity inspires their style."

The Biblical Epigraphs preceeding the sermons:

As for God, His way is perfect. God is my strength and power : and He maketh my way perfect.—2 Samuel xxii. 31, 33.

Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.—Psalm xxxvii. 37.

I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt Thou come unto me ? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.— Psalm ci. 2.

I have seen an end of all perfection: but Thy commandment is exceeding broad.—Psalm cxix. 96.

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.—Matthew V. 48.

Perfect in one.-—John xvii. 23.

Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection.—Heb. vi. 1.

This also we wish, even your perfection. Be perfect.—2 Cor. xiii. 9, 11.

May the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect.— 1 Peter V. 10.


blessings

O come, O come Emmanuel...

It is difficult to believe that the season of Advent is upon us.  This wonderful and sometimes painful time of preparation and anticipation is a powerful opportunity for cultivating a more devotional temper.  Last year I wrote a simple Advent devotional for individuals or families.  It consists of four posts (one for each Sunday in Advent) and can be done each day of the week.  If you do not find it to your liking, I encourage you to find or develop a practice for yourself during this season.

Many blessings

For each new morning...

With this simple prayer from Ralph Waldo Emerson, BU wishes everyone a truly wonderful Thanksgiving.

"For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Blessings