American theologian and author (1835-1922)
God is always revealing himself, and has always been revealing himself. He has always been knocking at the door; he has always been standing at the window. He has always been showing his character. They who have seen it best and most clearly, and had power to tell us what they have seen, are the world's prophets. What is distinctive in respect to Hebrew law is not its universal applicability to the human race — there is a great deal in the Hebrew law to which we no longer pay any attention; it is the recognition of the fact that God is the great lawgiver. What is peculiar in the Hebrew history is not its narration of great battles, great statesmen's endeavors and achievements; it is the history of the dealing of God with a particular people. God is as truly with the American race as he ever was with the Hebrew race; as truly with Abraham Lincoln as he was with Moses. The difference between the Hebrew race and the American race is the difference between the Old Testament Scriptures and the modern newspaper. The modern newspaper is enterprising, and it gathers news, and gathers gossip that is not news, from the four quarters of the globe; but it fails to see God in human history. The Old Testament prophets did not show the same enterprise, did not have the same wideness of view; but they did see God in human history, and have helped us to see him. That vision of God is equally characteristic of the fiction of the Bible — Ruth, Esther, Jonah, the parable of the prodigal son (there are some people who think it is irreverent to suggest that there is any fiction in the Old Testament, but quite right to find it in the words of Christ in the New), and of the drama of the Bible — the epic drama of Job, the love drama of the Song of Songs. In these is seen a manifestation, a revelation of goodness and truth and righteousness, and, above all, of a personal God dealing with men. This is the characteristic of the Hebrew poetry. We find more beautiful phrasing in Wordsworth, or in Tennyson, or in Longfellow, or in Whittier, but nowhere do you find in literature, ancient or modern, such discoveries of God as in the Hebrew Psalter. The "Eternal Goodness" may seem to you more beautiful than the One Hundred and Third Psalm; but would Whittier have written " Eternal Goodness" if he had not read the One Hundred and Third Psalm?
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
We celebrate on Christmas, not the birth of Santa Claus, the patron saint of the children; not merely the birth of the Christ-child, symbol of all innocent childhood; nor yet alone the birth of the martyr-hero, leader and type of all who have lived and loved and suffered for their race. We celebrate a new unveiling of God to humanity, the dwelling of God in humanity. We celebrate the day when the love of God dawned on the world and the fear of the gods began slowly and sullenly to give way before the coming of the new day. Every year Christmas repeats its message: Fear God no more. He brings liberty to the enslaved, light to the despairing, purer joy to the glad. He is the Comforter of the sorrowing, the Physician of the sick, the Healer of the sinful, the Friend and Companion of man.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Jesus Christ is not a manifestation of certain attributes or qualities of God; he is God manifest in the flesh. He is not a temporary manifestation of God's mercy or pity, leaving his justice and his anger to be revealed in the future. There is no justice and no wrath in God which is not manifested in Jesus Christ; and there is no pity and no mercy in Jesus Christ which is not a reflection of the eternal pity and mercy of God. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." To understand Jesus Christ is to understand God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Whether we know it or not, we are all in a quest after the Great Companion. All study, all art, all music, all literature, all government, all industry are in essence a search after the Infinite.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Great Companion
I believe that God is the Great Companion, that we are not left orphans, that we may have comradeship with him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Great Companion
The theology and the science of the past have agreed in assuming what I think the theology and the science of the future will agree in denying, that God sits apart from nature, and that there are natural forces and natural laws which operate independently of Him. Starting from this assumption, of course theology has resisted bitterly every attempt to lessen the number of interventions in the order of nature, because the inevitable result was to lessen the evidence of a Divine presence in the world. Nevertheless, both the religious and the scientific world have come to believe in a greatly lessened number of interventions, until now science has reached with practical unanimity these three conclusions: first, there is but one force, manifesting itself in different forms; second, that this force is never increased or diminished in amount, only varied in form; and third, that this force, if we believe it to be directed to intelligent ends, is sufficient to account for all the phenomena of nature and life, so that there is no reason to believe in any interventions from without. I believe that the theology of the future will frankly and gladly accept these conclusions, instead of resisting them and endeavoring to discover some evidences of interventions constantly lessening in number if not in magnitude. It, too, will affirm that there is only one force, the "Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." It will affirm that this Infinite and Eternal Energy is never increased or diminished; that, in other words, God, who varies infinitely in His manifestations, varies in no whit in His real life. It will affirm that there are and can be no interventions in this resident force, this Infinite and Eternal Energy, for if there were there would be a second God, superior to the God who resides in the universe and controlling Him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
It is said of Jesus that He grew in wisdom and in stature. He did not know everything in the beginning. His wisdom was a growth. This is the universal law of the individual, who always grows in his knowledge of what we call religious truth, no less than in his knowledge of what we call secular truth. He is no more born with an accurate knowledge of God, truth, purity, righteousness, than with an accurate knowledge of geology, geography, astronomy, history, or language. The simplest intellectual declarations respecting God are unmeaning to a little child, — as, God is a Person. The simplest spiritual declarations respecting God mean but little — as, God is love. To the child in the infant class this does not and cannot mean what it means to the grandmother, who has passed through all the phases of love, and learned in the school of experience all the meaning of love. Does one ask, What does Christ mean by saying that we must become as little children if we would enter the kingdom of heaven? He means that, however much we know, we must be eager to learn more. Does any one ask, What does He mean by the saying, Of such is the kingdom of heaven? He means, out of such eagerness to learn more, the kingdom of heaven is developed in the soul. We all practically recognize the truth that the child must grow into the knowledge of God, truth, duty.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
What has made the Church of Christ what it is to-day? Our struggles? Did we face the persecutions of Nero? Did we flee from the persecuting hordes in the Waldensian valleys? Did we fight the battles with the Duke of Alva on the plains of Netherlands? Did we struggle with hierarchical despotism at Worcester and at Naseby? Did we face the cold and the suffering of New England? Others have struggled for us, and we have taken the fruit of their struggles; and if our posterity are to have a nation worthy of their possession, it will be because in us there is also some hand-to-hand wrestling, some self-denial, some struggle with the forces of corruption and evil in our own time. This is the great general law which Paul has expressed in the declaration, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now." Vicarious sacrifice is not an episode. It is the universal law of life. Life comes only from life. This is the first proposition. Life-giving costs the life-giver something. That is the second proposition. Pain is travail-pain, birth-pain; and it is a part of the divine order -- that is, of the order of nature -- that the birth of a higher life should always be through the pain of another.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
A Miracle — that is, an extraordinary event arresting attention and awakening wonder, accomplishing some beneficent work, and by its manifestation of a superhuman power serving as a sign of a divine message or messenger — may either be in accordance with human experience or may transcend human experience. The first is as truly a miracle as the second; what constitutes it a miracle is not that it is an event out of the ordinary course of nature, but that it serves effectually as a sign of superhuman power in the accomplishment of a moral end. The two greatest miracles of the Old Testament are not events transcending human experience; they were wrought by what we customarily call natural forces, and in accordance with what we call natural laws. What made them miracles was such an evident connection with a moral end that they served as signs of the directing presence of a moral Person, possessing superhuman power. The first of these miracles was the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, the second the passage of the Red Sea by the children of Israel.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
In all ages of the world the use of physical organs by the mind and spirit has been recognized, not only by the philosophers, but also by the common people. The ancient Hebrews put the seat of the emotions in the bowels; hence the phrase, " bowels of mercies," as used in Scripture. This was probably because strong emotion affects the bowels. Later, for an analogous reason, because of the effect of strong feeling on the heart and circulating system, common language fixed upon the heart as the seat of the emotions. This notion still lingers in such phrases as " a warm-hearted friend," "a good-hearted fellow." But it is now well established that the real seat of both the affections and the intellect is in the brain. By this is not meant that they are located in the brain. They have no location; they are omnipresent in the body, as God is omnipresent in the universe, equally controlling all its parts. It is more accurate, therefore, to say that it is now well established that the material or physical organ of all thought and feeling is in the brain; that every mental and emotional activity employs some part of the brain; that every such activity uses up some brain tissue, requiring, therefore, a new supply; and that, therefore, the healthful action of the mind requires a good brain, and the best action of the mind requires good digestion and good circulation, since on these depend the renewal and replenishing of the brain.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
I have feelings, but my pen cannot and will not write feelings; nay, my heart has no mind that can coin them into words.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
Jesus Christ did not manifest all the qualities of God. There is greater manifestation of power in the earthquake and the tornado than was manifested in the stilling of the tempest; greater mechanical skill manifested in the flower than in anything that Christ wrought; greater affluence of beneficence in every annual harvest than in the feeding of five thousand. But the love, the patience, the fidelity, the truth, the long-suffering, the heart of the Infinite and Eternal Energy, comes to its fruition and its manifestation in this one incomparable life.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
It is a poor sort of fatalism which makes men fold their hands and wait for fortune.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Let us look at this man a little more closely. He begins in a single cell, and passes through the successive stages of different animals. He is successively reptile, bird, fish, vertebrate mammal, and at last becomes man. I do not speak of the race, but of the individual; he comes into what we call life through these successive stages of previous lives. He is born, dwelling in a body; and we do not need the scientist to tell us his subsequent history. That process we easily trace in three successive stages. First, this body is the necessary means for his development. He is developed by the body. He learns through the eye and the ear, the hand and the foot, the activities of the physical organization. Is he blind, one element of his development is cut off; is he deaf, another element; is he deprived of the sense of touch, a third element. With these all gone some development may be carried on, but, speaking generally, it may be said that the body is necessary to his development. By the very discipline he receives through his body his soul is moulded and shaped. He is educated through the physical organization. Then he comes into the second stage, in which this body becomes the necessary instrument of his activity. It is the power by which he operates on the world without. His lungs, his heart, his stomach, keep the machine in order, while the machine is being used to impart to other lives. Because he has hands which are themselves tools, he makes tools, as no handless animal can. Because he has eyes, he can produce color, which otherwise he could not produce. With his tongue he speaks, and communicates his thoughts to others. With his pen he writes, and communicates his life to other lives. His body is the necessary instrument of his activity, — this is the second stage. Finally, in old age, he comes into the third stage, in which the body becomes a hindrance to his development. He still has the same power to perceive truth that he always had, but he has become deaf and cannot hear. He has the same artistic sense that he always had, but he has become blind and cannot see. He has the same burning thoughts with which he was wont to inspire audiences, but his voice has lost its music and its power; he cannot reach the audience. He is still a musician, and the music is in his soul, but the voice is gone; we want to hear him sing no more. His very brain ceases to formulate thought. His soul has outgrown the body. First it was the instrument for development; second, an instrument for usefulness; now it is neither. He has not grown old, but the organ that he used has grown old. Gladstone is not old. Put him in a new body, — what a magnificent statesman he would be! Henry Ward Beecher was not old. Bring him back and put him in a body forty years old, — how his eloquence would again stir the heart of the nation! Men do not grow old; it is the body which grows old, unable to fulfill its function as the servant of the spirit.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
It is common, even in the pulpit, to hear the phrase, "Man has a soul;" and it is scarcely possible to avoid embodying this same thought sometimes in the phrase "man's soul," which is only an abbreviation. This phrase, however, expresses a falsehood. It is not true that man has a soul. Man is a soul. It would be more accurate to say that man has a body. We may say that the body has a soul, or that the soul has a body; as we may say that the ship has a captain, or the captain has a ship; but we ought never to forget that the true man is the mental and spiritual; the body is only the instrument which the mental and the spiritual uses.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
We never appreciated our dominie aright till now. But now no one can praise him too highly. The cause of this his sudden rise in public estimation is a very simple one. He has been called to a New York City parish. And he has accepted the call. This is a curious world, and the most curious part of it is the Church. While he stayed we grumbled at him. Now he leaves we grumble because he is going.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
The truth is always the same ... and the wants of the human heart are not widely different.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
In the southeast corner of Palestine, in a basin scooped out of the solid rock by some extraordinary pre-historic convulsion, lie the waters of what is fitly called the Dead Sea. The barren rocks which environ it crowd close to the water's edge. The almost impassable pathway which leads down their precipitous sides has no parallel even among the dangerous passes of the Alps and the Apennines. From the surface of this singular lake there perpetually arises a misty exhalation, as though it were steam from a vast caldron, kept at boiling point by infernal fires below. No fish play in these deadly waters. When now .and then one ventures hither from the Jordan, he pays for his temerity with his life. No birds make here their nests. No fruits flourish along these inhospitable shores, save the apples of Sodom, fair to the eye, but turning to dust and ashes in the hand of him that plucks them. The few miserable men that still make their home in this accursed valley are dwarfed, and stunted, and sickly, as those that live in the shadowy border land that separates life from death.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
But trust in God does not take the place of common sense. I have read stories of devout Christians carrying their perplexities to God, then opening their Bible, and taking the first verse they lighted on as an indication of his will. But I never found in the Bible any authority for this use of it. It is no sibyl's book, no conjurer's cards. This was not Eliezer's way. He exercised his own best judgment, then asked God's blessing on it. Piety is a poor apology for intellectual laziness. Even in the littlest things God works out our salvation for us only when we work it out for ourselves, with the trembling and fear of eagerness. If the compass had been discovered in the days of Moses, Israel would never have seen the pillar of cloud and fire. It is said of Mr. Spurgeon, that when he was first applied to, to inaugurate an orphan asylum, by a lady who put into his hands several thousand pounds for the purpose, he hesitated. He perceived that it was a great undertaking, that it would require a large expenditure of money as well as of time. At last he devoted a day of fasting and prayer to the consideration of the subject. He resolved to undertake the enterprise only in case God should put into his hands a farther sum adequate to commence it. Within twenty-four hours he received by post from an unknown donor the required sum, to be appropriated by him, in his discretion, for Christ's cause. He accepted God's answer. The asylum was founded. It is thus God directs those who look to him for guidance. Life itself becomes luminous. Ways open in which God means that we shall walk. Ways are hedged up before us from which he would turn us aside.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Conscience is what? It is putting together a moral act and a moral ideal, and measuring the act by the ideal. It is putting this moral act which you do alongside the eternal laws of God, and seeing how it stands by those laws of God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott