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ART. XXV.

Salvation and Safety.

Salvation and Safety. A Discourse delivered at the Dedication of the Universalist Church in Danvers, August 18, 1859. By J. W. Putnam, Pastor. Danvers. 1859.

THE dedication of a house of worship by any sect of Christians, is not a proper occasion for common-place generalities about religion and worship. In most cases it will happen that the new edifice will be in the midst of many such, all representative of the general idea of religion. There is of course a special reason-having much force with the people whose zeal has been enlisted in the work-why another has been added to the houses of Christian instruction. The ceremony of dedication ought always to make a statement of this reason. No matter whether the sect ought to exist or not; existing, it ought to state its position when it dedicates a temple devoted to its peculiar interpretation of Christianity.

In the Discourse named above, the author acts upon this rule; and accordingly defines his position as a Universalist teacher-exhibits and defends his peculiar work as such. We have read the discourse with unusual interest; and we believe that we shall do our readers good service by bringing before them-for most part in the author's own wordsits leading points,-particularly those which bring out the distinctive features of our faith.

He states the root of all difference between Universalism and every creed which asserts the dogma of endless punishment, in the simple caption to his discourse: Salvation and Safety. Salvation he defines to be "likeness to God, in respect to purity, holiness, virtue, goodness-all of which are summed up in the principle of love." While Safety, he tells us, "stands for shelter, which is the better word of the two to represent the popular conception of forefending desert or danger; and, whether this conception be partial or universal in its application to man, does not change the moral plane to which it belongs. It will stand for shelter in either case.

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Under his second head, our author shows the difference between the two systems with respect to "their treatment of man as a candidate for salvation." The scheme of Safety aims to get the sinner out of an evil position; the Salvation scheme aims to get evil out of the sinner himself. In the former case a thing would answer all the conditions involved just as well as man; because the characteristics of being safe apply to man's circumstances rather than to himself. But Salvation-in the Universalist sense of the word-has to do with the heart-with man as man.

Under a third head, our author considers the objections which are raised against the Universalist conception of salvation. The first objection met is, that this conception discards heaven as a holy place. And to this we have an answer which we commend not less for its terse comprehensiveness than for its truth.

"What makes a holy place? Is it earth or clay? Then should earth or clay be our heaven now. Is it the realm of sky that spans the earth with its wondrous dome? Then heaven should be here. Is it pearly gates, or golden walls? Then the rich pagodas of Oriental splendor were heaven, long since brought down to man. Is it freedom from the entailed debts of our fathers, freedom from being clutched by malice, or impressed by tyranny? Then, surely, heaven should not be far from any one of us. Ah! it is holy beings that make a holy place. The celestial city derives its character from its inhabitants, as earth borrows all its sinfulness from sinful men. The place is holy, because the All Holy is there, because Jesus and the angels, and spirits redeemed from sin are there; and, moreover, because corruption cannot inherit incorruption." (p. 14.)

Next in order, the objection is met, that the Universalist conception of salvation lessens the dreadfulness of sin. Our author shows that the contrary is the real fact; for while Salvation implies sin to be dreadful, Safety implies that only certain consequences of sin are dreadful.

"For the curse of the law, and the judgment long postponed, shelter will do-arrest the hand and break the blow. But for this consumption of the blood that saps the fountains of life, and leaves us dead in trespasses and sins, and shows us man, created a little lower than the angels, fallen to be almost kindred to the brute,-Oh! for this we must have something more than shelter.

We shall find no remedy for this short of the chain of eternal justice, God will by no means clear the guilty,' and the wand of mercy, 'Come unto me all ye weary and heavy laden;' the two welded into the Gospel bond, and made omnipresent throughout sin's dominions. So that, though man shall flee from his presence, God shall be there; though he mount up to heaven, God shall be there; though he make his bed in hell, God shall be there; or if he take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, there shall his hand lead, and his right hand shall hold him. There are, doubtless, honest men to whom the presence of sin, aside from its dreaded consequences in another world, may seem a trifle. But who is ready to vouch for such an one's purity? or his likeness to God, or to Christ? who arrayed it as the greatest evil in the universe, and pronounced his verdict thus, 'This is condemnation, that men love darkness.' The chances are that one, whose estimate of sin differs so materially from that of Jesus, stands on that lower plane, where shelter is mistaken for salvation." (p. 15.)

We shall quote at somewhat greater length the statement which our author makes relative to the nature of retribution as involved in the Universalist conception of salvation. As this is the particular point on which the popular mind most readily fastens as marking the difference between Universalism and other forms of faith, a good service is done whenever the point is clearly stated. In this respect, the Discourse under notice is particularly fortunate.

"When Paul was shipwrecked and fell among the barbarians, they gathered around him, beheld the viper that fastened to his hand, and pronounced their verdict as follows: Vengeance suffereth not the murderer to live.' It was not the fact of sinfulness that impressed them; it was not the impurity and moral death that alienate man from God, and eternal good. No, it was the close pursuing danger-the shipwreck and the viper. It was not the loss of purity that disturbed them, but the loss of safety; for when they saw the apostle out of danger, they changed their minds, and said, he is a god.' This view of retribution does not strike us as something that belongs only to barbarism. But it is, rather, a peculiarity of the system by which sin is estimated. This peculiarity of which I speak, wherever you may find it, whether in the islands of the heathen, or in the Christian church, under one name or another, consists in this: It throws the damage of sin out of man, and into his circumstances; and then very legitimately sums up the advantages of being a god rather

than a murderer in the result, that one gets shelter, while the other gets vengeance. Man is lost sight of. Sin is no longer hateful, because it warps the man, and impresses deformity upon him; but because it unroofs his safety, demolishes his housing, and sets the furies after him. Consider, on the other hand, an example of the divine judgment of the same crime. These barbarians supposed Paul to be a murderer; but the All-seeing One knew Cain to be such. Yet how different the verdict pronounced by Him: 'Whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken on him seven fold.' Is it shelter you would have? God grants it to Cain. Vengeance is stayed, and the guilty man is safe. But is he saved? Quite the reverse. That mark upon his brow was the dread type of condemnation—the hand-writing of God to proclaim his crime. He is safe from vengeance; safe from vengeance now and forever; for the same law that arrests the finite hand, pledges the Infinite, since God is our ideal everywhere, and under Christ we can have no other. Safe from every foe without himself; safe, though imbosomed in hell. It is not least among the merits of the system of Jesus that its conception of sin and its penalty corresponds so exactly with its method of salvation; and, while grace culminates in holiness rather than safety, condemnation is consummated in moral death rather than vengeance. Not in fiery darts and angry chains is found the harvest of transgression, but in man himself, the grand arsenal of all these instruments." (pp. 16, 17.)

The publication of the Discourse will, we doubt not, be the means of correcting prejudicial misapprehensions relative to the nature and tendencies of our faith wherever it circulates. Considered in this respect, aside from its presentation of positive truth, we consider its publication timely; and we express the hope that it will be extensively read, and this not alone in the community where it was orally spoken.

G. H. E.

ART. XXVI.

Literary Notices.

1. Theodore Parker's Experience as a Minister, with some Account of his Early Life, and Education for the Ministry; contained in a Letter from him to the Members of Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society of Boston. Boston: Rufus Leighton, Jr. 1859. pp. 182.

WE have here another specimen of that marvellous style of composition-tersely severe, poetic in phrase and illustration, and as clear to the reading mind as crystal to the eye-which many years since made the most unpopular doctrines palatable to thousands, who, had the same thoughts come to them in common garb, would have recoiled from them with something like superstitious horror. In the polemic and reformatory strife of more recent years, the purity of Mr. Parker's style naturally underwent serious deterioration; while in the great amount of his literary labor, the hurry in which his paragraphs were thrown off, left many of them diffusive and ill-arranged. In active warfare, the most effective weapon may be the battle-axe, rather than the lance; and it may be difficult sometimes to bring every force into the conflict with due regard to the proprieties of military etiquette. For all the defects in Mr. Parker's style, it will be sufficient explanation to remember that his field of service has not always been the chosen ground of a State muster, but more frequently the imposed position of a genuine Solferino fight. We are not intimating, however, that Mr. Parker has always been the assailed. In point of fact, he is the most aggressive of American writers. We mean that his labors have been in earnest-not for mere parade.

As a polemic writer, Mr. Parker seldom exhibits himself in a very amiable mood. We can not name the other author who so powerfully stirs opposition. We never dissent from his positions more emphatically than when we read him. The prompt, ruthless hand with which he tears down our idols, stirs us to resistance. In his conscious intellectual power, he might sometimes remind one of the enraged elephant spreading havoc in all directions without the least suspicion that he himself can be in the slightest danger! To the Calvinistic theology-with its arbitrary interpretations of Scripture-Mr. Parker has indeed proved a terrible foe. Such telling sarcasm never assailed it before. The letter before us abounds in choice specimens startling indeed to all, and to those not hit by them, not a little amusing.

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