1849.] Explanation of Texts. 431 In this explanation of John's representation of the Logos, we have a twofold advantage: first, that the phrase ó óyos aaos éyévεTo becomes intelligible without any Docetic transmutation of a Divine person into a human one, and without giving up the immediate creative and revealing power of God, the incarnation of the Logos; secondly, that the conception of the Logos, freed from the gnostic form which it assumed in the time of John, is brought back to its true Old Testament ground and import, and consequently, to its permanent, dogmatic, that is, its essential, religious value. It is true, that, in the expressions of Christ concerning his personal preexistence (John viii. 57, xvii. 5) there may appear to be an insuperable objection to the view which has been given. For how, it may be asked, can these expressions be reconciled with our view of the Logos, without abandoning their original signification? It would seem to be becoming in a Christian theologian to leave the Logos of John, in its original expression, as an inexplicable mystery, rather than, by a forced interpretation, to weaken the meaning of the words of Christ. But the question is, whether John's mode of understanding those words, conformed as it is to the prevailing doctrine of the Logos in his day, was the original sense in which Christ understood them. If we have no right to assume that Jesus spoke in conformity with the prevailing doctrine of the Logos, then we are allowed to distinguish the sense in which John understood those expressions from that in which Christ used them. But we are not allowed to suppose that Jesus uttered any thing essentially different from what John has recorded. If, then, we trace back those expressions of Christ to the Old Testament ground on which he stood, and remember that there was in him a perfect human consciousness, we may understand the essential meaning of them to be, that Jesus, in the full consciousness of the Divine glory of the only-begotten, which dwelt in him from his birth, conceived of it in its eternal reality in the past, as well as in the future and present (comp. iii. 13); or rather, that, although existing in a human, and of course a finite, temporal* personality, he was yet conscious of being a perfect organ, or a perfect possessor, not only of the light and life, but of the eternal revealing power of God. If Christ could not have meant that he eternally preëxisted as the historical Son of God, then he * That is, not existing as a person before his birth. - TR. could have understood his eternal preëxistence only in an ideal sense, that is, in reference to the eternal word, as this phrase is used in the Old Testament. I acknowledge the difficulties which attend this interpretation of the passage; but they vanish before the impossibility of conceiving of a double real personality in Christ,—the one eternal and Divine, and the other finite and human, whether regarded as distinct, or as fused into each other without distinction. This supposition makes a specific difference of nature between Christ and us his brethren, which renders not only the true Son of man, but the truly redeeming Son of God, inconceivable to me. I fear not the Church, but love and honor it from my heart. But I love and honor it, because it is the Church, not of the letter and form, but of Christian truth and regulated freedom. In this it is implied that she has a certain and sure word of God in the Scriptures, and that she has also well-founded laws of human thought and language. But to understand the former in its fulness, and to apply the latter with correctness in their living freedom, is an infinite problem, to the solution of which unremitted labor is necessary. In this consideration is my justification and defence, not indeed for taking away any permanent truth from the prologue of John, but for departing in its explanation from the formularies of the Church. G. R. N., TR. ART. V. BRAZER'S SERMONS.* WE gladly welcome another valuable addition to the many volumes of sermons which the affection and veneration of surviving relatives and friends for the memory of their authors have given to the public, — urged, usually, by the request of grateful parishioners, and the expressed wishes of others, who were occasional hearers and admirers of the living utterances of the men whose voices have ceased to be heard in the pulpits they occupied, and whom we no longer meet in the places that have known them, and that are to know them Sermons, by JOHN BRAZER, D. D. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. 1849. 12mo. pp. 367. 1849.] no more. However we may rejoice over these spolia opima, these rich trophies, which follow in the train, and in a measure console us for the triumphs, of the universal conqueror, we cannot look back without a painful sense of bereavement upon the ravages which, within a few years, have been made in the ranks of our ministerial brotherhood, who have been the expounders, defenders, and ornaments of "the faith once delivered to the saints," as we have learned it from the teachings, example, and spirit of its Divine "author and finisher," as transmitted to us in the Gospel records and epistles. Within these few years have been called to their heavenly rest and reward most of those who stood in the front rank of reformers of the popular faith, and who had to make their defence against a host of assailants that began the controversy which, some thirty or forty years since, gave occasion for the assumption, or acceptance, by the assailed, of the name of Unitarians, and for "a statement of reasons " for rejecting the Trinitarian and kindred dogmas, as held and taught by Calvinists, or the so-called Orthodox. Freeman, Kirkland, Channing, Greenwood, the Wares, father and son, the Whitmans, and, near to each other, Peabody of Springfield and Brazer of Salem, with many others, in no long interval from the present, have left us; who, by their public ministries and writings during their lives, and in the volumes, like that at the head of this article, published by their friends after their decease, have, in conjunction with many living brethren, long may they live!-given form and definite expression to the catholic and heart-cheering faith justly cherished and held most precious by a large, and everywhere increasing, community of believers. In the writings of these men may be found, expressed with clearness and power, both the negative and positive aspects of the Unitarian faith, and the doctrinal views they entertained, with their practical application to the government of the heart and life, or to the formation of the Christian character; defended, urged, and enforced with equal strength and fairness of reasoning, with fervid and persuasive eloquence, with a broad and comprehensive charity, a serious, devout, and earnest spirit, a Christ-like compassion and love to the souls of men, a fearless fidelity of warning and tenderness of entreaty to the sinful, and "beseeching" of all men to be reconciled to God, with a uniform reference to the Divine authority of Christ, and a resting of all they teach or require upon "the truth as it is in Jesus," carefully and reverently gathered from his words and deeds, his life, death, resurrection, and ascension to the Father, who sent him. These writings, sufficiently doctrinal, but eminently practical and devotional, may challenge comparison with the writings upon similar topics of any like number of the clergy of any denomination or church since the Reformation. They collectively constitute a respectable religious library, containing an ample exposition of the principles or doctrines, and practical requisitions, the devout and philanthropic, the holy and benignant, spirit of Liberal Christianity. The Sermons of Dr. Brazer may claim, and will find, a conspicuous place in this library. We owe their publication to a sentiment that does equal honor to the author and the editor. The affection and veneration of the son for the memory of the father evince the love and faithful care of the father in the wise and affectionate training of the son. It is always beautiful, this reciprocated affection of parent and child; it is preeminently so, when it hallows to the child, and enshrines in his heart, the memory of the deceased parent. While parental love rarely fails to cherish and lavish its cares and tenderness upon the child, the child, it has been remarked, does not always or often cherish the memory of the parent with the enduring and deep affection with which a parent fondly broods over that of a child. The son could not possibly erect a more fitting monument to his father's name than by the publication of these Sermons. It is not often that a posthumous publication of sermons does justice to their author. Whatever may be the scholarship and tact of the editor, it is in most cases scarcely possible that the manuscripts, left without any idea that they were ever to be printed, should be as correct as the author would have made them, had he intended and prepared them for the press. case before us, it is well known that Dr. Brazer composed with the utmost care and finish whatever he delivered from the pulpit. His son, we presume, found the manuscripts in a state requiring very little alteration for the press. Dr. Brazer stood high among the eminent and eloquent preachers of our denomination. He early earned and sustained a distinguished reputation for scholarship, for classical elegance of style, for refined taste, a wide range of reading, a large and critical acquaintance with modern literature. During a ministry of more than a quarter of a century, he was a 1849.] His Ministry. 435 diligent student; and while he gave more time and laborious thought than most of his brethren to the composition of his sermons, and to a careful preparation, for the devotional exercises of the pulpit, he was at the same time a faithful pastor, ready at every call to counsel or advise in private, to visit and comfort the mourner, the sick, and the aged, and to minister to the necessities of the poor of his charge by his own bounty or as almoner of the rich and charitable members of his congregation. We have in the brief memoir, prefixed to the Sermons by his son, a succinct account of his birth, education, and uneventful career, to his sudden decease, at the residence of a friend in a distant State, whither he had journeyed with his son for the recovery of his impaired health. Born in Worcester, (September 21, 1789,) where he received a common school education, his parents wishing him to be fitted for a mercantile life, he passed several years of his minority in a counting-room in Boston. His inclinations and tastes were in another direction; and having prepared himself in the brief space of nine months for entering Harvard College, he was admitted a member of the class that was graduated in 1813. "By the middle of his Freshman year, says a friend and classmate," he had taken his position, and was decidedly the first scholar of his class." He held this position through his collegiate course. He continued a resident graduate in the University from 1815 to 1820, and held successively the offices of Greek and Latin Tutor, and College Professor of Latin. At the close of the academic year 1819-20, he resigned his office of Latin Professor, and commenced preaching, as a candidate for the ministry. He very soon received and accepted an invitation from the North Society in Salem to become their pastor, and was ordained November 14, 1820. He retained his connection with this society till his decease, on the 24th of February, 1846, — a period of twenty-six years and some months. The tenor of his days during his ministry was not marked by any signal outward vicissitudes till towards its close. It resembled that of any other happily settled, popular clergyman, and cherished pastor of a wealthy, united, intelligent, not to say fashionable, society in our cities. An occasional journey, as an invited companion with some opulent individual or family of his congregation, and now and then a temporary absence and respite from his labors in summer, varied the ordinary course of his ministerial life. His health was sensi |