American theologian and author (1835-1922)
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the preacher. To which I add, especially husbands. No man is proof against the flatteries of love. At least I am not, and I am glad of it.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
It costs something to give life. And the great God above us—it has cost him something to give his life. It has cost him his Son; or, if we transfer the figure, it has cost the Son the crown of thorns and the cross and all the Passion to give himself. He is the example — showing what we may be; he is hope — inspiring us with the ambition to be; he is still with us, pouring his life unto us; he is the great sufferer and the great self-sacrificer — pouring out his life-blood that he may give his life-blood to us.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Do not think that you can fight corruption without while you let corruption fester within.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
You, mother, are not responsible to set the whole world right; you are responsible only to make one pure, sacred, and divine household.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
If, then, fellow-Christian, you are sometimes perplexed by arguments which you can not answer, recur to this hidden witness on whose testimony your faith is really founded. If the Bible is really the bread of life to your soul, if it gives comfort to you in affliction, peace in storm, victory in sore battle, you need no other evidence that it is the Word of God. If Christ is to you a present help, if you hear his voice counseling you, and see his luminous form guiding you, and hear in your own soul his message to your troubled conscience," Peace, be still," you need no other argument, as you can have no higher one, that he is Savior and God to you. This sight of the soul is above all reason. Mary, hearing the message of the disciples that Christ was arisen, believed it not. Coming to the sepulchre, and finding it empty, even the declaration of the angel was insufficient to assure her. But the voice of her Lord, though he but uttered in well-known accents her name, "Mary," was enough. She doubted, could doubt no more. It is not on the witness of men, nor even on that of angels, our faith in a crucified and a risen Savior rests; but on this, that he has spoken our name, and turned, by the very sweetness of his voice, our night of weeping into a day of unutterable joy. "Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
A golden thread, woven into the Old Testament history, renders the various lives whose stories it recounts only different phases of the same experience. That golden thread is faith.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Conscience is the factor which recognizes the inherent and essential distinction between right and wrong, and which impels to the right and dissuades from the wrong. It does not come within the province of this book to discuss either the basis of ethics or its laws; to consider either why some things are wrong and others are right, nor to point out what is wrong and what is right. That belongs to moral science, not to mental science. It must suffice here to say that the distinction between right and wrong is recognized in all peoples, and is one of the first objects of perception in childhood. Standards differ in different races and in different ages. The power of moral discrimination is subject to education both for good and for evil. But the sense of ought is as universal as the sense of beauty. That there is a right and a wrong is as evident to every mind as that there is a wise and a foolish, a beautiful and an ugly, a pleasant and a disagreeable.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
Vengeance does not satisfy. It sometimes gluts, but it does not satisfy. The duelist, angered by insult or wrong, challenges his enemy to a duel, runs his sword through the body of his opponent, leaves the life-blood oozing out of his arteries, wipes his sword, and walks off in the brightness of the morning. Satisfied? Never! Nemesis follows him; the vision is ever before his eyes; he has taken his vengeance, and the vengeance itself nestles in his heart and breeds future penalty.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Man is not only the supreme result of evolution thus far, — he is the final result of evolution; there is nothing beyond him. If one asks, How do we know that there may not be something inconceivable to us beyond? the answer is, We cannot know; but in our attempt to unriddle the enigma of the universe we must think with our faculties and be governed by our limitations, and we can conceive nothing higher than man. We can conceive of man infinitely improved; we can conceive of him cultivated, developed, enlarged, enriched, purified; but of anything essentially higher than man — no. Nothing can be conceived higher than to think, to will, to love. If we look back along the pages of history, these two truths we have learned from the universe: first, that all its processes have been for the purpose of manifesting One who thinks, who wills, who loves; second, that the purpose in the manifestation of this One is the creation of a race of free moral agents, who can themselves think and will and love. The inorganic world existed before the vegetable, and the vegetable world existed before the animal, and the lower animal existed before man, but man exists for nothing beyond. The very topmost round of the ladder has been reached: to know right from wrong, to do the right and eschew the wrong, to understand invisible distinctions, to perceive the invisible world, to struggle toward something higher and yet higher, and yet always to know, to resolve, to love, — this is supreme.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The artist does not really create; he discovers.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Great Companion
Man puts manacles on his fellow-man; God never.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life. It is simply a history of the process of life. With the secret cause of life evolution has nothing to do. A man, therefore, may be a materialistic evolutionist or a theistic evolutionist; that is, he may believe that the cause is some single unintelligent impersonal force, or he may believe that the cause is a wise and beneficent God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is one of the most extraordinary in the Old Testament. It is singularly attested by the imperishable witness of the mountains and the sea. Skepticism may scout at the plagues of Egypt; may smile incredulously at the marvelous deliverance of Israel through the Red Sea; may look with ill-concealed pity upon those who, fed daily by God's bounty, believe that God fed the hungry Israelites in the wilderness; may account the stories of the marvels which he wrought in answer to the prayers of Elijah the legends of a romantic age, and reject with ridicule the assertion of the apostle that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much; it will find nowhere in the Bible a story more extraordinary and intrinsically incredible than that of the destruction of the cities of the plain. Yet to deny this, it must not only impugn the sacred writers, but must also repudiate the traditions of heathen nations reported by secular historians, and refuse to listen to the silent testimony of nature itself. For, until the vision of Ezekiel is fulfilled, and the sacred waters, flowing from God's holy hill, heal the waters of the Salt Sea and give life again to this valley of death—until mercy shall conquer justice in nature as it already has in human experience, this scene of desolation will remain, a terrible witness to the reality of God's justice, and the fearfulness of his judgments.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
The sermon was on the words—"Do this in remembrance of me." It was a doctrinal sermon. I am not sure that it might not have been a useful one—in the sixteenth century. It was a sermon against Romanism and Lutheranism and High Church episcopacy. The minister told us what were the various doctrines of the communion. He analyzed them and dismissed them one after another. He showed very conclusively, to us Protestants, that the Romanists are wrong, to us Presbyterians that the Episcopalians are wrong, to us who are open Communionists that the close Communionists are wrong. As there does not happen to be either Romanist, Episcopalian, or close Communionist in our congregation, I cannot say how efficacious his arguments would have been if addressed to any one who was in previous doubt as to his conclusions. Then he proceeded to expound what he termed the rational and Scriptural doctrine of communion. It is, he told us, simply a memorial service. It simply commemorates the past. "As," said he, "every year, the nation gathers to strew flowers upon the graves of its patriot soldiers, so this day the Christian Church gathers to strew with flowers of love and praise the grave of the Captain of our salvation. As in the one act all differences are forgotten, and the nation is one in the sacred presence of death, so in the other, creeds and doctrines vanish, and the Church of Christ appears at the foot of Calvary as one in Christ Jesus."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I hear men talk as though prayer were of no avail unless we believe beforehand with assurance that we were going to receive all for which we asked. It is not true. We are not heard for our much asking, nor for much our believing, but for God's great mercy's sake.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Men fail to find God because they curiously reverse the position — the natural, legitimate, rightful position — between the soul and God. There is a word common in theology, though not very familiar in ordinary intercourse, — theodicy, which means justifying the ways of God to man. When a man begins to justify the ways of God to man, he has entered on a very dangerous process. For example, it is said, " If there is a God, he must be omnipotent and omniscient; and an omnipotent and omniscient God could and would make a world without sin and without suffering; but the world is not without sin nor without suffering, therefore there is no God." Such a man frames in his own mind his notion of what a God must be, and then brings God himself to that standard, and measures him by it. Theodicy! Justifying the ways of God to man! Sit, my soul, on the judgment throne, and summon God to stand before thee. "Now, Almighty One, I will see whether thou art righteous. Why didst thou allow famine in India? What right hast thou to allow a deluge in Japan? What right hast thou to allow man to go to war with his fellow-man in Europe? Justify thyself; explain thyself; answer for thyself." No man will ever find his way to the heart of God in that spirit.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
He who would see God must use the faculty with which God is seen; and if he would do this, he must let men who are rich in the faculty which perceives the invisible, — which looks not at the things which are seen and are temporal, but at the things which are not seen and are eternal, — guide, teach, inspire him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
And the first thing that Christ says to us is this: Is that the kind of life you want to live? Is that the kind of person you want to be? Do you want to live in this world to see what you can get out of it, or do you want to live in this world to see what you can put into it?
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Alas! to how many the divine word of warning is as an idle tale which they regard not. Lot still seems as one that mocks. The danger is imminent, but not apparent. Men slumber on the brink of death. Woe unto them that dare prophesy evil. It has always been so, and it will always be so till time shall be no more. Noah, warning of the flood; Lot, of the destroying fire; Jeremiah, of the approaching captivity; Christ, of the irreparable destruction of the cities by the Sea of Galilee and of Jerusalem, city of God, are all received with impatient scorn. America laughs at the prophecies of her wisest men, and the baptism of fire and blood takes her at last altogether by surprise. Oh you who hear with careless incredulity the cry, Flee as a bird to your mountain, take a lesson from the inculcations of the past. "Who hath ears to hear let him hear."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Reader, if you are out of Christ you are living in the city of Destruction. There is but a hand's-breadth between you and death. But there is deliverance. The mountain of refuge is not far off. A voice, sweeter than that of angels, and far mightier to save, cries out to you, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. It is the voice of the Son of God. The irreparable past he effaces with his blood. The wasted life he makes to bloom again. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"—not to teach, not to govern, but to save. For he comes not as a pilot to give safe voyage to vessels yet whole and strong; but to those already lying on the rocks and beaten in the angry surf, threatened every moment with engulfment, he conies, to succor, to rescue, to save. There is death in delay. There is safety only in the Savior's arms. "Haste thee; escape thither."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths