The Insight of Love

Horace Bushnell ∗

1892

51“She hath done what she could; she is aforehand to

anoint my body to the burying.”—MARK xiv, 8.

It takes a woman disciple after all to do any mostbeautiful thing; in certain respects too, or as far aslove is wisdom, any wisest thing. Thus we have be-fore us, here, a simple-hearted loving woman, whohas had no subtle questions of criticism about mat-ters of duty and right, but only loves her Lord’s per-son with a love that is probably a kind of mystery toherself, which love she wants somehow to express.She comes therefore with her box of ointment, hav-ing sold we know not what article, or portion of herproperty, to buy it, for it was very costly, and poursit on the Saviour’s head—Just here to encounter, for

∗“The Insight of Love,” in Sermons on Christ and His Salva-tion (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892), 51–70. Originalversion available on the Internet Archive. This version updatedSeptember 19, 2017.

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the first time, scruples, questions, and rebuffs of ar-gument. For though she is no casuist herself, no de-bater of eases of conscience, there are abundance ofsuch among the Lord’s male disciples present, Judasamong them, and they have more reasons, a greatmany, to offer than she, poor child of love, has everthought of. “Hold woman,” they say, and particu-larly Judas in the representation of John, “Why thisextravagance and foolish waste? Is not the Lord al-52ways teaching us to consider the poor, and do goodin every thing, and what immense good might youhave done, had you sold this ointment and put it tothe uses of beneficence; why, the trains of benefit youmight have set agoing by the money are even end-less, and now it is thrown away for just nothing.”She makes no answer, has nothing at all to say, anddoes not see, most likely, why she has not been asfoolish as they think.

But Christ answers for her. “No, children, no,” hesays, “do not trouble the woman, she has an oraclein her love wiser than yours that you have in yourheads; she has done a good work on me, fitting, al-together, to be done by her, if not by you. Nay, shehas even prophesied here, taken hold practically ofmy future—just that which I have never been ableto make you conceive, or guess. The poor you havealways with you, be it yours to bless them, but meye have not always. She is come aforehand—dearprophetic tribute!—to anoint my body for the bury-ing. Is it nothing that I die in the fragrant odorsof this dear woman’s love? Verily I say unto you,

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wheresoever this gospel shall be preached through-out the whole world, this also that this woman bathdone, shall be told for a memorial of her.”

No such commendation was ever before or afterconferred by the Saviour on any mortal of the race.He testified for the Gentile centurion, that he hadfound no such faith as his even in Israel. He tacitlycommended his three favorite disciples, Peter, Jamesand John, by the peculiar confidence into which hetook them. But the little gospel, so to speak, of thisloving woman’s devotion, he declares shall go forth 53with his, to be spoken of, and felt in its beauty, andbreathed in its fragrance, in all remotest regions ofthe world, and latest ages of time.

And what is the lesson or true import of this somuch commended example? What but this?—do forChrist just what is closest at hand, and be sure thatyou will so meet all his remotest, or most unknowntimes and occasions. Or, better still, follow withoutquestion the impulse of love to Christ’s own person;for this when really full and sovereign, will put youalong easily in a kind of infallible way, and makeyour conduct chime, as it were, naturally with allGod’s future, oven when that future is unknown; un-tying the most difficult questions of casuistry with-out so much as a question raised.

And precisely here, not elsewhere, is the greatcontribution Christ has made to morality, or thedepartment of duty. He inaugurates, in fact, a newChristian morality, quite superior to the naturalethics of the world. Not a new morality as respects

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the body of rules, or code of preceptive obligations,though even here he instituted laws of conduct soimportant as to create a new era of advancement,but new in the sense that he raised his followers toa new point of insight, where the solutions of dutyare easy, and the otherwise perplexed questionsof casuistry are forever suspended; even as thiswoman friend of Jesus saw more through her love,and struck into a finer coincidence with his sublimefuture, than all the male disciples around her had54been able to do by the computations of reflectivereason. Nay, if Judas who, according to John, wasthe more forward critic, had been writing just then atreatise on the economics of duty, her little treatiseof unction was better.

But we shall not understand either her, or thesubject we are proposing to illustrate, if we do not—

I. Bring into view the inherent difficulty thatbesets all questions of casuistry that rise under thelaws, or precepts of natural morality. By casuistrywe mean, as the word is commonly used by ethicalwriters, the settlement of cases, sometimes calledcases of conscience. The rules or precepts of moralityare easy for the most part, it is only their appli-cations to particular cases that are difficult. Andthey are often so difficult as to cause the greatestperplexity in the most conscientious and thoroughlyChristian minds; as many of you will know perhapsfrom the struggles of your own moral experience.Ready to do any thing which duty requires, ready

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to fulfill any precept, or law, which is obligatory,you have yet been tormented often with doubts, itmay be, regarding what this or that rule of dutyrequired of you, in the particular case which hadthen arrived. For the rules, or precepts of obligation,are all general or generic in their nature, while thecases are particular, and appear to even run intoeach other, by subtle gradations of color, so as to beseparable by no distinct lines. Every case is peculiar,it is more, it is less, it is different—does the rule ofduty apply? 55

Take for example, the statute “thou shalt notkill,” either as a statute of the decalogue, or ofnatural moralitv. Under this, as an accepted law,there will come up, in the application, questionslike these—Whether one can rightly be a soldierfor the defense of his country? Whether he canrightly execute a criminal under the sentence ofdeath? Whether it is murder to shoot a robber atone’s bed-side in the night? Whether one can rightlydefend a poor fugitive, hunted by his master, byassailing the master’s life? Whether as a christian hemay rightly pursue the murderer of his child, andbring him to trial, under a charge that subjects himto capital punishment? Whether he may order asurgical operation done upon a child, which there ismuch reason to fear will only shorten life? Whetherhe can run this or that considerable risk of his ownlife for purposes of gain, without incurring the guiltof suicide?

The same is true of any other main precept of

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morality or statute of the decalogue. Accepting thelaw general, endless questions arise regarding itsparticular applications, which it seems impossibleto solve.

Or we may take the great principle whichrequires doing good, the utmost good possible.And then the question will arise continually, innew forms endlessly varied; what is best to bedone? And here we find ourselves thrown at everyturn, upon a search that requires an immense fore-reaching, or impossible, knowledge of the future.What are God’s plans in regard to tho future? shallwe meet them and chime with them, by this courseor by that? Or, if we only try to find what will be56most useful, we can see but an inch for word, andhow can we decide. Thus if the woman had beenasking how she could use her box of ointment soas to do most good with it, she would either havefallen into utter doubt and perplexity, or else shewould have taken up the same conclusion withJudas, and given it to the benefit of the poor. Andso if you have on hand the question, whether, inthe way of being useful in the highest possibledegree, you will educate your son as a Christianminister? there come up immediately questions likethese—Whether he will live to be of any service tothe world? Whether he has talents to be useful?Whether he will maintain a character to be useful?Whether even God will make him eloquent, or keephim grounded thoroughly in the truth? A thousandunknown matters regarding his future, baffle you

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in coming to any intelligent solution of your duty.Any sort of business you propose to undertake asa way of usefulness, depends in the same way ona thousand unknown contingencies—the probablecharacters of partners and customers, the winds,wars, fires, seasons, markets of the years to come.In this manner you are brought up shortly, underthe questions of duty, by the discovery that you cansee hut a little way, whatever you propose, and thatall your computations of usefulness or means ofusefulness to be obtained, are too short in the run toallow the satisfactory settlement of any thing.

These difficulties, it is true may be exaggerated.Some men never have a trouble about duty intheir lives, just because they have practically no 57conscience about it. Really conscientious persons,too, settle most of their questions as they rise,without debate. It is here exactly as it is in the law;for what is called the common law is a product ofpure moral casuistry from beginning to end—tenthousand obligations are discharged without liti-gation to one that is settled by it, and yet the fewto be thus settled are how many and troublesome.The reported volumes multiply till no one can readthem, and yet the new cases come; the work is neverdone—never in fact to be done. Just so it is withour troubles of casuistry. The really conscientiousman will be continually graveled by some ques-tion he can not solve by his reason, and one suchquestion is enough to break his peace. Howeverperfect and simple the code of preceptive duty, the

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applications of it will often be difficult, and some-times well nigh impossible, without some betterhelp than casuistry, which better help I now proceed,

II. To show is contributed by Christ and hisgospel. By him is added to the code of duty, whatcould, by no possibility be located in it, a powerto settle right applications to all particular cases,without casuistry, or any such debate of reasons asallows even a chance of perplexity.

Thus, begetting in the soul a new personal loveto himself, practically supreme, Christ establishes init all law, and makes it gravitate, by its own sacredmotion, toward all that is right and good in all par-ticular cases. This love will find all good by its ownpure affinity apart from any mere debate of reasons;58even as a magnet finds all specks of iron hidden inthe common dust. Thus if the race were standing fastin love, perfect love, that love would be the fulfillingof the law without the law, determining itself rightlyby its own blessed motions, without any statutorycontrol whatever. It is only under sin, where thelove is gone out as a principle, that we get up rules,work out adjudications, creep along toilsomely intomoral customs and codes, contriving in that man-ner to fence about life and make society endurable.These are laws that God enacts for the lawless anddisobedient; or which they, under God, elaborate fortheir own protection. But who will go to love andsay, thou shalt not steal, or kill, or lie—does not loveknow that beforehand? These decalogue statutes—

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love wants none of them, she fulfills them beforethey are given. She can shape a life more beautifullyby her own divine impulse, than it could be doneby any and all ethical statutes, or refinements un-der them. And accordingly when Christ restores thislove in a soul, it will be a new inspiration of duty, justaccording to its degree of power In so far as the loveis weak, or incomplete, the fences of precept and rulewill be wanted. But the now affinity it creates, oughtto be so clear as to make all questions of duty moreand more easy, till finally the sense of all such rulesis nearly or quite gone by, leaving only the love to beits own interpreter and light of guidance.

Again it is a further consideration, drawing to-ward the same conclusion, that Christ incarnates a 59perfect and complete morality in his own person, sothat when the soul in its new love embraces his per-son, it embraces, or takes into its own affinities, acomplete morality. Consider who Christ is; the eter-nal Word of God for whom, and by whom, all theworlds were made; in whom as being in the form ofGod, all God’s ends, creations, principles, counsels,providences, and future ongoings, are in a sense con-tained and totalized. Whoever loves him, therefore,loves in fact, all that he is in his perfection, and allthat he means in the world, all that he is doing andgoing to do in it; and so loving him, all the currentsof his soul run out with his, to meet as by a true in-spiration, all his deepest purposes and most futureand remotest appointments. He is in a state of mindthat cleaves instinctively, and by hidden sympathies,

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to all that is in the Lord’s person. Where the reasonsof the understanding are short of reach, and ethicalsolutions of all kinds doubtful, he is drawn by theindivertible affinities of his heart, into easy coinci-dence with all that Christ means for him, and so intoa certain divine morality. He is not a philosopher, notwise, as we commonly speak, and yet Christ, whois being formed in him, is made unto him wisdom.As the worlds are fashioned to serve His plans, andwork out, in the sublime progression of ages, all Hiscounsels of good, he falls into that same progressionto roll on with it, not knowing whither, and how,and why, by any wisdom of the head, yet chimingfaithfully with all that Christ is doing, or wants to bedone.60

At the risk now of a little repetition, let us recura moment to the singularly beautiful example of thewoman, whose conduct gives us our subject, andsee how completely these suggestions are verified.The wise male brethren who stood critics round her,had all the casuistic, humanly assignable reasonsplainly enough with them. And yet the wisdomis hers without any reasons. She reaches further,touches the proprieties more fitly, chimes withGod’s future more exactly, than they do, reasoningthe question as they best can. It is as if she weresomehow polarized in her love by a new divineforce, and she settles into coincidence with Christand his future, just as the needle settles to its pointwithout knowing why. She does not love him ondebate, or serve him by contrived reasons, but she

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is so drunk up in his person, so totally captivatedby the wondrous something felt in him, that shehas and can have no thought other than to lovehim, and do every thing out of her love. To bathehis blessed head with what most precious ointmentshe can get, and bending low to put her fragranthomage on his feet, and wind them about in thehonors of her hair, is all that she thinks of, and beit wise or unwise, it is done. Whereupon it turnsout that she has met her Lord’s future, as no otherone of his disciples had been able; anointed hisbrow for the thorns, his feet for the nails, that boththorns and nails may draw blood in the perfumeof at least one human creature’s love. And this shehas done, you perceive, because her life is whollyin Christ’s element; tempered to him more fitly andtotally than it could be by her understanding. By a 61certain delicate affinity of feeling that was equal toinsight, and almost to prophecy, she touches exactlyher Lord’s strange, unknown future, and anointshim for the kingdom and the death she does noteven think of, or know. Plainly enough no debateof consequences could ever have prepared her forthese deep and beautifully wise proprieties.

Now in just this manner it is, that Christianitycomes to our help, in all the most difficult, most in-soluble questions of duty, those I mean which turnupon a computation of consequences. To computesuch consequences, we need to know, in fact, a thou-sand things that belong to the future, and we knowscarcely one of them—on what particular ends God

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is moving, by what means he will reach them, whateffects will follow, or not follow, a supposed act ofusefulness, what trains of causes will be put ago-ing, what trains checked and baffled. Here it is thatour casuistry breaks down continually. At this point,all merely preceptive codes are inherently weak andwell nigh impracticable. They command us to good,or beneficence, and leave us to utter perplexity in allcomputations of consequences that reach far enoughto settle the real import or effect of any thing. Noth-ing plainly but some inspiration, or some new im-pulsion of love, such as puts the soul at one withall God’s character and future, as when it embracesChrist and a completely incarnated morality in hisperson can possibly settle our applications of dutyand give us confidence in them. Just what helped62the woman to come forehand in the anointing of theLord’s body, is wanted by as all, at every turn of life.

And this I will now add, as a last consideration,is what every Christian has found many times, ifnot always, in his own experience. Thus, in sometrying condition, where he has not been able, bythe understanding, to settle any wise course ofproceeding, how very clear has everything beenmade to him, step by step, by the simple and con-sciously single-eyed impulse of love to his Master.And when all is over, when his crisis is past, hiscourse fought out, his adversaries confounded, hiscause completely justified, his sacrifice crowned,how plain is it to him that he has been guided bya wisdom in his loving affinities, which he had not

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in the reasons of his understanding; all in a way soeasy as even to be an astonishment to himself. Notto say this, my brethren, out of my own experiencewould be to withhold a good confession that is due.And I can not persuade myself that any thoroughlyChristian person is ignorant of the experience Idescribe. All our best determinations of duty arethese which come upon us in the immediate light ofour immediate union to Christ.

I ought, perhaps, to add that the doctrine I amwishing to unfold, does not exclude the use of theunderstanding. It is one thing to use the understand-ing under love, as being liquified and molded by it,and quite another to make it the oracle or sole arbiterof duty. Christ himself gives precepts to the under-standing, just because we are not perfected in love, 63and require, meantime, to have the school-master’skeeping, under a preceptive and statutory control.Nothing was further off from God’s design than toadd so many preceptive regulations by Christ andthe apostles, to help out the natural code of morality,and be applied as that code is, and with it, by natu-ral reason. He gives them only because we are notripe enough in the good impulse of love to be keptright by that alone. We might take our passions forlove, and become fanatics and fire-brands of duty.The false heats of our indignations against wrong,too little qualified by love, might fill us with personalanimosities. Our lusts might steal the name of loveand fool us by the counterfeit. Therefore he puts dryprecepts in the understanding for a time, where, if

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they are legal and precisional in their way, the fogsof distemper and passion will be just as much lessable to reach them.

Let me add now, a few distinct suggestions thatcrowd upon us naturally, in the closing of such asubject. And—

1. The great debate which has been going on forsome time past, with our modern infidelity, is seento be joined upon a superficial and false issue. Thesuperior preceptive morality of the Gospel of Christ,which used to be conceded, is now denied, and thelearned champions of denial undertake to refute ourclaim, by citing from the explored literature of theancient Pagan writers, every particular maxim, orprecept that we most value, or suppose to be most64original, in the teachings of Christ. Which if they cando, as they certainly can not, their argument is onlya very transparent sophistry. For, when they havehunted all treasures of learning through, pickingup here one thing and here another, to match theteachings of Christ, and claim as the result, thatthey have matched every thing, their conclusionsamounts to simply this, not that Christ is the equalof some man, but that he is just as competentlywise as all men taken together. Besides they makehim none the less original; for no one can pretendthat Christ obtained, or raked together so manyprecepts, by any such hunt of learned explorationas is here resorted to; he mast have given them outof his own creative intelligence. And then again,

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what signifies a great deal more, it is not here afterall, that he made his grand contribution to the lifeof duty. The issue tried is wholly one side of hischief merit; viz., that he brings relief and clearnesswhere all the natural codes of duty break down.These codes are grounded in natural reason, bythat also to be applied. The chief maxims maybe right, but the applications are still to be settledas no mortal man can settle them—by analogies,by subtle distinctions, drawn where there are nodefinite lines of distinction; by computations ofusefulness depending on a knowledge of the futurethat is impossible. Every maxim wants a volume ofcasuistry to settle its application to this or that casein practice; and then new cases, equally difficult,will be rising still—even as they do at commonlaw, which covers only a very small corner of the 65general field of duty. Baxter wrote an immense folioon cases of conscience, thinking, I suppose, that hehad made, every thing clear to the end of the world;when in fact he had started more questions in doingit than twenty folios could settle. Handled in thisway, the law of duty runs to endless refinements;and as men are corrupt, to endless sophistries andabortions; yielding codes in fact, that are codes ofimmorality, framing mischief by a law; codes ofJesuitry, codes of hideous and disgusting practice,such as heathen peoples propagate with endlessperversity. How much then does it mean that Christhas a perfect morality incarnated in his person—allbeauty, truth, mercy, greatness, wise counsel of

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life; so that when he is embraced, all casuistriesare well nigh superseded, and the humblest, mostunreasoning disciple, is able by a course of appli-cations, wiser than he knows himself, to fill upa beautiful life, meet, with a glorious consent ofpractice, all the grandest meanings, and remotestfuture workings of God. The life of duty passes in aclear element, tossed by no perplexities, happy andsweet and strong, because the soul in Christ’s lovehas a light of immediate guidance, In presence ofthis manifestly divine fact, how weak and sorry isthe attempt to break down Christ’s sublime super-human evidences, by showing that his contributionsto the mere preceptive code of duty, have been moreor less nearly anticipated.

2. All conscientious Christian persons who getconfused and fall into painful debates of duty in par-ticular cases, may here discover the secret of their66trouble and the way to have it relieved. Their diffi-culty is that they fall back on the modes of casuistry,and attempt to settle their question of duty, as Jesuitsor heathens do, by computations of reason. Shall I dothis? shall I do that? shall I give myself, or my son,or my husband to the army of my country? keepingone day in seven, how shall I keep it? training up mychild for God, what indulgences shall I give, whatpleasures shall I allow? having adversaries, shall Ibe silent? willing to make every thing a sacrifice forGod, shall I give or not give all my time and talentto the immediate duties of religion?—ten thousandsuch questions are rising every hour, this with one

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person, this with another. The debate is begun andkept up day and night, till the soul is weary. Thedarkness increases, the confusion grows painful, thelonger and more critical the debate is, till finally thesoul, thrown back upon itself, sinks into a kind ofnervous dread, close akin to horror. How many suchcases have I met, in past years, and they are amongthe saddest to which I have been called to minister.The question of duty was turned round and round,till the multitude of reasons made distraction. It waseven as if duty were the only thing impossible tobe found. Have I any such afflicted soul before menow? 0, my friend, that I could show you the root ofyour difficulty. You carry your case to the wrong tri-bunal, to the casuistries of ethics and not to Christ.You get tangled in questions, when you should beclear in love. Go where Mary went, or rather whereMary’s heart went. Cease from your refinements, 67refuse to be caught any more in the mouse-trap ques-tions and scruples of duty, and let it be enough to layyour Soul on Christ’s bosom. Resting quietly thus, inthe sacred bliss of love to Christ’s person, wantingnothing but to be with him and for him, your tor-ment will soon be over. The question of duty will beended even beforehand, just because the soul of allduty is in you. The current of your feeling will runto it and settle it, even before you ask where it is.

3. It is no good sign for a Christian person, thathe is always trying to settle his duty by calculations,and wise presagings of the future; and it is all theworse, if he pleases himself in the confidence that he

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succeeds. Doing nothing by faith, making no roomfor impulse or the inspiration of christian love, hetakes the easy method of sagacity—easy to the foolas to the wise man—determining his questions ofcourse mostly in the negative; for, if there is anydoubt, it is always a brave thing, and always lookssagacious to say. No; and then, since he undertakesno duty which he can not see to the end of, even byhis eyes, which is about the same as to undertakeno duty at all, he conceives that he has a more solidway of judging than others. He will do nothingout of a great sentiment of course, he will break nobox of ointment on the head of anybody; he willeducate no son for the ministry, for example, lestpossibly he should be only a martyr for the truth,and all that has been spent upon him, should onlybe anointing him for his burial. Meantime, what isthe love of Christ doing in him? what great impulse68of love does he trust enough to follow it? He makesa winter in the name of piety, and because nothingis melted in the heat of it, blesses himself in thesolidity of his practice! Possibly there may be a littleof the christian love in such a person, but the signsare bad. To be politic is no certain way of beinggood, and the man who tries it, perils every thing.

4. We have a striking, and at the same time, mostinviting conception here given us, of the perfectstate of society and character in the future life.Calculation, criticism, moral codes and precepts,none of these are wanted longer to regulate theconduct, all the legalities are gone by. There is no

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debate of reasons, no casuistry. The reign of simplelove has come. The impulse that moves has its lawin itself, and every man does what is good, justbecause only good is in him. There is no scruple,no friction, no subtlety of evil to be restrained. Theconduct of all is pure water flowing from a purespring. And as springs are unconscious of theirsweetness, thunders of their sublimity, flowers oftheir beauty, so the perfection of character and con-duct is consummated in a spontaneous movementthat excludes all self-regulation, and requires nodressing of the life by rules and statutes. All bestand noblest things are done, as it were naturally; forChrist, who is formed within, must needs appearwithout in acts that represent himself. All acts ofbeauty and good are like that of the woman, comingto anoint her Lord—inspirations of the beauty sheloved, wise without study or contrivance, uncon- 69scious, spontaneous, and free. This now is society,this is character; to this height of perfection, thisblessedness in good, our God is raising all that lovehim.

After having sunned ourselves, my friends, inthis bright picture above, some of you, it may be,will now return to the earth with a feeling morewearied and worn by duty than ever. This ever-lasting and compunctious study of duty, duty tochildren, husband or wife, duty to poor neighbors,and bad neighbors, and impenitent neighbors, dutyto Sunday Schools, duty to home missions andmissionaries, duty to heathens and savages, duty

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to contrabands and wounded soldiers, and woodenlegs in the streets, and limping beggars at the door,duty to every body, everywhere, every day; it keepsyou questioning all the while, rasping in a tormentof debates and compunctions, till you almost groanaloud for weariness. It is as if your life itself wereslavery. And then you say, with a sigh, “O, if I hadnothing to do but just to be with Christ personally,and have my duty solely as with him, how sweetand blessed and secret and free would it be.” Well,you may have it so; exactly this you may do andnothing more! Sad mistake that you should everhave thought otherwise! what a loss of privilegehas it been! come back then to Christ, retire into thesecret place of his love, and have your whole dutypersonally as with him. Only then you will makethis very welcome discovery, that as you are per-sonally given up to Christ’s person, you are goingwhere he goes, helping what he does, keeping ever70dear, bright company with him, in all his motions ofgood and sympathy, refusing even to let him sufferwithout suffering with him. And so you will do agreat many more duties than you even think of now;only they will all be sweet and easy and free, even asyour love is. You will stoop low, and bear the load ofmany, and be the servant of all, but it will be a secretjoy that you have with your Master personally. Youwill not be digging out points of conscience, anddebating what your duty is to this or that, or himor her, or here or yonder; indeed you will not thinkthat you are doing much for Christ any way—not

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half enough—and yet he will be saying to you everyhour in sweetest approbation—“Ye did it unto me.”