.LIBRARY OF THE University of California. OBF^T OK Mrs. SARAH p. WALSWORTH. Received October, i8g4. Accessions Np . ;^^ ^TQ • Class No . 4 4 Si, ^v-^ ^ ' '• v. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/essaysreviewsselOOhodgrich ESSAYS AND EEVIEWS. BY CHARLES, HODGE, D.D. SELECTED FROM THE PEINCETOlf REVIEW. ^^ Of THS"^^^ [UHJ7BRSITr] NEW YOKK: ROBERT CAJRTER & BROTHERS, No. 530 BROADWAY. 1867. HC Eiitered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, la the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. (if/4 ^ M' s BTEBEOTTPED BY PBIWTED BY B.B. THOMSON, THOMAS B. SMITH, B. O. JENKINS, BINDBB, 82 & 84 Beekman-st. , N, Y. 28 Frankfort-st , W. Y. 82 «& 84 Beekman-st. , N. Y. CONTENTS. Page I. — ^Regeneration 1 II. — Stuart on the Romans 49 III. — The Latest Form op Infidelity 81 lY. — ^Beman on the Atonement 129 V. — Ground of Faith in the Scriptures 185 VI. — Theories op the Church 201 VIL — ^Is the Church of Rome a part op the Visible Church? 221 VIII. — ^Finney's Lectures on Theology 245 IX. — Support of the Clergy 285 X. — ^Bushnell on Christian Nurture 30H XL — Doctrine op the Reformed Church on the Lord's Supper 341 XII. — Responsibilities op Boards op Missions 393 XIIL— God in Christ 433 XIV.— Slavery 473 XV. — Emancipation 513 XVI. — ^Thb Theology op the Intellect and that op the Feelings. — Article I 539 XVII. — The Theology op the Intellect and that of the Feelings. — Article II 571 XVIII. — ^The Theology of the Intellect and that of the Feelings. — Article III 613 '■-^''" Of TUM " ^^ REGENERATION.' Voltaire, in one of his historical works, sneeringly inquires, " How were the priests employed while the Saracens were deso- lating the fairest portion of their church ?" " Disputing,'' he answers, " whether Christ has one will or two V It will be well, if the theologians of the nineteenth century do not furnish occa- sion to some future infidel historian for a similar taunting remark. There is scarcely any subject in the history of the church which is more humiliating than that of theological dis- cussions of this nature. The evil appears to have arisen early, for Paul, in his Epistles to Timothy, repeatedly and earnestly exhorts him "not to strive about words to no profit,'' but to avoid "foolish questions which gender strifes." Yet not a century has passed from that day to this, which has not been disturbed and disgraced by disputes fairly within the apostle's description. That there are serious evils attending controversies of this character, no one will deny. They bring discredit on religion ; they alienate brethren who should live together in love ; they call off the attention from the practical duties of benevo- lence and piety ; and they are, from their nature, destructive of the spirit of true religion. These disputes, in nine cases out of ten, turn, not on the correct exposition of the Bible, but on the decision of some point in mental or moral science. Philosophy, instead of being the handmaid of religion, has become the mistress of theology.! This is a fact deeply to be lamented. ''JThe subjects, we admit, are so nearly allied, that they cannot be ' Published in 1830, in review of " Regeneration and the Manner of its Occurrence. A Sermon from John v. 24. Preached at the opening of the Synod of New York, in Rutger's-street Church, on Tuesday evening, October 20, by Samuel H. Cox, D. D., Paator of the Laight-street Presbyterian Church."— Princeton Review. 1 V 2 REGENEBATION. kept entirely distinct ; still, theology might have, and ought to have, much less of a philosophical, and more of an exegetical character than it has commonly assumed. The predominance of the former, over the latter element in theology, has been un- questionably one of the most prolific sources of evil to the church. What is Pelagianism, Arminianism, or almost any other ism^ but a particular system of religious philosophy ? And what are the questions which now alienate and divide Christians in this country, but questions in mental or moral science ? If a man tells you his theory of virtue, you need ask no questions about his theology. Hence it is that these diversities of opinion are in a great measure confined to professed theologians, clergy- men, or laymen. The views which ordinary Christians, under the guidance of common sense and sanctified feeling, take of divine truth, are, in all ages and countries, very nearly the same. Nor does it seem to us correct to say, that common sense is nothing more than the popularized results of philosophical spec- ulations, because we find it the same in countries where entirely different systems of philosophy have for ages prevailed. Look at Germany and England for an illustration. The philosophical theologians of these countries differ toto ccelo in their views. They have hardly a single principle in common. But how is it with common Christians ? They are as much united in opinion as they are in feeling. And why ? Because their opinions are formed from the Bible, under the guidance of the Spirit, and the influence of those essential and consequently universal principles of our nature, which it has been the grand result of philosophy to sophisticate and pervert. Is all philosophy then to be pro- scribed ? By no means. The very statements we have made demonstrate its importance. If a man's speculative opinions do thus influence his views of religious truth and duty, it is a matter of unspeakable moment that these opinions should be correct. And, in a multitude of cases, the only means of pre- venting the evils which flow from erroneous principles, is to show the fallacy of the principles themselves. Besides, all truth is harmonious, whether taught in the word of God or learned from the constitution of our own nature, and in itself there can be no subject more worthy of accurate knowledge, than that mysterious and immortal principle which was created in the image of God. All this we cheerfully admit. At the same time the undeniable REGENERATION. 6 fact, that systems of philosophy have heen as changeahle as the wind ; that each^ in its turn has been presented, urged, and adopted with the utmost confidence ; and each in its measure perverted the simple truths of the Bible, should teach us to be modest. We should learn to separate the human from the divine element in our theology, and to be careful not to clothe the fignaents of our own minds with the awful authority of God, and denounce our brethren for not believing him when they do not agree with us. We should learn not to ascribe to men opin- ions which, according to our .notions, may be inferred from the principles which they avow. This is an impropriety of very frequent occurrence, and of which we think we have great reason to complain in the sermon before us. To state what appears to us to be fair deductions from principles assumed, as arguments against them, is one thing ; but to charge those who hold these principles with holding our deductions, is a very dif- ferent affair. With regard to the author of this sermon, we can truly say that we entertain for him the highest respect. We love his honesty. We admire the frankness and decision with which he always avows his opinions. We rejoice to see that there is little of that evil spirit in the discourse, which so often converts inves- tigations of truth into angry disputations. But while we give Dr. Cox full credit for sincerity, and acquit him of entertaining any bad feeling toward his brethren, we still think that he is chargeable with grossly misrepresenting their opinions, and hold- ing them up to a contempt and reprobation due only to his acknowledged caricature. We refer specially to page 6 of the Introduction, where, after stating that there are certain dogmas, "some of them not proved, or even suspected by those who employ them," which have a tendency " to solace the sinner in his distance from Christ," and " excuse his disobedience to the gospel, and which ought to be rejected as false and ruinous," he gives the following specifications : " A man has no ability to do his duty. "Where the means of grace are purely and abundantly vouchsafed, by the sovereign goodness of Providence, a man can do nothing for, but can only counteract, liis own salvation ; having no ability, even if he had the inclination, to believe the gospel and be saved. *' The wickedness of men consists in physical defect or disorganization of the 4 REGENERATION. faculties of the soul, so that total depravity and physical depravity are nearly synonymous, and both equally true. " Eegeneration is the implantation of a certain hind of 'principle of holiness,' which is incapable of definition or demonstration, and has no connection vrith human consciousness ; which precedes all active mental holiness, and is antece- dent also to all ' the fruit of the Spirit,' as specified in the New Testament, in the susception and sustentation of which the Creator is sole as well as sovereign agent ; man no agent at all, but only a passive receiver, an unconscious subject of the mysterious gratuity ; and which is the happy contrary of a principle of sin, which is concreated with us, and is the permanent fund of aU our depravity, in which also we are passive — though quite active in exercising all the wicked- ness which flows (full copiously) from such an inserted fountain, and which has its residence and location somewhere in the texture of the soul, which is itself a very wicked thing somehow physiologically, in the very nature of it, antecedent to any agency at all of ours. "Regeneration consists in some secret physical motion of the soul, which restores its dislocated powers, and cures the connatural diseases of its texture ; since the work of the Cr^tor, as such, is not ' good,' but lays the foundation in the very entity of the soul for aU its overt wickedness, and for the necessity of regeneration. " The soul is passive, entirely passive, and G-od the sole agent of regeneration. "The means of grace, and the gospel itself, are in no sense moral causes of regeneration ; since their important use is merely to illustrate the strength of an invincible depravity, to make the sinner worse and worse, till he is physically regenerated, and then to signahze the prodigious efforts and labors of Omnipo- tence, in this department of constant miracle-working: — as if there were no considerable difference between dividing the Red Sea symbolically by the rod of Moses, and conciliating the human mind by the revealed glories of the ever- lasting gospel ! " It is wrong to require a sinner in the name of God to repent immediately, and believe the gospel, and to urge him to this as the only way of salvation. " The offer of salvation is not made to every hearer; or, if it be, to accept it is impracticable, and to require this of the sinner, wanton and absurd. " If there is a universal offer in the gospel, it is founded, not on the atone- ment of Jesus Christ at all, but only on the ministerial commission ; or on human ignorance of whom the elect are ; or it has no moral foundation ; or it is only man's ofifer and not God's ; or it is a matter of mere sovereignty, and so insolu- ble; or it is an offer in form, and in fact no offer or overture at all; and this, although there is no salvation known to the gospel but that of our Lord Jesus Christ as an atoning Saviour. — Prov. i. 20-33 ; Luke xiv. 24 ; Acts iv. 12, xHi. 26, 46." The doctor then says, " If I have caricatured these dogmas, I have done so intentionally ; but only by representing them as they are, and making the reality govern the appearance." It is not probable that Dr. Cox, in writing these paragraphs, had any one class of theologians exclusively in his eye ; because some of REGENERATION. 5 '^ these dogmas " are inconsistent with each other. We have no doubt^ however, that most of what is here stated, was intended as an exhibition of the doctrines of the old Calvinists (sit venia verbo). Our reason for thinking so is, that we are accustomed to see such, and even still more gross misrepresentations of these doctrines, though, we acknowledge, not often from such men as Dr. Cox. It is, however, notorious that this class of theologians are constantly represented as maintaining that "man has no ability, even if he had the inclination, to believe the gospel and be saved,'' — that man's depravity " is a physical defect," — that regeneration is " a physical change," etc. Kepresentations have been made of these doctrines which we had supposed no man, who felt the obligation " of interpreting language in conformity with the known and declared nature of the thing described," could ever allow himself to make. Belonging as we dn to the class, which for the sake of convenience and distinction we have called old Calvinists, we feel ourselves aggrieved by such repre- sentations, and called upon to show that no such doctrines can be fairly imputed to the elder Calvinists. It will not be expected that in a single article we should go over the formidable list presented by Dr. Cox. We shall, for the present at least, con- fine ourselves to the. doctrine of this sermon, and show that the old standard Calvinistic authors expressly disclaim the opinions here imputed to them, and that they are not fairly deducible from any of the principles which they avow. Should we entirely fail as to the second point, it would still be very unjust to charge men with holding doctrines which they constantly disclaim, because we consider them as flowing from their principles. The two main points of Dr. Cox's sermon are, first, that regeneration is a moral, in distinction from a physical change ; and secondly, that it occurs in a manner perfectly accordant with the active powers of the soul. We use thcword physical, not as synonymous with natural, but in the sense in which it is used in this sermon, implying something referring to the substance or essence. By physical regeneration in this sense, is intended a change in the essence or essential properties of the soul, or, in the language of Dr. Cox, an influence by which " the connatural diseases in the texture of the soul are healed." Our object is to show that Dr. Cox has misrepresented the views of his brethren on this subject ; that they hold to no change in the substance of 6 EEGENERATION. the soul nor in any of its essential properties, but unifomily teach that the change is a moral one, and takes place in a manner perfectly congruous to the nature of a rational and active being. We appeal to the language and doctrines of all the old Calvin- istic divines, in support of this assertion. Charnock, in his discourse on regeneration, contained in Vol. II. of the folio edition of his works, proposes in the first place to state in reference to the nature of this change, what it is not. On page 72 he says, " It is not a removal or taking away of the old substance or faculties of the soul. Some thought that the sub- stance of Adam's soul was corrupted when he sinned, therefore suppose the substance of his soul to be altered when he is renewed. Sin took not away the essence but the rectitude ; the new creation, therefore, gives not a new faculty but a new qual- ity." JtVho the "some" were, to whom Charnock refers as holding that the substance of Adam's soul was corrupted by the fall, we know not ; all we know is, that such is not the doctrine of any respectable body of Calvinists, nor of any standard writer on the subject. The only man of whom we have heard who taught this doctrine, was Flaccius Illyricus, Professor at Jena, and a pupil of Luther ; but we know, too, that his opinions on this subject were condemned, almost without a dissenting voice, by the reformed theologians of Germany and England. On the 73d page, Charnock says expressly, " the essence and faculties remain the same." "The passions and affections are the same as to the substance and nature of the acts ; but the difference lies in the objects." " When a man loves God, or fears God, or loves man, or fears man, it is the same act of love and the same act of fear ; there are the same motions of the soul, the same substantial acts simply considered," etc. " This new creation is not a destruction of the substance of the soul, but there is the same physical being, and the same faculties in all, and nothing is changed in its substance as it respects the nature of man." — P. 85. We have here a most explicit disa- vowal of the doctrine of physical regeneration in the sense in which Dr. Cox represents the old Calvinists as holding it. As to the manner in which this work is effected, he remarks, in the first place, that " it is a secret work, and therefore diffi- cult to explain." "Yet, secondly, this is evident, that it is rational, that is, congruous to the essential nature of man. God REGENERATION. ^ does not deal with us as beasts or as creatures destitute of«sense, but as creatures of an intelligent order. Who is there that believes in Christ, as heavy things fall to the earth, or as beasts run at the beck of their sensual appetites without rule or reason ?" — P. 217. " God that requires of us a reasonable ser-, vice, would work upon us by a reasonable operation. God therefore'" works by the way of a spiritual' illumination of the understanding, in propounding the creature's happiness by arguments and reasons; and in the way of a spiritual impression on the will, moving it sweetly to embrace that happiness, and the means to it which he doth propose ; and indeed without this work preceding, the motion of the will could never be regular." — P. 218. In speaking more particularly of the direct operation of the Holy Spirit on the will, his first proposition is, that there is such an influence; second, that 'Hhis work, though immediate, is not compulsive. It is a contradiction for the will to be moved unwillingly ; any force upon it destroys its nature. It is not forced because it is according to reason, and the natural motion of the creature ; the understanding proposing and the will em- bracing ; the understanding going before with light, the will following after with love." " The will being a rational faculty, cannot be wrought upon but rationally." — P. 221. The instrumentality of the truth in regeneration is strongly asserted by all old Calvinists. Charnock says, " that to make an alteration in us according to our nature of understanding, will, and affections, it is necessary there should be some declaration of things under those considerations of true, good, and delightful, in the highest manner, to make a choice change in every faculty of the soul ; and without this a man cannot be changed as a rational creature," etc. — P. 233. " The word operates, first, objectively, as it is a declaration of the will .of God, and present- ing the objects of all holy acts ; and secondly it has an active force. It is operative in the hand of God for sanctification." " The Spirit doth so edge the word that it cuts to the quick, discerns the very thoughts, insinuates into the depths of the heart," etc. — P. 235. ^' To conclude, the promise in the word breeds principles in the heart suitable to itself ; it shows God a Father, and raises up principles of love and reverence ; it shows Christ a Mediator, and raises up faith and desire. Christ in the word conceives Christ in the heart, Christ in the word the begin- % REGENERATION. ning ©f grace, conceives Christ in the heart the hope of glory." — P. 236. The use of the word in regeneration is surely, according to this view, something more than " the rod of Moses stretched out over the Eed Sea." We presume, however, that the para- graph in which Dr. Cox denounces the opinion that the means of grace have no tendency to produce holiness, was designed for a different quarter. Old Calvinists have generally been charged with laying too much stress on the use of means. Charnock was by no means singular in the views here express- ed. Living as he did in the days of the Puritan ascendancy in England, the companion of Owen, Goodwin, Burgess, Bates, and many others of the same class, he was united with them in opinion as well as in labors. Owen, in his work on the Spirit, when speaking of regenera- tion, lays down the following proposition (page 270 of the folio edition). "In whom or toward whomsoever the Holy Spirit puts forth his power, or the acts of his grace for their regenera- tion, it removes all obstacles, overcomes all opposition, and infallibly produces the effect intended." But how is this done ? Is it by changing the substance of the soul, or violating any of the laws of its being ? The words which immediately follow, and which are intended to explain this general proposition, con- tain the answer. " The power which the Holy Spirit puts forth in our regeneration, is such in its actings or exercise, as our minds, will, and affections are suited to be wrought upon, and to be affected by, according to their natures and natural operations. yHe doth neither act in them any otherwise than they themselves 1/ are meet to be moved and to move, to be acted and to act, according to their own nature, power, and ability. He draws us with the cords of a man, and the work itself is expressed by a persuading; ^ God persuade Japhet;" I will allure her into the wilderness and speak comfortably ',' for, as it is certainly effect- ual, so it carries no more repugnancy to our faculties than a prevalent persuasion doth." One can hardly imagine how men who use such language can be charged with holding a " physical regeneration," by which "connatural diseases of the texture of the soul" are cured. Owen proceeds to say, secondly, that the Holy Spirit " doth not in our regeneration possess the mind with any enthusiastical impressions ; but he works in the minds of men on and by their own natural actings, through an immediate BEGENERATION. 9 influence and impression of Ms power. ^ Create in me a clean heartj God/ He worketh to will and to do. Thirdly, he therefore offers no violence or compulsion to the wiU. This that ' faculty is not naturally capable to give admission unto. If it be compelled it is destroyed." And again on the next page, " The Holy Spirit, who in his power and operation is more intimate, as it were, unto the principles of our souls than they are to them- selves, doth with the preservation and in the exercise of the liberty of our wills, effectually work our regeneration and conver- sion unto God. This is the substance of what we have to plead for in this cause, and which declares the nature of this work of regeneration, as it is an inward spiritual work." Bates's view of the manner in which this change is effected, is the same with that of Owen. In the fourth volume of his works (octavo edition), page 140, he says, " The effectual operation of grace does not violate the native freedom of the will, but is congruous to it. God's drawing is by teaching : ' every one who hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me.' When the Author of the gospel is a teacher of it, the most stupid and obstinate sinners shall be convinced and obedient." Again : " God draws sinners to himself '^ with the cords of a man,' in a rational way, without violence to their faculties, and fastens, them by the bonds of love." In another place. Vol. II., page 298, he says, ^' The Holy Spirit does not work grace in us, as the sun forms gold in the earth, without any sense in ourselves of his operations : but we feel them in all our faculties congruously to their nature, enlightening the mind, exciting the conscience, turning the will, and purifying the affections." The opinions of the reformed, or Calvinistic divines of Germany and Holland, were the same on these points as those of the Calvinists of England. Turrettin, Theol. Elenct. loc. 15, quaest. 4, § 14, says, "Gratiae efficacis motio non est simpliciter physica, quia agitur de facultate morali, qua? congruenter naturae suae moveri debet ; nee simpliciter ethica, quasi Deus objective solum ageret et leni suasione uteretur, quod pertendebant Pelagiani : sed supernaturalis est et divina, quse transcendit omnia hasc genera." " Potens est, ne sit frustranea ; suavis est, ne sit coacta. Vis est summa et inexpugnabilis ut vincatur naturas corruptio et summa bene agendi impotentia ac male agendi 10 REGENERATION. necessitas : sed arnica tamen et grata, qualis naturam intelll- gentem et rationalem decet." The Synod of Dort, in order to prevent any misapprehension of their views of efficacious grace, as though it were inconsistent in its operation with the rational and moral powei's of our nature, say in reference to the fourth article in dispute between them and the Remonstrants, " Sicuti vero per lapsum homo non desiit esse homo, intellectu et voluntate prseditus, nee peccatum, quod universum genus humanum pervasit, naturam generis humani sustulit, sed depravavit et spiritualiter occidit ; ita etiam hsec divina regenerationis gratia, non agit in hominibus tanquam truncis et stipitibus, nee voluntatem ejusque proprietates tollit, aut invitam violenter cogit, sed spiritualiter, sanat, corrigit, suaviter simul et potenter flectit : ut ubi antea plene domina- natur carnis rebellio et resistentia nunc regnare incipiat prompta ac sincera spiritus obedientia ; in quo vera et spirituahs nostrae voluntatis libertas consistit." Spanheim, in his ElencK Controv. cum August. Confess. Theol. Oper. tom. iii., col. 909, after stating how nearly the views of the Lutheran divines coincided with those of Calvinists on this sub- ject, says that the difference which did exist seemed to result from a misapprehension of the Calvinistic doctrine. Supponunt precario, he says, 1. "Nos velle per gratiam insuperabilem, motionem coactam, violentam, qualis trunci, lapidis, etc. 2. Ne^ gare nos resistibilitatem gratia3 respectu naturae corruptae, et carnis Deo inimicse, qua san^ quantum in se est nimis resistit." Stapfer, in his Institut. Theol. FoUm..^ cap. iii., § 136, main- tains in unison with the common mode of speaking among Calvinists of his day, that there was in regeneration a divine illumination of the understanding, and a divine influence on the will. What he intended by these expressions he carefully explains. " Per illuminationem autem intelligimus convictionem supernaturalem veritatum revelatarum, et nexus illarum dis- tinctam repraesentationem." And this, he says, though certainly producing conviction, offers no more violence to the mind than the demonstration of a proposition in geometry. " Neque magis (are his words), hominis libertati obesse potest, ac iUi aliquid derogatur, si sole post tenebras redeunte objecta circumjacentia ipsi clare repraesentantur, aut si de veritate geometrica per illius demonstrationem convincitur." With regard to the influence EEGENERATION., 11 which operates on the will, he says, " Pono ita agit, ut homo in determinatione sua liber maneat, neque obtorto quasi coUo et invitus trahitur ; facit ut homo volens agat. Veritatem tam clare mentibus ingerit, ut non possint non assentiri, et tanta motiva voluntati suggerit, ut non possit nolle, sed fertur : Pel- lexisti me Jehova, et pellectus sum, fortior fuisti me et praeval- uisti." — Jer. xx. 7. This he asserts, over and over, is the true Calvinistic doctrine. This he does, not only in his chapters on Pelagianism and Arminianism, where he is answering precisely the same objection, which (and it is one of the wonders of the age) Calvinists are now urging against Calvinism, viz., that efficacious grace, as explained by them, is inconsistent with the nature of man as a rational and responsible creature ; but also in his chapter De Consensu et Dissensu Protestantium, and in his preliminary statement of the general truths of theology. We fear that we have already exhausted the patience of our readers, in proving a point concerning which every one acquainted with Calvinistic writers must have been satisfied before we began. We hope, however, that our labor will not be regarded as altogether unnecessary ; because when an imputation comes from a source in every way so respectable, and in fact so highly respected, the inference will be, that in sober truth old Calvinists do hold, that the texture of the soul is diseased ; that its sub- stance is changed in regeneration ; that some unknown violence to its faculties is suffered under the Spirit's influence. It is proper, therefore, that it should be shown, that the direct reverse of all this is distinctly declared by them to be their opinion ; that they profess to believe regeneration to be a moral and not a jphysical change ; and that it takes place without any violence being done to the soul or any of its laws. Our readers, too, will be led, we trust, to think with us, that there should be some- thing more than mere inferential reasoning to justify ascribing to men a set of opinions which they constantly and earnestly disclaim. We are perfectly wilHng to admit that old Calvinists, when treating on the subject of regeneration, often speak of a direct and physical influence of the Spirit on the soul. But in what sense ? In the sense in which Dr. Cox represents them as holding physical regeneration ? Far from it. He says that 12 REGENERATION. physical regenercation and physical depravity stand together. He thus uses the word as qualifying the effect produced. They use it to qualify the influence exerted in producing the effect. But what do they mean when they speak of a physical influence being exerted on the soul in regeneration ? They mean pre- cisely what we suppose Dr. Cox means, when he speaks of " the agency of the Spirit, apart from the power of the truth, which is his instrument."' — P. 27. They mean to assert that regenera- tion is not effected by mere moral suasion ; that there is some- thing more than the simple presentation of truth and urging of motives. The idea of Calvinists uniformly was, that the truth, . / however clearly presented or forcibly urged, would never produce ^ its full effect without a special influence of the Holy Spirit. This influence they maintained was supernatural, that is, above the mere moral power of the truth, and such as infallibly to secure the result, and yet, to use their own illustration, did the soul no more violence than demonstration does the intellect, or persuasion the heart. This opinion is not confined to any one class of Calvinists ; as far as we know it is common to them all. We understand Dr. Cox as teaching the same doctrine. In fact we know no Calvinist who denies it. The author of the review, in the last number of the Christian Spectator, of the strictures of Dr. Tyler on some previous articles in that work, says, " We have never called in question the doctrine of an immediate or direct agency of the Spirit on the soul in regeneration." This is all the old Calvinists intended by physical influence. That this assertion is correct is evident from the fact that they taught, as we have seen above, that this influence is perfectly " congru- ous" to the nature of the soul, doing it no more violence than, in the language of Owen, " an effectual persuasion doth ;" and that it produces no physical change in the substance of the soul or any of its faculties. Unless, therefore, we mean to interpret their language, not according to their clear and often repeated statements of their meaning, but according to the sense which a particular expression has attained among ourselves, we must admit that no part of the proof of the charge which we are considering can be made to rest on the occurrence of the phrase " physical influence," in their writings. But there is still further evidence that our assertion on this subject is correct, which is derived from the fact, that it is in controversy with REGENERATION. 13 those ;vlio taught that there was no influence beyond "moral suasion" and " common grace" exerted in regeneration, that the older writers maintained what they sometimes call a physical influence of the Spirit/ Turretin, in the passage quoted above, describing the nature of the influence exerted in regeneration, says that it is not merely a moral influence, such as the Pelagians contended for, but supernatural and divine; and immediately adds, "aliquid de ethico et physico participat," where it is plain that it is in opposition to the Pelagian doctrine that he uses this expression; precisely as Dr. Cox would do the words direct and immediate. When the Kemonstrants arose, they objected strongly to the modes of expression which had become common among the Reformed theologians on the subject of efiicacious grace. This led to a more precise statement of what their real doctrines were on this subject, and they uniformly repelled the imputations of their opponents that they taught that this influence was incon- sistent with the rational nature of the soul. They very unwill- ingly used even the word irresistible, which they said was no word of their selection, but was put upon them by the Jesuits and Remonstrants. It afterward indeed became very common ; but they tell us they intended by it nothing more than certainly efficacious. Stapfer, cap. 17, p. 540, says, in answer to such objections, when the Reformed speak of irresistible grace, " hoc volunt, ita efficaciter divinam gratiam operari, ut hominis resist- entiam infallibiliter superet, ut suasio ipsius tantsB sit efficacias ut homo non possit non velle summaque spontaneitate sequi." The necessity or certainty as to the result for which they con- tended, was none other than that for which President Edwards and all other Calvinists contend, and which is inconsistent with no other theory of liberty than that of indifierence. If any man would candidly compare one passage with another in the writings of old Calvinists, and interpret their language agreeably to the fair rules of construction, there could be no doubt as to their meaning, by physical influence, what Dr. Cox, we presume, means by an "influence apart from the truth." Charnock, in speaking on this subject, says, in the general, that the work is ' This expression, however, is by no means so common as that of " direct and immediate influence," and is so carefully guarded as to prevent any justifiable mistake as to its meaning 14 EEGENERATION. secret, yet " congruous to the essential nature of the soul." He then states more particularly, first, that there is "an immediate and supernatural work on the will :" as synonymous with this expression he on the next page uses the words " physical opera- tion." His second proposition is, that " this work, though im- *" mediate, is not compulsive and hy force." " The will heing a rational faculty cannot be wrought upon but rationally," is one of his assertions, in explanation of his idea of this immediate influence. "God who knows how to make a will with a principle of freedom, knows how to work upon the will, without intrench- ing upon or altering the essential privilege he bestowed upon it," is another. His third proposition is, that this immediate '' work " is free and gentle." " A constraint, not by force, hut love" "It is sweet and alluring: the Spirit of grace is called the oil of gladness ; it is a ready and delightful motion which it causes in the will ; it is a sweet efficacy, and an efficacious sweetness." Is this "to paralyze the soul, or to strike it through with a moral panic .^" Surely Dr. Cox will regret having made such a representation of the views of men whose opinions as to the nature of divine influence do not difter one tittle from his own. "At what time," Charnock goes on to say, "God doth savingly work upon \\\q will, to draw the soul from sin and the world to himself, it doth with the greatest willingness, freedom, and delight, follow after God, turn to him, close with him and cleave to him with all the heart, and with purpose never to depart from him. — Cant. i. 4. Draw me and we will run after thee : drawing signifies the efficacious power of grace ; running signifies the delightful motion of grace : the will is drawn, as if it would not come ; it comes, as if it were not drawn. His grace is so sweet and so strong, that he neither wrongs the liberty of his creature, nor doth prejudice his absolute power. As God moves necessary causes, necessarily ; contingent causes, contin- gently ; so he moves free agents freely, without ofiering violence to their natures. The Spirit glides into the heart by sweet illapses of grace, and victoriously allures the soul. — Hos. ii. 14. 1 will allure her, and speak to her heart ; not by crossing, but changing the inclination, by the all conquering and alluring charms of love," etc., 222. The fourth proposition is, that this ' influence is " insuperably victorious," or, in other words, irresisti- ble. In what sense is it irresistible ? Let the following BEGENERATION. 15 explanation from Chamock in this immediate connection answer, and prevent those brethren reproaching us for a word, who agree^ with us as to the thing intended. "As the demonstration of the Spirit is clear and undeniable, so the power of the Spirit is sweet and irresistible ; both are joined. — 1 Cor. ii. 4. An inexpressible sweetness allures the soul, and an unconquerable power draws the soul ; there are clear demonstrations, charming persuasions, • and invincible efficacy combined in the work. He leaves not the will in indifference. (This is what they were arguing against.) If God were the autlior of faith only by putting the will into indifi'erence, though it be determined by its own proper liberty, why may not he also be said to be the author of unbelief, if by the same liberty of indifference it be determined to reject the gospel.?" " TJiis irresistibleness takes not away the liberty of the^ will. Our Saviour's obedience was free and voluntary^ yet necessary and irresistible." " Is God not freely and voluntarily good, yet necessarily so ? He cannot be otherwise than good ; he will not be otherwise than good. So the will is irresistibly drawn, and yet doth freely; come to its own happiness." It is per- fectly evident, therefore, that nothing more was intended by this expression than what President Edwards and all other Calvinists contend for, viz., moral or philosophical necessity. Now, when it is remembered that all the expressions which we have quoted, and much more of the same import, are used in explanation of the nature of that divine influence by which regeneration is effected, we think that our readers will feel that the strongest possible evidence should be required to sustain the charge against those who use them, of holding doctrines utterly incon- sistent with their most clearly expressed opinions. We think that any candid man will acknowledge, who should take the trouble to read the writings of the older Calvinists, that they held no other doctrines on the subject of divine influence than such as are common among all classes of opposers of Arminianism. Their " supernatural " or " physical " influence meant nothing more than what is now intended by "a direct and immediate influence." Owen, whose language on this subject is as strong as that of any writer with whom we are acquainted, states clearly, as we have already seen, his belief that the influence for which he contended is perfectly " congruous to the nature of the soul." He tells us also, page 257, that it is against the Pelagian 16 REGENERATION. theory that he is arguing when he maintains that moral suasion alone does not effect our regeneration, but that there is a direct agency of the Spirit in the work, which is such " as our minds, wills, and affections, are suited to be wrought upon and affected by, according to their natures and natural operations." But if old Calvinists held such opinions (and they hold them still) on " the nature of regeneration and the mode of its occur- rence," where is the difference betw^een them and Dr. Cox ? None in the world, as far as these general statements go. His general propositions, that regeneration is a moral, and not a physical change, and that it takes place in a manner accordant to the nature of the soul, are as orthodox as Owen or Charnock could wish them. We take it for granted, however, that Dr. Cox would think we had treated him rather unhandsomely thus to convict him of old orthodoxy. We proceed, therefore, to state where the difference really lies. It is simply this. All the old Calvinists, and the great majority, we hope and believe, of the new school also, hold that the result of the Holy Spirit's opera- tion on the soul is a holy principle or disposition ; Dr. Cox says, if we understand him, that the result is a holy act. This is the whole ground of debate, and to lookers on it may appear rather too narrow to be worth disputing about. Dr. Cox, however, seems to think that this is a subject of vital importance, affecting deeply our views of the whole system of divine truth, and our manner of preaching ; involving the high questions of the grounds of man's accountability, the nature of sin and holiness, and of human liberty. And here we are sorry to say we agree with him. We are afraid that this is a turning point. We do not see how it is possible to hold together the tattered shreds of Calvinism, if this ground be assumed. Is Calvinism, then, a mere metaphysical system ? We think not. But there are some metaphysical opinions utterly inconsistent with it ; that indiffer- enrce is necessary to the freedom of the will is one, and that l^orality consists in acts only, we fear, is another. All the grounds that we have for supposing that Dr. Cox holds this latter opinion, is found in the pamphlet under review. And even here it is not distinctly asserted ; but it seems to be con- stantly impHed, and to be the foundation of all that is peculiar in the sermon or introduction. The principle assumed is, that there is nothing in the soul but its substance, with its essential REGENERATION. 17 attributes, and its acts. Therefore, if regeneration be not a change in its acts, it must be a change in its substance. If sin be not an act, then it is a substance, " an entity,'' " a disease of the texture of the soul." This, we take it, is the ground of the imputation that Calvinists believe in physical depravity and physical regeneration ; for if this principle be not assumed, there is not even the slender and insufficient ground of these doctrines being deducible, in the author's opinion, from Calvin- istic principles, to justify the charge. Besides, every one knows that this is the ground upDn which this charge has been made before, in a manner far more offensive and unfair than Dr. Cox is capable of making it. It is on this ground, also, we presume, that Dr. Cox maintains that the soul is as active in regeneration, as in repentance or the exercise of faith. And it is on this ground, we suppose, that he ridicules the idea qf regeneration being the production of a holy principle in the soul, " the happy contrary," as he calls it, " of a principle of sin, which is con- created with us." This view of the doctrine of regeneration (that it is the production of a holy principle), he says, can " command the confidence of no well disciplined mind" (rather a bold assertion, by the way), and then adds, " By holy prin- ciple / mean love to God, and not anything antecedent to it ; and by love to God, I mean loving him ; and in that the subject is active." Dr. Cox, we believe, pins his faith to no man's sleeve, and is the follower of no party. His opinions are his own ; but what they are we pretend not to know, further than they are developed in this discourse. He has here brought forward the charge against many of his brethren, whom he loves, and who love him, of believing in physical depravity and physical regeneration. On what grounds he rests the charge we have no means of ascertain- ing, but from the opinions advanced in this discourse. We are anxious to show, that, as far as old Calvinists are concerned, the imputation is unfounded. And we think that we have shown, to the satisfaction of every candid reader, that these doctrines are constantly and explicitly disclaimed by this class of theolo- gians. When it is asserted, therefore, in the face of such posi- tive declarations to the contrary, that they do entertain these- opinions, it can only be on the ground that they are fair infer- ences from the principles which they avow. This, though a very 2 18 REGENERATION. improper ground for a direct imputation, is all, we are persuaded, that can exist. How Dr. Cox would endeavor to make it appear that these are fair inferences we do not know, and therefore do not wish to be considered, in our further remarks on this subject, as having reference to Dr. Cox's theological opinions any further than they are distinctly avowed in this sermon. Our object is simply this : to endeavor to show that the Calvinistic doctrine, that regeneration consists in the production of a holy habit or principle in the soul, fitting and disposing it to holy acts, is not hable to the charge here advanced. It will not be necessary to take up much time or space in proving that the doctrine of regeneration, as just stated, is that which is held by old Calvinists. Charnock, page 85, vol. li., says, " This new creation consists in gracious qualities and habits which beautify and dispose the soul to act righteously and holily." Owen says the new creation is "an habitual holy prin- ciple wrought in us by God, and bearing his image,'' or, as in the next sentence, " a divine supernatural principle of spiritual actions and operations." We prefer, however, referring to the statements of a few of the theologians of our own country, some of whom do not belong to the class which, for the sake of convenience, we have called old Calvinists. President Edwards not only admits that moral principles or habits may and must exist in the soul prior (in the order of nature) to moral action, but his whole system of practical theology, as it seems to us, rests on this foundation. The great fundamental principle of his work on the affections is this : All gracious or spiritual affections presuppose and arise from spiritual views of divine truth. These views the natural man neither has, nor can have, while he remains such. Hence arises the necessity of such a change being wrought in the state of the soul, that it can perceive the real beauty and excellence of divine things. This change consists in imparting to the soul what he calls " a new sense," or a new taste, or relish, or principle, adapted to the perception and love of spiritual excellence. Were we to attempt to exhibit all the evidence which might be adduced in proof of the fact that his views were such as we have represented, we should be obliged to quote a great part of the work just men- tioned. We refer the reader especially to what he says on the first and fourth signs of gracious affections. With regard to the REGENERATION. 19 nature of regeneration, we quote only a single passage. After having stated that the exercises of the true Christian are specific^ _ ally different from those of unsanctified men, he infers that if the exercises are different, the principle whence they proceed must be different, or there must be, "as it were, a new spiritual sense, -or a principle of new kind of perception or spiritual sensa- tion." And he hence explains why it is that " the work of the Spirit of God in regeneration is often, in Scripture, compared to giving a new sense, giving eyes to see, and ears to hear, unstop- ping the ears of the deaf, and opening the eyes of them that were born blind, and turning them from darkness unto light." The nature of this " new sense" he thus explains : " This new sense, and the new dispositions that attend it, are no new faculties^ but are new principles of nature. I use the word principles^ for the want of a word of more determinate sig- nification. By a principle of nature, in this place, I mean that foundation which is laid in nature, either old or new, for any particular kind or manner of exercise of the faculties of the soul ; or a natural habit, or foundation for action, giving a person ability and disposition to exert the faculties in exercises of such a certain kind ; so that to exert the faculties in that kind of ex- ercises, may be said to be his nature. So this new spiritual ' sense is not a new faculty of understanding, but it is a new foun- dation laid in the nature of the soul, for a new kind of exercises ; of the same faculty of understanding. So that new holy dis- position of the heart that attends this new sense, is not a new faculty of the will, but a foundation laid in the nature of the soul for a new kind of exercises of the same faculty of will. The Spirit of God, in all his operations on the minds of natural men, only moves, impresses, assists, improves, or some way acts upon natural principles, but gives no new spiritual principles." ^ We have never met with a stronger or more formal statement of the doctrine which we are endeavoring to support, than is found in this passage. And it should be considered that this is not a passing remark on the part of President Edwards, or the statement of an isolated opinion, but it is a fundamental princi- ple of his whole theology, as we understand it. Take this away, and his whole theory of original righteousness, original sin, of the nature of holiness, and the nature of sin, and of the liberty * Treatise concerning Religious Affeci^ions, pp. 231, 232. Elizabethtown edition, 1787. 20 REGENERATION. of the will, go with it. Whether his views on these subjects are correct, although the main question, is one thing, hut that he really entertained the opinion here so clearly expressed, we won- der that any man should eyer have doubted. We trust that re- spect for the memory of President Edwards, and the obligation "to interpret language according to the known and declared nature of the thing described," will prevent any one sajang, that he beheved that " this new sense" is an entity, or " this founda- tion" for moral exercises is " something inserted in the soul," " an agent within an agent," etc., etc. Dr. Belknr^ seems to teach the same doctrines as President Edwards with regard to spiritual blindness, the necessity of divine illumination prior to the exercise of any holy affections, and the nature of regeneration. In the second volume of his works, page 502, he says, " In regeneration there is a new, divine, -and holy taste begotten in the heart, by the immediate influences of the Holy Spirit." And on the opposite page, " The idea of a natural beauty supposes an internal sense, implanted by our Creator, by which the mind is capacitated to discern such kind of beauty." "And that the idea of spiritual beauty supposes an internal spiritual sense, communicated to the soul by the Spirit of Grod in the work of the new creation, is clearly illustrated and proved by a late divine, whose praise is in aU the Churches." He here refers his readers to Edwards on Eeligious Affections. Cr. Dwjght taught the same doctrine, and that clearly and definitely. In his discourse on the nature of regeneration,^ he says, " This change of heart consists in a relish for spiritual ob- jects, communicated to it by the power of the Holy Ghost." That "this relish" was antecedent, according to his view, to all holy acts, there can be no doubt, because he expressly asserts it, and because his arguments go to prove it. What he calls " a relish for spiritual objects," he elsewhere calls a holy disposition, and refers to the case of Adam for an illustration of its nature. " When Grod created Adam," he remarks, " there was a period of his existence after he began to be, antecedent to that in which he exercised the first vohtion. Every man who believes the mind to be something besides ideas and exercises, and does not admit the doctrine of casualty, will acknowledge that in this * Works, vol. ii., p. 418. BEGENERATION. 21 period the mind of Adam was in such a state, that he was pre- pense to the exercise of virtuous volitions rather than that of sinful ones. This state of mind has been commonly styled dis- position, temper, inchnation, heart, etc. In the Scriptures it usually bears the last of these names. I shall take the liberty to call it disposition. This disposition in Adam was the cause whence his virtuous volitions proceeded ; the reason why they were virtuous and not sinful. Of the metaphysical nature of this cause I am ignorant ; but its existence is, in my view, certainly proved by its effects." Again, on the same page, " In regenera- tion, the very same thing is done by the Spirit of Grod for the soul, which was done for Adam by the same Divine Agent at his creation. The soul of Adam was created with a relish for spirit- ual objects. The soul of every man who becomes a Christian is renewed by the communication of the same relish. In Adam this disposition produced virtuous volitions. In every child of Adam, who becomes the subject of virtue, it produces the same effects.'' The same idea is expressed, if possible, even more formally in the same volume, page 451, where, among other things equally explicit, he says that by this disposition he in- tends " the cause, which in the mind of man produces all vir- tuous affections and volitions." The same doctrine is repeatedly taught in other passages of his works, as in the sermons on the Probation of Man, vol. i., 394, on the Fall, 410, 413, on Deprav- ity as derived from Adam, etc. From various passages which occur in the pamphlet of Dr. Xyler, already mentioned, we infer that he holds the same doc- trine. The same principle (that moral disposition may exist an- tecedently to all moral acts) is also frequently and clearly asserted by Dr. Woods, of Andover, in his controversy with Dr. Ware. We refer to the opinions of these distinguished men, to show how united Calvinists, old and new, are in their views on this point, and that if the charge of believing in physical de- pravity and physical regeneration be sustained, it lies on almost the whole Calvinistic, and indeed on the whole Christian world. StiU the main question recurs — is the charge well founded ? The main principle, as before stated, which is assumed by those who make this charge is, that we can only regard the soul as to its substance on the one hand, and its actions on the other. If, therefore, there be any change wrought in the soul other than 22 REGENEKATION. of its acts, it must be a physical change. And if any tendency, either to sin or holiness, exist prior to choice, it is a positive ex- istence, a real entity. Thus the charge of physical depravity and physical regeneration is fairly made out. We are constrained to confess, that if the premises are correct, the conclusions, re- volting as they are, and affecting, as they do, the fair names of so large a portion of the Christian church, are valid. The prin- ciple itself, however, we believe to be a gratuitous assumption. It is inconsistent with the common, and as we believe, correct idea of habits, both connatural and acquired. The word habit (habitus) was used by the old writers precisely in the same sense as " principle" by President Edwards, as explained above, or disposition, as used and explained by President Dwight. That there are such habits or dispositions which can be resolved neither into " essential attributes" nor " acts," we maintain to be the common judgment of mankind. Let us take for illustration an instance of an acquired habit of the lowest kind, the skill of an artist. He has a soul with the same essential attributes as other men ; his body is composed of the same materials ; and the same law regulates the obedience of his muscular actions to his mind. By constant practice he has acquired what is usually denomi- nated skill ; an ability to go through the processes of his art, with greater facility, exactness, and success than ordinary men. Take this man while asleep or engaged in any indifferent occupa- tion, you have a soul and body not differing in any of their essential attributes from those of other men. Still there is a difference. What is it ? Must it be either " a real existence, an entity," an act or nothing ? It cannot be " an entity," for it is acquired, and it will hardly be maintained that a man can acquire a new essential attribute. Neither is it an act, for the man has his skill when it is not exercised. Yet there is certainly " something" which is the ground of certainty, that when called to go through the peculiar business of his art, he will do it with an ease and rapidity impossible for common men. It is as impos- sible not to admit that this ground or reason exists, in order to account for the effect, as it is not to admit the existence of the soul to account for its exercises. By constant practice, a state of mind and body has been produced adapted to secure these re- sults, and which accounts for their character. But this is the definition of principle or habit as given above. A single circum- I REGENERATION. 23 stance is here wanting which is found in other " habits," and that is, there is not the tendency or proneness to those particular acts to which this state of mind is adapted. This difference, however, arises not from any difference in the " habits" them- selves, but from the nature of the faculties in which, so to speak, they inhere. A principle in the will (in its largest sense, includ- ing all the active powers), is not only a state of mind adapted to certain acts, but prone to produce them. This is not the case, at least to the same degree, with intellectual habits. Both classes, however, come within the definition given by President Edwards and Dr. Dwight — " a state of mind," or " foundation for any particular kind of exercise of the faculties of the soul." The same remarks may be made with regard to habits of a more purely intellectual character. A man, by devoting him- self to any particular pursuit, gradually acquires a facihty in putting forth the mental exercises which it requires. This im- plies no change of essence in the soul ; and it is not merely an act, which is the result of this practice. The result, whatever it is, is an attribute of the man under all circumstances, and not merely when engaged in the exercises whence the habit was acquired. But to come nearer to the case in hand. We say a man has a malignant disposition, or an amiable disposition. What is to be understood by these expressions ? Is it merely that he often in- dulges malignant or amiable feelings ? or is it not rather that there is an habitual proneness or tendency to their indulgence ? Surely the latter. But, if so, the principle stated above, that we can regard the soul only as to its substance or its actions, cannot be correct. For the result of a repetition of acts of the same kind is an abiding tendency, which is itself neither an act (emmanent or immanent) nor an " entity." Here, then, is the soul with its essential attributes, and habitual tendency to cer- tain exercises, and the exercises themselves. The tendency is not an act, nor an active state of the feelings in question ; for it would be a contradiction to say that a man whose heart was glowing with parental affection, or filled for the time with any other amiable feeling, had at the same moment the malignant feelings in an active state, although there might exist the great- est proneness to their exercise. We have seen no analysis of such dispositions which satisfies us that they can be reduced to 24 REGENERATION. acts. For it is essential to the nature of an act that it should be a matter of consciousness. This is true of those which are im- manent acts of the will, or ultimate choices (by which a fixed state of the affections is meant to be expressed), as well as of all others. But a disposition or principle, as explained above, is not a, matter of consciousness. A man may be aware that he has a certain disposition, as he is aware of the existence of his soul, from the consciousness of its acts, but the disposition itself is not a subject of direct consciousness. It exists when the man is asleep or in a swoon, and unconscious of anything. Neither can these habits be with any propriety called a choice, or permanent affection. For in many cases they are a mere proneness to acts which have their foundation in a constitutional principle of the mind. Our object at present is merely to show, that we must admit that there are mental habits which cannot be resolved either into essential attributes of the soul, fixed preferences, or subordinate acts ; and consequently, that those who believe in dispositions, prior to all acts, do not necessarily maintain that such dispositions are of the essence of the soul itself If it be within the compass of the divine power to produce in us that, which by constant exercise we can produce in ourselves, then a holy principle or habit may be the result of the Spirit's in- fluence in regeneration, without any physical change having been wrought. But it is not only objected, that regeneration is a physical change, if anything bej^ond a change in the exercises of the soul \/ is effected ; but it is said, that the thing contended for is utterly unintelligible, incapable of definition or explanation. We are ready to acknowledge that it admits of no other explanation than that which is derived from statino; its effects, and referrinsr to cases of analogous kind. There is in all men a social princi- ple, as it is called, which is something else than a desire to live in society, because it is connatural, as may be inferred from its ^ universality ; there is a tendency in all men to love their chil- dren, which is something besides loving them ; there is a tendency in man also to sympathize in the sufferings of others, etc. It may be said these are all constitutional tendencies implanted in our nature. This is very true ; but does saying this enable us to understand their nature ? May it not be objected to those who employ this language, You are using words without meaning ; REGENEEATION. 25 what do you know of a social principle distinct from the actual desire to live in society, or prior to its exercise ? What idea can you form of a principle of self-love, excepting actually loving one's-self ? Are we then to deny that there are any such orig- inal propensities or tendencies as these implanted in our nature, because we cannot directly conceive of them ? Yet Dr. Cox says, in reference to this subject, " By holy principle, / mean love to God, and by love to Grod I mean actually loving him." On the same principle, he might deny the existence of any of the original dispositions or tendencies of the soul. For they are as incapable of being defined, as the holy principle which is pro- duced in regeneration. The soul itself is in the same predica- ment. We know nothing of it but from our consciousness of its acts. And if the objection which we are now considering be valid against the existence of principles prior to acts, then it is valid against the existence of the soul. We are conscious only of its exercises ; and therefore some philosophers and theologians tell us we are not authorized to go any further. The existence of a substance apart from the exercises is not necessary to ac- count for their existence, and therefore is a gratuitous assump- tion. An assumption, too, of the being of something which we are incapable of defining, explaining, or even conceiving. The reply which Dr. Cox would make to this reasoning, is probably the same that we should be disposed to make to his objection against the existence of holy principles prior to holy acts. For the mind as instinctively seeks a reason lor the choice which the. soul makes in loving God, as it does for the various ideas and ex- ercises of which it is constantly conscious. And we should pro- bably beas little satisfied with the reasons which Dr. Cox could assign to account for this choice, as he would be with those of the defenders of the exercise scheme to account for these exer- cises without resorting to a thinking substance. If he were to say, that the efiect is produced by the Holy Spirit, we should answer that this can only be done in one of three ways that we can conceive of. First, either by his direct agency producing the choice, in which case it would be no act of ours ; or, secondly, by addressing such motives to our constitutional and natural princi- ple of self4QV6 as should induce us to make the choice, in which case there would be no morality in the act ; or, thirdly] by pro- ducinor such a relish for the divine character, that the soul as 26 REGENERATION. spontaneously and immediately embraces God as its portion, as it rejoices in the perception of beauty. The thing contended for is not more unintelligible than a hundred things of like nature. Taste is the ready perception and quick feeling of natural beauty. That is, these are its effects. But no one can directly conceive of it, as it is an attribute of the mind, either original or acquired. It is absolutely certain, however, that the man who does thus readily perceive and feel the beauty of natural objects, has a quality of mind which a clown does not possess. And we should be astonished to hear any one maintain that there was no such thing as taste, but the exercise. " By taste I mean the love of beauty, and by love of beauty I mean actually loving it, and that is an act and not a principle.'' But why does one man see and feel a beauty in certain objects, when others do not ? Is there no difference between the clown and the man of refinement, but in their acts .^ Is any man satisfied by being told that one delights in beauty, and the other does not ; that it is in vain to ask why ; the fact is enough, and the fact is all ; there is no dif- ference in the state of their minds antecedent to their acts ; there can be no such thing as a principle of taste, or sense of beauty, distinct from the actual love of beauty ? We are dis- posed to think that no man can believe this : that the constitu- tion of our nature forces us to admit, that if one man, under all circumstances, and at all times, manifest this quick sensibility to natural beauty, and another does not, there is some difference between the two besides their acts ; that there is some reason why, when standing before the same picture, one is filled with pleasure, and the other is utterly insensible, We cannot help believing that one has taste (a quality, principle, " or inward sense") which the other does not possess. It matters not what it may be called. It is the ground or reason of the diversity of their exercises, which lies back of the exercises themselves, and must be assumed to account for the difference of their nature. Now, there is moral, as well as natural beauty, and it is no more unintelligible that there should be a " sense,'' or taste, for the one than for the other. The perfect character of Grod, when ex- hibited to different men, produces delight and desire in some, repugnance in others. We instinctively ask why ? Why do some perceive and delight in his moral beauty, while others do not ? The answer, some love, and others do not, is no answer at REGENERATION. 27 all. It is merely saying the same thing, in other words. There must be some reason why one perceives this kind of beauty, to which others are blind ; why one is filled with love the moment it is presented, and the other with repugnance. And this reason must lie back of the mere exercise of this affection, must be something besides the act itself, and such as can account for its nature. It may be said, however, that the cases are not analogous ; that the emotion excited by beauty is involuntary, while moral objects address themselves to the voluntary affections ; and that it is admitted, that there is not only " something"" back of each exercise of love, but we are told distinctly what it is, viz., the soul with its essential attributes, its ultimate or supreme choice, or dominant affection, and the object in view of the mind. Ac- cordingly, it is easily accounted for, that, when the character of Grod is presented, one man is filled with love, another with re- pugnance. The reason of the difference in these acts does indeed lie back of the acts themselves ; for it is found in the ultimate or supreme choice of the different individuals. But how is this to be accounted for ? If there is no necessity for accounting for the particular character of the first or ultimate choice (if so it must needs be called), there is no need of accounting for the others. The difficulty is not at all met by this statement. It is only pushed back, from the secondary and subordinate, to the primary and dominant preference. There it returns. The ques- tion still is, why does the soul of one man make this supreme choice of Grod, or, in other words, love him, while another sets his affection on the world ? There is precisely the same neces- sity for assuming some ground or reason for the nature of the first choice, as for any acts subordinate and subsequent to it. Let us suppose two individuals called into existence, in the full maturity of their faculties ; each has a soul with the same con- stitutional powers, or essential attributes ; the one is filled with delight the moment the character of God is presented, and the other is not ; or the one loves his Maker as soon as the idea of his excellence is presented, the other does not. According to this theory, there is no reason for this difference. There is noth- ing back of the first act of choice that is not common to both. If, instead of two individuals, we suppose two millions, one por- tion having their affections spontaneously called forth on their i^ 28 REGENERATION. first view of their Maker, the other unaffected ; we have only a greater number of effects without a cause, but the case is the same. It will not do to answer, that the choice is made under the influence of the desire of happiness, for this being common to all, is no reason for the difference of the result, which is the very thing to be accounted for. To say that the choice is made under the influence of the desire of happiness, is only to say, that when the character of God is presented it gives pleasure. But the same character is presented in both cases, the same desire exists in both, yet in one it gives pleasure, is an object of desire ; in the other not. This is the fact which is left entirely unac- counted for on the theory in question, and for which the mind as instinctively seeks a cause, as it does for any other effect. To account for the difference from the nature of agency, is to assume the liberty of indifference. For if the choice be made prior to the rising of desire towards the object, then it is made in indiffer- ence, and is of no moral character. If the desire rise, it is love ; which is the very thing to be accounted for. We are at a loss to see how this theory is to be reconciled with the Calvinists' doc- trine on the will, which is not peculiar to Edwards, but consti- tuted the great dividing line between Calvinists and Arminians from the beginning. We feel, therefore, a necessity for assum- ing that there is " something'^ back of the first moral act, be- sides the soul and its essential attributes, which will account for the nature of that act, which constitutes the reason why, in the case supposed, the soul of the one individual rose immediately to God, and the other did not ; and the ^' something" assumed iw this case is no more indefinite and undefineable, than the con- stitutional propensity to live in society, to love our children, or the mental quality called taste, aD. which are assumed from a necessity not more imperative than that which requires a holy principle to account for the delight experienced in view of the character of God. And if our Maker can endow us not only with the general susceptibility of love, but also with a specific dispo- sition to love our children ; if he can give us a discernment and susceptibility of natural beauty, he may give us a taste for spirit- ual lovehness. And if that taste, by reason of sin, is vitiated and perverted, he may restore it by the influences of his Spirit in re- generation. Neither, therefore, the objection, that what is not an act, must be an essential attribute ; nor the unintelligible REGENERATION. 2& nature of a " principle of nature," is, in our view, any valid ob- jection to tlie common doctrine on regeneration. There is a third objection, however, to this doctrine, and that is, that it renders the sinner excusable, because it makes regen- eration to consist in something else than the sinner's own act. This objection, as it seems to us, can only be valid on one or the othej* of two grounds ; the first is, that the common doctrine supposes sin to be a physical defect, and regeneration physical change ; and the second is, that a man is responsible solely for his acts, or that there can be no moral principle anterior to moral action. With regard to the first, it is enough to say, that no physical change, according to the constant declaration of Calvinistic writers, is held to take place in regeneration, and that no such change is implied in the production of a holy principle, as we have already endeavored to show. The second ground is inconsistent with the common notions of • men on the nature of virtue, and, if true, would render the com- mencement of holiness or regeneration impossible. It is accord- ing to the universal feeling and judgment of men, that the moral character of an act depends upon the motive with which it is done. This is so obviously true, that Ileid. and Stewart, \ and almost all other advocates of the liberty of indifi'erence, readily admit it. And so do the advocates of the theory on which this objection is founded, with regard to all moral acts, excepting the first. All acts of choice, to be holy, must proceed from a holy motive, excepting the first holy choice w^hich con- stitutes regeneration ; that may be made from the mere desire of happiness or self-love. We confess that this strikes us as very much like a relinquishment of the whole system. For how is it conceivable that anything should be essential to the very nature of one act as holy, that is not necessary to another ? Is not this saying that that on which the very nature of a thing depends may be absent, and yet the thing remain the same ? Is it not saying that that which makes an act what it is, and gives it its character, may be wanting or altered, and yet the character of the act be unafiected ? It is the motive which gives the morale ^ character to the act. If the motive is good, the act is good ; if the motive is bad, the act is bad ; if the motive is indifferent, so ■ is the act. The act has no character apart from the motive. , This, it seems, is admitted with regard to all moral acts except- i\ 30 REGENERATION. ing the first. But the first act of a holy kind is an act of obedience, as well as all subsequent acts of the same kind. How then is it conceivable that the first act of obedience performed from the mere desire of happiness or self-love can be holy, when no other act of the same kind, and performed from the same motive, either is or can be ? How does its being first alter its very nature ? It is still nothing more than an act done for self- gratification, and cannot be a holy act. It is said we must admit this, from the necessity of the case, or acknowledge that there can be holiness before moral action. We prefer admitting the latter, and believing that " God created man upright/' and not that he made himself so. That there was a disposition, or relish, or taste for holiness, before there was any holy act, which to us is far more reasonable than that an act is holy because the first of a series, which, if performed from the same motive at a differ- ent point of the line, would have a difierent character. The grand objection, we know, that is made to all this is, that holy beings have fallen, which it is maintained would be impossible if the ground here assumed is correct. If the character of an act depends on its motive, a sinful act cannot be performed by a being in whom sin does not already exist ; and, consequently, neither the fallen angels, nor Adam, could ever have apostatized. We think, however, that there is a broad difierence between the commencement of holiness and the commencement of sin, and that more is necessary for the former than for the latter. An act of obedience, if it is performed under the mere impulse of self-love, is virtually no act of obedience. It is not performed with any intention to obey, for that is holy, and cannot, according to the theory, precede the act. But an act of disobedience performed from the desire of happiness is rebellion. The cases are surely widely difierent. If to please myself I do what God commands, it is not holiness ; but if to please myself I do what he forbids, it is sin. Besides no creature is immutable. Though created holy, the taste for holy enjoyments may be overcome by a temp- tation sufficiently insidious and powerful, and a selfish motive or feeling excited in the mind. Neither is a sinful character im- mutable. By the power of the Holy Spirit the truth may be so clearly presented, and so effectually applied, as to produce that change which is called regeneration ; that is, as to call into REGENERATION. 31 existence a taste for holiness, so that it is chosen for its own sake, and not merely as a means of happiness. It is evident, therefore, that the theory which denies the possibility of moral distinctions being carried back of acts of choice, forces its advocates to adopt the opinion that the first holy act is specifically difierent from all others. That Adam was not created holy, but by choosing Grod, made himself holy, and that this choice, though made with no holy motive or intention, but merely from a desire of happiness, has a moral character. This we think not only contradictory to the express declaration of Scripture, which says that man was created in the image of his Maker (which includes his moral as well as his natural image, as we are taught in the New Testament), but is inconsistent with the very first principles of morals, as it teaches that an act performed without any good intention or motive, is yet holy. It seems to us liable, also, to this further objection, that it repre- sents man's obligation to love God, to rest upon the fact that it will promote his happiness. This is involved in the principle, that the choice made from this motive is a good choice ; for it can only be good as it is in obedience to a moral obligation. If the obligation fulfilled is to God, then to fulfil it must be the motive. If the motive which prompts the choice have reference to himself, then the only obligation which he fulfils, is to himself. It is a wise decision, but it is no holy act. K it be said that the excellence of the choice lies in the nature of the object chosen, it is giving up the question. For if the excellence of the object be the ground of the choice, it can act as a motive only by exciting a desire for it as excellent, which must needs be a holy desire, and if this determines the choice, then the man is holy before he chooses God as his portion, and the choice is the result, and not the cause of his holiness. Or, if we call the desire itself the choice (which is an incorrect use of terms), still the case is the same. For the best definition that can be given of a holy being is, that holy objects excite in him desire as soon as they are presented. If Adam, therefore, was filled with desire and pleas- ure, as soon as his mind rested on the character of God, then he was created holy. As we remarked above, this theory, that the first moral act is not performed from a holy motive, but from the constitutional desire of happiness, is not only inconsistent with the nature of a holy act, but affords no relief in the case. V 32 REGENERATION. For the difficulty still remains, why the character of God should appear desirable to one being, and not to another, if both are called into existence in puris naturalihus. That Adam was created holy, that is, with a holy disposition, which existed prior to his first holy act, though necessarily de- structive of the very first principle of the theory referred to, has been considered as a fixed point among Calvinists. We have already seen that Dr. Dwight did not think it necessary to prove it. Because, he says, " every man who believes the mind to be something more than ideas and exercises, and does not admit the doctrine of causalty, will acknowledge" it. President Edwards, in his work on original sin, has a whole chapter, in which he endeavors to prove that our first parents we're created in right- eousness, or, as he expresses it, " with holy principles and dispositions." The grand objection against this doctrine, lie says, is this : "that it is utterly inconsistent with the nature of virtue, that it should be concreated with any person : because, if so, it must be by an act of God's absolute power, without our knowledge or concurrence ; and that moral virtue, in its very nature, implieth tlie choice and consent of the moral agent, without which it cannot be virtue and holiness : that a necessary, holiness is no holiness ;" and he quotes from Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, the words, " Adam must exist, he must be created, yea, he must exercise thought and reflection before he was right- eous." To this he replies, " In the first place, I think it a contradiction to the nature of things, as judged of by the common sense of mankind. It is agreeable to the sense of the minds of men in all ages, not only that the fruit or effect of a good choice is virtuous, but the good choice itself, from which that effect proceeds ; yea, and not only so, but also the antece- dent good disposition, temper, or affection of the mind from whence proceeds that good choice, is virtuous. This is the general notion, not that principles derive their goodness from actions, but that actions derive their goodness from the principles whence they proceed ; and so that the act of choosing that which is good, is no further virtuous than it proceeds from a good principle, or virtuous disposition of mind ; which supposes, that a virtuous disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of choice ; and that, therefore, it is not necessary that there should first be thought, reflection, and choice, before there can be REGENERATION. 83 any virtuous disposition. If the choice be first, before the exist- ence of a good disposition of heart, what signifies that choice ?— There can, according to our natural notions, be no virtue in a choice which proceeds from no virtuous principle, but from mere self-love, ambition, or some animal appetite." — P. 140. If there was a holy disposition before there was " thought, reflection, or choice," Edwards most assuredly carried moral distinctions back of moral acts. That by so doing he carried them into the "essential attributes of tlie soul," is an assertion founded on the assumption that what is not an act must be an essential attribute, which we believe few are prepared to admit. God has created man with various susceptibilities, dispositions, or tendencies of mind towards objects without himself; these tendencies are not necessarily "real existences, entities," or essential attributes, for tendencies or habits may, as before remarked, be acquired, as the skill of an artist, or a proneness to any particular mental exercise. They may result from the relative state of all the essential attri- butes, and yet be "no part of the soul" themselves. Their nature, however, is confessedly as inconceivable as the nature of the soul, and no more so ; and they are as necessarily assumed to account for the results which meet our view, as the soul or any of its attributes. If a million of intelligent beings, the first moment they think of the character of God, are filled with desire and delight, it is as evident that they were created with a proneness or disposition to take pleasure in holiness, as it is that the hearts of mothers have an innate tendency to love their children, because they glow with delight the first moment they are given to them. Nothing, we think, but the most determined adher- ence to a speculative opinion, can prevent any man acknowledg- ing that it is as possible for the mind to be created with this "instinctive" love of holiness, as with a disposition for any other specific class of objects. And we think, too, that the vast body of men wiU agree with President Edwards in thinking that "such a disposition being natural, or from a kind of instinct, implanted in the mind in its creation," is no objection to its being of a virtuous or moral character. Does the maternal instinct cease to be amiable, because it is natural ? Does a disposition to kindness and gentleness lose its character by being innate ? Are not the instinctive love of justice, abhorrence of cruelty, admiration of what is noble, which God has implanted 34 REGENERATION. - in our nature, objects of approbation ? If our feelings and the general sense of mankind answer these questions in the affirma- tive, they as certainly will decide that an innate disposition to love God, existing in the mind of Adam at the moment of his creation, does not lose its moral character by being innate. The common feelings and judgment of men, therefore, do carry moral distinctions back of acts of choice, and must do so unless we deny that virtue ever can commence, for "there can, according to our natural notions, be no virtue in a choice which proceeds from no virtuous principle, but from mere self-love." If this be so, the very foundation of the objection that the common doctrine of regeneration destroys the responsibility of the sinner is taken away. This responsibility rests upon the fact, that he stands in the relation of a rational and moral creature to God. He has all the attributes of a moral agent — understand- ing, conscience, and will. He has unimpaired the liberty of acting according to his own inclinations. His mind is not subject to any law of causation, which determines his acts independently of himself. Motives, as external to the mind, have no influence, but as the mind itself, according to the laws of all rational creation, is affected by them and voluntarily admits their influence, and yields to it. The responsibility of man, therefore, resting on the immutable obligations which bind him to love and obey God, and on the possession of all the attributes of moral agency, is not destroyed by his moral deprav- ity, of which the want of a disposition to holiness is an integral part. He does not love God, not because there is any physical defect in his constitution, but because his moral taste is perverted by reason of sin. He is so corrupt that even infinite loveliness appears hateful to him. There can, in the nature of things, be no reason why an intelligent and moral being should be blind to moral excellence, excepting moral corruption. And if this be an excuse, then the more depraved, the less he is to blame. How he became thus depraved is another question, — but it has nothing to do with the point before us, which is, the nature of the inability which it involves to love God. He may have been born 80, or, he may have made himself so. It makes no difference as to this point. So long as this depravity is his own, his own moral character, it can furnish no excuse or palliation for not complying with the great command of the law and gospel. An REGENERATION. 35 object wortliy of all aiFection is presented to his view, viz., the divine character ; he is capable of intellectually apprehending this object. If blind to its loveliness, it is, in his own judgment and that of all men, his sin ; it is the very height of corruption to view as unlovely what is the perfection of moral beauty. That men do labor under this moral blindness, is one of the most frequently asserted doctrines of the Scriptures. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." " These things," says our Saviour, " will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor me." "To know God is eternal life." We are said to be saved through knowledge. The gospel is "hid to them that are lost." Their eyes are blinded. Light has shined into the hearts of those that believe. The saints of old prayed to have their minds illuminated ; and Paul intercedes for his fellow Christians earnestly and frequently for this blessing, as the only possible means of their sanctification. This is so plain, that President r/fidwards, in speaking on this subject, says, "There is such a thing, if the Scriptures are of any use to teach us anything, as a spiritual, supernatural understanding of divine things that is peculiar to the saints, and which those who are not saints know nothing of," — P. 298, On the Affections, The cause of this blindness is sin, and therefore it is inexcusable. But if it exists, there is an evident necessity for such a change in the soul, that it shall be brought to see this beauty of holiness, and from the constitution of our nature, this change must precede the exercise of love. For how can we love that which we do not see. The affections must have an object, and that object must be appre- hended in its true nature, in order to be truly loved. It is obvious, therefore, that regeneration, to be of a moral character at all, must consist in such a change as brings the soul into a state to see and love the beauty of holiness. It matters not what the change be called — a " spiritual sense," or "a taste," or " dis- position ;" it is as necessary as that an object should be seen in order to be loved. Now it is evident that all this must be denied by those who make regeneration to consist in the "act of loving God," who deny that there is any change prior in the order of nature to the exercise of love. For if the sinner is blind to God's loveliness. 36 REGENERATION. it is absolutely impossible that be should love it, until be is brougbt to see it. It may be said, that this is to render tbe sinner's case absolutely bopeless. §o it is. ^And thej_do_but delude and mock bim, who represent it otherwise. It is thus" the Bible represents it. It tells him that the natural man can- not know the things of the Spirit of God. And it is moreover necessary, that the sinner should be brought to feel that his case, as far as he himself is concerned, is absolutely hopeless ; that he may be brought to faU, with his blind and wicked heart, at the feet of sovereign mercy, and cry. Lord save me ! or I perish. But does this make the sinner excusable ? not unless his sin is his excuse. It is this, and this alone, which prevents his percep- tion of the loveliness of God, and therefore, the more complete his blindness, the greater his loathsomeness and guilt. The two sentiments of complete helplessness, and of entire blame-worthi- ness, are perfectly consistent, and are ever united in Christian experience. The believer feels them every day. He knows that it is his duty, at once, to love God as purely, and fervently, and constantly, as do the saints made perfect. Yet he feels that no mere eftbrts of his own, no use of means, no presentation of motives, no summoning of his powers, will ever enable him to raise his carnal heart to heaven. Does this free him from a sense of guilt ? No. He covers his face with both his hands, and bows down in the dust, and cries, Behold, I am vile, i Have mercy on me, Lord, and create within me a clean heart. That the denial of the sinner's blindness to the holiness of God, is involved in the theory of regeneration under considera- tion, is perfectly evident, and is not, we presume, denied. If the mere choice of God, as the supreme portion of the soul, is re- generation, and the performance of this act constitutes the change, then of course no previous change is admitted to be necessary to enable him to make the choice ; no opening of his eyes to see the moral excellence of the object he is to choose, no production of any sense of its loveliness ; the choice itself is all that is demanded ; and for this, everything is present that the act requires^ — the object, the capacity of viewing it in its true moral excellence, and the motive whence the choice is to proceed. For lie need not choose God from any holy motive or intention (which would be to make holiness precede moral action) : the simple de- sire of happiness is all that is required. The character of this BEGENERATION. 37 first act does not depend on its motive. .It is holy^ though per- formed merely from the desire of self-gratification. This is a conclusion from which our minds instinctively revolt, and which, Edwards says, is contrary to the notions of men. It is, however, a conclusion which is legitimate and acknowledged, and being, in our view, a complete reductio ad ahsurdum, the system is fairly, in our humble apprehension, felo de se. Dr. Cox asks whether it is nofc " intrinsically absurd" that a man should be regenerated before he does his duty ? We think the absurdity is all the other way, that he should do his duty without being regenerated. That he should love God without having any proper perception of his character ; or that an unholy soul should have this perception of the beauty of holiness. It ap- pears to us a contradiction in terms to say, that a holy object can be viewed as excellent and desirable by a carnal mind ; for a holy mind is best defined by saying, that it perceives and relishes the beauty of holiness. It is inconceivable to us, therefore, that any sinner should love God, without this previous change, except on one or the other of these two grounds ; that all his acts are created in him, and he is really no agent at all, or that an act proceeding from mere self-love is holy. Both which contradict what to us are primary principles or intuitive truths. But how is it that regene- ration precedes the exercise of love ? As the opening of the eyes precedes sight ; as a sense of the beautiful precedes the emotion of beauty ; as the maternal instinct precedes maternal love. As it is impossible for a man to have his eyes open in the day-time without seeing, so is it impossible for a man to be regenerated without delighting in God. Yet opening the eyes is not seeing, nor is regeneration delighting in God. What the metaphysical nature of this change is, no one can tell. All the soul can say is, Whereas I was blind, now I see. What once appeared repul- sive and "foolishness," now appears supremely desirable and excellent. What once excited enmity, now calls forth love. What once was irksome and difficult, is now easy and delightful. To say that these exercises themselves constitute the change, and the whole change, is to say that a wicked man is suddenly transformed in all his views, feelings, and conduct, without any reason for it. And to refer all to the immediate opera- tions of the Spirit, is to make man a machine, or mere in- strument, on which a mysterious hand plays what tune it 38 REGENERATION. pleases, to the delight or torment of the conscious but passive subject. There is still another point. Dr. Cox speaks of this " certain kind of principle/' as " a mysterious gratuity/' with which the receiver has nothing to do. A something inserted in the soul in some magic manner to influence his exercises, but which forms no part of his character. We are persuaded that a fundamental difference, as to the nature of agency and human liberty, lies at the foundation of all such objections. We are as yet only fight- ing in the dark. The real turning point is yet in the background. We do not mean that it is intentionally kept there, but that these objections have not even the semblance of force, if (what is yet considered common ground) the Calvinistic theory of the will is retained. Was it a mere "mysterious gratuity," without moral character for him, that Adam was created in the image of God " with holy principles and dispositions ?'' Were these not voluntary principles ? Was he not free in all his exercises of love determined by them ? A disposition is not the less voluntary because it is innate. The affections are all voluntary, although concreated with us. Is a man less free in loving him- self because self-love is a constitutional propensity ? Does a mother love her child against her will, because she acts agreeably to her nature ? Does not the disposition so to do enter into her character ? If this be true with regard even to constitutional propensities, it is still more obviously true with respect to moral disposition, whether originally implanted or restored in regenera- tion. There is a continual play upon the double sense of the word voluntary. When the faculties of the soul are reduced to understanding and will, it is evident that the latter includes all the affections. In this sense, all liking or disliking, desiring or being averse to, etc., are voluntary, or acts of the will. But when we speak of the understanding, will, and affections, the word " will" includes much less. It is the power of the soul to come to a determination, to fix its choice on some object of desire. These two meanings are distinct, though they may relate only to different states of the same faculty. In the latter sense, will and desire are not always coincident. A man may desire money and not will to take it, or make it an object of pursuit ; he may not ^ his choice upon it. The will is here determined by some other desire of greater force ; desire of doing right, for example. REGENERATION. 39 When we speak of a volition, of a choice, of a decision or deter- mination of the will, the word ^' will" is used in the restricted sense. A man may have many objects of desire before his mindp the decision which the will makes among them, or its selection, is its choice. There are a thousand things capable of ministering to our happiness ; riches, honor, sensual i)leasure, the service of God ; the selection which the soul makes, is made by the will in the narrower sense. This is a voluntary act, in one sense of the term. But in another, the desire itself which the soul has for these objects, and not merely its decision or choice, is a voluntary act. For, according to Edwards, " all choosing, refusing, ap- proving, disapproving, liking, disliking, directing, commanding, inclining, or being averse, a being pleased, or displeased with," are acts of the will. In this sense, all the affections, and all de- sires are voluntary exercises, whether constitutional or not, and not merely the decision to which they lead. Hence self-love, the love of children, the love of society, the desire of esteem, are all voluntary, although all springing from native tendencies of the mind. This distinction between these different senses of the word will, although frequently made, and formally stated, is yet, time after time, lost sight of in discussions of this nature ; which gives rise to endless confusion. The word is often used in one sense in the premises of an argument, and in the other in the conclusion. How often is it said that a man can love God if he will ? What does this mean ? If will be here used in its nar- rower sense, this is not true. The affections no more obey a de- termination of the mind, than the emotions do. A man can no more will to love, to hate, to be pleased or displeased, than he can will to be joyful or sorrowful, gay or sad, or even hot or cold at any given moment. But if the word be taken in its larger sense, as including the affections, then the proposition is identi- cal ; it is saying, a man can love God if he does love God. And when Dr. Cox says there are some men who teach that a man has no ability to believe, even if he has the inclination ; the very statement is absurd. For if the mind is inclined to embrace the truth in its real character, it does believe. Although the advocates of the theory, that morality at- taches only to acts of choice, lay down as the foundation of their doctrine Edwards' definition of the will as given above, yet it is 40 REGENERATION. plain that in a multitude of cases they confine acts of choice to acts of the will in the restricted sense. Thus the desire of money becomes avarice, they say, only when the will comes in and de- cides on money as the main object of pursuit. Self-esteem is not pride, until the will decides on preferring our own claims un- duly. In all such cases it is the will, as the facultj^ of decision be- tween different objects of desire, that is intended. It is to acts of the will in this restricted sense, and to the states of mind thence resulting, and not to voluntary acts in the broad sense of President Edwards, that morality is made to attach. Hence, in the case of Adam, the desire excited by a view of the divine affections, has no moral character. That belongs only to the act of the will which fixes on God as the chief good. And the first holy act of a new-born soul is not the desire which rises in view of the Divine Being, but the act of the will by which he is chosen as a portion. Hence, in the distinction between constitutional and voluntary propensities, the social affections, the love of children, desire of esteem, etc., are referred to the former class, and are not considered as voluntary. Yet, in the broad sense of the word will, assumed as the foundation of the theory, according to which, aU " inclining or being averse," all " being pleased or dis- pleased with," are acts of the will, they are as truly voluntary as the others. Now, when it is asserted that no disposition is of a moral character, except so far as it depends on choice or prefer- ence, and that all morality lies in the will, the whole meaning turns on the sense in which the word will is taken. If taken in its broader sense, this would be admitted ; if in the restricted sense, we should deny it altogether. Those who make the asser- tion, doubtless take it in the latter ; for they say that all that precedes the decision of the soul, its fixing on some object of de- sire as its chief portion, is neither sinful nor holy ; that holiness consists in the selection of God, and sin in the choice of the world, and that there is nothing sinful nor holy but these primary or ultimate choices, and the subordinate acts resulting from them. But it is clear that the term voluntary applies not only to such acts of choice, but to all exercises of the affections or desires preliminary thereto. No one would say that the dis- position to love ourselves, or our children, depends on choice ; and yet these dispositions are properly and truly voluntary. We cannot love otherwise than voluntarily. When, therefore, these EEGENERATION. 41 gentlemen use the word voluntary, it is in reference to acts of the win in the restricted sense^ excluding the spontaneous exer- cises of the native propensities of our nature. They of course deny that Adam was created holy. The spontaneous rising of desire in his mind to God was neither holy nor unholy. His moral character commenced with the first act of choice, that is, with his selection of God from among the various sources of hap- piness as his chief good. Here Hes one great point of difference between them and common Calvinists. President Edwards main- tains clearly that Adam was holy before this act of choice, yea, before he exercised " thought or reflection." And he says, that it is according to our natural notions of things that there could be no virtue in this choice, unless it was determined by a vir- tuous disposition. The common judgment of men is, that moral character belongs to the desire of moral objects. The morahty lies in its nature, independently of its origin. Its being from " a kind of instinct," does not destroy its moral character. The de- sire of holiness is holy, no matter how it rises in the mind. If this be so, a similar tendency of mind and a similar desire, if produced in our mind by the power of the Spirit in regeneration, is not " something inserted in the soul" without influence on our character. It constitutes us holy, as truly as Adam was holy at his first creation, though much of sin may yet remain. It is in- deed " mysterious gratuity ;" the Scriptures call it grace ; but it is still ours, from its nature, voluntary and active. It is an inclination of the heart ; and, as Dr. Bellamy remarks, an " in- voluntary inclination of the heart is a contradiction in terms." He uses the word voluntary in its larger sense, as Edwards does, and not merely in that which applies to a decision or selection from among different objects of desire. With him all sponta- neous exercises of the mind are voluntary ; self-love, the love of children, and aU other similar affections. A disposition there- fore to these, or any other exercises, existing prior to the exer- cises, in his view, does not destroy their character as voluntary, nor their morality, if they have reference to moral objects ; this depends upon their nature, not their origin. We have already remarked that the opposite system destroys the moral character of the first act (in reference to moral ob- jects) in Adam, and in regeneration. We are ready to admit, that as the desire of a holy object is from its nature holy, so the 42 REGENERATION. choice of such an ohject as holy, is from its nature good. But it is inconceivable that holiness, as such, can be chosen without a previous apprehension of its real excellence, and desire for it as such ; for the choice is but the determination of the desire. If, therefore, moral character be denied to the antecedent desire, the choice loses its moral character also. It cannot be confined to the act of choice, for there can, in fact, be no choice of a holy object as such, but from a desire for it in its true character, and this is a holy desire, and precedes the choice. If self-love be only so far the motive of this choice, that it '^ prompts to the choice, but not determines it,"' what, we ask, does determine it ? There are but two answers to this question. The one is, that the will determines itself, ^. e., the choice is made in indifference, and has clearly no moral character ; or it is determined by a de- sire of the object as such (not mere desire of happiness, for that only prompts the choice, 7iot determines it), and then the whole theory is relinquished, for here is the desire of a holy object, not merely as a means of happiness, but for the object as holy, which must needs be a holy desire, and being antecedent to the choice, would be, according to the theory, anterior to the commence- ment of holiness. P The truth is, that this whole system is a forced and unnatural union between Arminian philosophy and Calvinistic facts : a union which can neither be peaceful nor lasting. Nor is this the first time that it has been attempted. The favorite principle of the opposers of the Augustinian doctrines, in all ages, has been, that moral character can only belong to acts of choice ; and of course, that no such thing as original righteousness or original sin is possible or conceivable ; that any other influence in regen- eration than that of moral suasion, by which one man is led to make a good choice, which another man, under the same influence, might refuse to make, is inconsistent with moral agency; that the doctrines of election and perseverance of the saints, presupposing that of efiicacious grace, must necessarily be untru'3. The first departures from these doctrines have com- menced by adopting the main principle, and endeavoring to reconcile it, as far as possible, with the facts involved in the doctrines themselves ; viz., that all men do sin, with absolute certainty, the moment they become moral agents ; that the influence of the Spirit is infallibly efficacious : and that all REGENERATION. 43 whom God has chosen certainly believe and attain eternal life. But less than a generation has been commonly sufficient to break the connection, and leave the philosophical principle undis-- puted master of the field. That this principle is inconsistent v^ith the doctrine of original righteousness, is formally admitted. That it involves the denial of original sin, as this doctrine has been commonly held among Augustinians, is equally clear. According to the prevalent doctrine on this subject, original sin consists, first, in the imputa« tion of Adam's sin. This, it seems, has been long exploded. Secondly, in the want of original righteousness. This is gone too, for there never was any such thing. And thirdly, in the corruption of nature, that is, a tendency to do what Grod has prohibited, existing prior to all acts of choice, and independently of them ; and now this is gone. There is no such tendency to sin, as can be considered a moral disposition. Although this article has already swollen far beyond our expecta- tions, we cannot pass this subject without a single remark on the charge of physical depravity. The futility and unfairness of the^ same charge, as it regards the subject of regeneration, we have endeavored to expose above. As this rests on precisely the same grounds, it must stand or fall with the other. If there may be moral principles prior to moral acts (as we think must be assum- ed, in the case of Adam, or make the commencement of holiness impossible), then there is not a shadow of ground for this charge. Nor is it the Calvinistic doctrine, that there is a specific pro- pensity to sin (analogous to the holy disposition implanted in the heart of Adam) connatural with the soul of man. None such need be assumed, and none such is believed to exist. The mere absence of a native tendency to God leaves the soul in moral confusion and ruin. There is no positive infusion of wickedness. Tlie essential attributes and constitutional propensities are there, and nothing more. But they are there without a principle of moral order and subordination. There is no presiding spirit to turn them to the service of God. The result of this absence is all manner of. evil, and a tendency to all this evil lies in this^ very state of the soul, and exists prior to any of its moral acts. Does the withholding this predisposition to holiness, from a being to whom all the essential attributes of his nature are left unimpaired, make God the J author oi„8in-? then must he be 44 REGENERATION. accused of being the author of all sin that results from the abandonment of the reprobate, and of all that by the utmost exertion of power he could prevent. Nor is it more difficult to reconcile this fact (that God should withhold from the fallen race of man those communications which resulted in the innate tendency to holiness, which fill the soul of Adam) with the divine justice and goodness, than it is the admitted fact that he has brought, and is still bringing, the countless millions of the human family into existence under circumstances so unfavor- able, that all, without exception, incur the penalty of eternal death at the first moment of moral agency ; and that moment arriving, too, at the first dawn of intellect, when the first faint flushes of moral feeling rise in the soul. If this be no penalty, we know not what is. " To be placed under a law," says Cole- ridge {Aids to Reflection, p. 168), "the difficulty of obeying, and the consequences of not obeying, which are both infinite, and to have momently to struggle with this difficulty, and to live in momently hazard of these consequences — if this be no punish- ment ! — words have no correspondence with thoughts, and thoughts are but shadqws of each other, shadows that own no substance for their anti-type. Of such an outrage on common sense, Taylor, (Bishop Jeremy) was incapable. He himself calls it a penalty ; he admits that in effect it is a punishment." It is a penalty, too, according to this theory, without transgression ; a punishment without a crime. We cannot see, therefore, that anything is gained by the new theory over the old doctrine, which represents our race as having enjoyed a full and fair and favorable probation in their first parent, and as being regarded and treated as an apostate race on account of his rebellion ; so that the withholding these divine communications which result- ed in the first man, in the moral image of his Maker, is a penal evil, from which, it is true, utter ruin results, but it is the ruin, not of innocent, but of fallen human beings. This doctrine involves no mysterious confusion of the identity of the race with that of Adam, and no transfer of moral character from him to us. His act was personally his own, and only his ; it is ours on the representative principle, which is recognized not only by Dr. Hopkins and his followers distinctly, but by Arminians and Pelagians/ and is so clearly taught by the fact, that the race fell » See Whitby on Romans, v. 12. REGENERATION. 45 when Adam fell, that it is admitted in reality even by those who formally deny it. But to return to our subject. This theory not only overthrows the doctrines which we have just mentioned, but it throws the Spirit's influences almost entirely out of view. We are not speaking of the opinions of its advocates, but of the tendency of the theory. According to their- views, regeneration consists~in" the choice of God as the supreme portion of the soul. This requires that the soul should view him as supremely desirable. This the sinner is, not only naturally, but morally able to do ; for his corruption does not blind him to the excellence of holi- ness, or its adaptedness to promote his happiness. To secure this happiness is the only impulse or motive necessary to make this choice, and he is urged to make it, assured that if he will summon aU his powers to the effort, the result, by the grace of God, may follow. We think the grace of God acts a part scarcely more conspicuous in all this scheme, than it does in the enumeration of the titles of an European monarch. There is no blindness to the excellence of the object of choice to be removed, no holy motive is necessary for the grand decision ; all that is required is a practical conviction that it wiU be for the sinner's interests. Firmly as these brethren may believe in the necessity of the Spirit's interference, it is evident that necessity is left out of view almost entirely in their theory. Accordingly, when they come to describe the process of this great change, the sinner is the only agent brought to view ; he is to consider, ponder, and decide, for all which he absolutely needs no assistance, though it may be graciously afforded. This mode of representation stands in strong contrast with the language of Scripture in those pas- sages in which we are said "to be born of the Spirit," "to be created anew in Christ Jesus," to experience the workings " of the exceeding greatness of the power of God," and many others of a similar character. As to this point which Dr. Cox thinks so " intrinsically absurd,' and about which he says so much, whether man is passive in re- generation, it will be seen that, for its own sake, it does not merit a moment's discussion. It depends entirely on the previous question. If regeneration be that act of the soul by which it chooses God for its portion, there is an end of all debate on the subject. For no one will maintain that the soul is passive in # REGENERATION. acting. But if there be any change in the moral state of the BOiil, prior to its turning unto God, then it is proper to say, that the soul is passive as to that particular point. That is, that the Holy Spirit is the author, and the soul the subject of the change. For all that is meant by the soul's being passive, is, that it is not the agent of the change in question. Its immediate and de- lightful turning unto God is its own act ; the state of mind which leads to this act is produced directly by the Spirit of God. The whole question is, whether any such anterior change is necessary. Whether a soul polluted and degraded by sin, or in Scripture language, carnal, needs any change in its moral taste before it can behold the loveliness of the divine character. For that this view must precede the exercise of affection, we presume will not be denied. If this point be decided, the propriety of using the word passive to denote that the soul is the subject and not the agent of the change in question, need not give us much trouble. Sure it is that this change is in Scripture always referred to the Holy Spirit. It is the soul that repents, believes, hopes, and fears, but it is the Holy Spirit that regenerates. He is the author of our faith and repentance by inducing us to act, but no man regenerates himself. The soul, though essentially active, is still capable of being acted upon. It receives impressions from sensible objects, from other spirits, and from the Holy Ghost. In every sensation, there is an impression made by some external object, and the immediate knowledge which the mind takes of tlie impression. As to the first point, it is passive, or the subject ; as to the second, it is active, or the agent. These two are indeed inseparably connected, and so are regeneration and conversion. It is even allowable to say that the mind is passive considered as the recipient of any impression, no matter how communicated. Coleridge says, " In attention, we keep the mind passive; in THOUGHT, we rouse it into activity. In the former, we submit to an impression ; we keep the mind steady in order to receive the stamp." — P. 252. Whether this is technically " wretched, philosophically wrong, and theologically false," or not, we do not pretend to say. All that we say is that it is perfectly intelligible and perfectly according to established usage, to speak of the mind as passive, when considered as the subject of an impression. And if the Holy Spirit does make such an impression on the EEGENERATION. 47 mind, or exert such an influence as induces it immediately to turn to God, then it is correct to say that it is passive in regene-^ ration, though active in conversian. However, this is a very subordinate point ; the main question is, whether there is not a holy " relish," taste, or principle produced in the soul prior, in the order of nature, to any holy act of the soul itself. If Dr. Cox can show this to be "intrinsically absurd," we shall give up the question of " passivity," without a moment's demur. To re- linquish the other point, however, will cost us a painful struggle. It will be the giving up the main point in debate between the friends and opposers of the doctrines of grace from Augustine to the present day. It will be the renunciation, not only of a favorite principle of old Calvinists, but of one of the fundamental j j^ principles of the theology of Edwards, Bellamy, Dwight, and, asj |, we believe, of the great body of the New England clergy. It will be the renunciation of what the church universal has believed to be the scriptural doctrine of original righteousness, original sin, and efficacious grace. It will be the rejection of that whole sys- tem of mingled sovereignty and love which has been the founda- tion, for ages, of so many hopes and of so much blessedness to the people of God. And all for what ? Because it has been discovered, that what is not an act is an entity ; that to suppose the existence of moral disposition prior to moral action, is mak- ing morality a substance. As we are incapable of seeing the truth of these axioms, and believe their assumption to be encum- bered with all the difficulties above referred to, we are not disposed to renounce, on their behalf, doctrines which have for ages been held dear by the best portion of the Christian church. Dr. Cox demands what has been the moral history of these ioctrines ? It would require more time and space than we now command fully to answer this question. Not to enter on ques- tionable ground, however, we would refer him for an answer to tlie history of the Eeformation. These doctrines were held sacred by all those men who were God's great instruments in that blessed work, and are incorporated in the confessions of all the re- formed churches. We would point him to the history of the English Puritans and Nonconformists ; to the Puritans of New England, from the time of their landing down to a late period in 48 REGENERATION. their history, and to the present opinions of the great body of their descendants. We would refer him to any age or any church, peculiarly distinguished for genuine piety. For there is scarcely one of the doctrines which he has impaled in his introduction, which does not enter into the faith of the great body of evangel- ical Christians. 11. STUART ON THE ROMANS/ Professor Stuart's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans is undoubtedly one of the most important productions of the American press. Whether we consider the importance of the subjects which it discusses, or the research and learning which it displays, it is clearly entitled to this elevated rank. Every reader must observe that the author is familiar with all the usual sources of modern criticism, that he has been long trained in the school of philological interpretation, that he is habituated to minute ex- amination, and that, on all ordinary matters, he has a clearness of view, and a perspicuity and order of style and method which confer on his work a great and lasting value. This value is greatly enhanced by the consideration, that Professor Stuart having formed himself on the modem German school of expositors, has produced a work very different from the usual productions of the English school. These latter are generally doctrinal and practi- cal, rather than philological. However important works con- structed after the English model may be to the general, and even the professional reader, yet, for the careful student of the Scriptures, who is desirous of ascertaining with accuracy and cer- tainty, the meaning of the Word of God, there can be no ques- tion, that the German is immeasurably the better and the safer plan. There can be no solid foundation for theological opinion, but the original text of Scripture fairly interpreted. We have, therefore, long been in the habit of regarding Professor Stuart as one of the greatest benefactors of the church in our country, be- cause he has been the principal means of turning the attention ^ A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, with a translation and various Excursus. By Moses Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover. Andover : Printed and published by Flagg & Gould. New York: S. Leavitt, No. 182, Broadway. 1832. Pp. 576. Princeton Review, July, 1833. 4 so STUART ON THE ROMANS. of the rising generation of ministers to this method of studying the Bible. This we doubt not, is the great service of his life ; a service for which the whole church owes him gratitude and honor, and which will be remembered when present differences and difficulties are all forgotten. We do him, therefore, un- feigned homage as the great American reformer of biblical study, as the introducer of a new asra, and the most efficient opponent of metaphysical theology. Alas, that he should himself have fallen on that very enchanted ground, from which it was the business and the glory of his life to recall his younger brethren ! In perfect consistency with this high opinion of Professor Stuart's services, and of the value of his work, we still think the latter has very numerous and very serious faults. The first and most fatal seem to have arisen from his not having discovered, before writing the 542d page, " that his main design was com- mentary, and not didactic theology.'' The work is too theologi- cal. The frequent discussions of this nature, in which the author indulges, are rather out of place, in a work of this kind, and are, moreover, singularly unfortunate. It is in these discussions the writer has most signally failed ; misapprehended the subject in debate ; misconceived the meaning of the authors whom he quotes ; contradicted himself ; done violence to his own theoret- ical rules of interpretation, and gratuitously denounced doc- trines, which have not only always been regarded as part of the common faith of Protestant Christendom, but which he himself over and over either asserts or implies. Evidence of the justice of these remarks will be given as we proceed. It is a difficult task to review a commentary satisfactorily. It would be of little use to go over the chapters in detail, and com- mend the instances of happy interpretation. And to attempt to refute those of a contrary character, would require us to write a commentary ourselves. We intend, therefore, to pass by much that we think excellent, and much that we think erroneous, and to confine our attention, at least for the present, to Professor Stuart's exposition of Romans v. 12-19, and the Excursus there- with connected. This is the most characteristic and important part of his work. It cannot be denied that this passage is a very difficult portion of the word of God. As such it has always been regarded, and must still be considered, after aU that has been written on the STUART ON THE ROMANS. ®l subject. Still, we have no hesitation in saying, the grand diflfi- culty is to get round it. It inculcates a doctrine which many men are very unwilling to admit. To get rid of this doctrine, is the difficulty. Hence these lamentations over its obscurity. A similar obscurity rests, in view of many, over the ninth chapter of this epistle ; and for a similar reason. Now, we venture to assert, that those who have no special prejudice against the doc- trine of imputation, and the federal headship of Adam and Christ, are not so much disposed to complain of the obscurity of the passage before us. It is only when a man is predetermined that it does not, and that it shall not, teach either these doc- trines, or that of the transmission of a corrupt nature, that he is so much at a loss to know what it does teach ; and it is really enough to move any one's commiseration, to see such a man as Professor Stuart so obviously and hopelessly in conflict with the plain meaning and argument of the apostle ; fruitlessly strug- gling to disengage himself from its toils, forced to admit what he denies, and teach what he rejects, traveling backwards and for- wards bewildered in the mazes of own exposition. We feel en- titled to express this confidence, in the first place, because we feel it ; in the second, because the great body of impartial com- mentators, not merely Calvinistic, but Pelagian, Geological, and Infidel, agree in every essential part of the ordinary view ; and thirdly, because the objections to this interpretation are all theo- logical : we say all, because those of an exegetical character are hardly worthy of consideration. But let us proceed. According to the common view of this passage, it naturally re- solves itself into four parts : I. Yerse 12, which contains this general proposition : All men die, or are regarded and treated as sinners, on account of Adam — i, e., of his sin. II. Verses 13 and 14, which prove this proposition. The proof is this : the universality of death can in no other way be accounted for. Neither the law of Moses, nor the law of nature, is sufficiently extensive to account for all bearing this penalty ; therefore it must be, that men are subject to death, on account of Adam. He is therefore a type of Christ — that is, there is this striking point of resemblance between them : as we are condemned on acqount of the one, so are we justified on account of the other. 52 STUART ON THE ROMANS. III. Verses 15, 16, 17, are a commentary on this proposition, by which it is at once illustrated and limited. 1. In the first place, if it is consistent with the divine charac- ter, that we should die for the offence of one, how much more, that we should live for the righteousness of one. 2: We are condemned in Adam, for one sin only ; Christ saves us from many. 3. Christ not only saves us from evil, but advances us to a state of endless life and glory ; (or this verse 17 may be considered as a repetition and amplification of the 15th.) IV. Verses 18, 19, resume and carry out the sentiment and comparison of verse 12th. As we are condemned for the offence of one, so are we justified by the righteousness of another ; for if on account of the disobedience of one, we are regarded and treated as sinners, so on account of the obedience of the other, we are regarded and treated as righteous. Verses 20 and 21 form the conclusion of the chapter, and are designed — 1st. to answer the natural objection, that this view of the method of salvation makes the law useless ; and 2d. that the grace of Grod in the gospel of his Son, superabounds and tri- umphs over sin, however produced or increased. In this analysis, we have stated in general terms the meaning of the several portions of the passage. The correctness of this statement, and the force of the several subordinate clauses, we shall endeavor to exhibit as we proceed. Professor Stuart, in his introduction to chap, vi., viii., properly remarks, that correct views as to the general course of a writer's thoughts in a given passage, '^ is a sine qua non to a right ex- egesis of the whole. How can we correctly explain a writer, unless we rightly apprehend his aim, and the scope of his dis- course ? It is impossible," etc., p. 249. It will, therefore, not be questioned, that it is a matter of no little importance, to as- certain the design and scope of the apostle in the passage be- fore us. On this subject, there are various opinions : we shall give but three : 1. Some say the apostle's main design is, to exalt our views of the blessings procured by Christ, and to show that these bless- ings superabound over all the evils of the fall. 2. Others say, that his object is, to counteract the narrow- minded prejudices of the Jews, by showing that, as the evils of STUART ON THE ROMANS. 63 the fall extended to all, Gentiles as well as Jews, so do the bless- , ings of the gospel. 3. Others think, that his design is, to illustrate the great gos- pel truth of justification on the grounds of the merits of Jesus Christ, by a reference to the other grand analogous fact in the history of our race — the condemnation of men, on the ground of the demerit of Adam ; and thus answer the natural objection. How can the merit of one man justify others ? Professor Stuart says, p. 200, that the first view here given is 80 obviously correct, that, " the most unpractised critic can hardly fail to discern the general object, as thus stated." If he is wrong here, he must, on his own principles, be wrong all the way through ; and that he is wrong, we think no critic, prac- tised or unpractised, can fail to discern, who will attend to the few following considerations. In the first place, the idea of the superabounding of the blessing of the gospel over the evils of the fall, is not expressly stated until the 21st verse (that is, until the whole comparison is gone through with) ; and then, in immediate connection with the question, For what purpose did the law enter ? Secondly, although this idea is contained in verses 15, 16, 17, yet, as Professor Stuart admits, these verses are parenthetical, and, of course, might be left out, and still the main design be expressed. As verses 13, 14, are subordinate to verse 12, and verses 15, 16, 17, to the last clause of verse 14, it is evident that verses 12, 18, and 19, must contain the main idea of the passage. In these verses, the idea of the superabounding of grace is not included at all. Professor Stuart has exalted a mere corollary into the main design and scope of the passage. 2. More might be said in favor of the second view ; but this also, as will appear in the sequel, is inconsistent with the course of the argument. Paul is not yet speaking of the, applicability of the gospel to the case of the Gentiles. 3. That the third view mentioned above is the only correct one, we think will appear from the following considerations : Let it be remembered, that there are two grand subjects of dis- cussion in this epistle, viz., the doctrine of justification, and the calling of the Gentiles ; in other words, the method of salvation, and the persons to whom that method is to be proposed. The consideration of the first extends to the close of the eighth chap- ter; the discussion of the second commences with the ninth. ^ STUART ON THE ROMANS. From the 18th verse of the first chapter, Paul argues against the possibility of justification by works, because all men, Gen- tiles and Jews, are sinners, and guilty before God. Having, in verses 19 and 20 of chapter iii., arrived at that conclusion, from the 21st verse he unfolds the gospel method. This he confirms throughout the fourth chapter from the case of Abraham, the declaration of David, the nature of the law, etc. In the fifth, he commences by stating some of the consequences of this method of justification ; we have peace with God, access to him, confi- dence in his favor, and assurance of eternal life founded on the love of God, and the fact that we are justified (not for any thing in us, or done by us), but by the blood of his Son. Wherefore, verse 12, (that is, since we are justified for what one man has done,) as we have been brought into a state of condemnation by one man, so by one man are we justified and saved. There is nothing more wonderful in the obedience of one saving many, than in the disobedience of one destroying many ; nor so much. If the one has happened, much more may the other. ^ This is a brief, but, as we believe, correct view of the context, and shows clearly enough the design of the apostle in the passage be- fore us. As the general context requires this view of the apostle's ob- ject, so it is the only one with which the course of the argument can be made to agree. The fact is, that the whole argument bears so lucidly and conclusively on this point, that it is no wonder that men are involved in perplexity, when they wish to make it bear on any other. What the course of argument is, we have stated above. All men are subject to death, on account of ^.dam. This is proved in verses 13, 14 ; and being proved, is all the way through assumed to illustrate the other great truth. If we thus die, are thus condemned, much more may we, by a simi- lar arrangement, be saved. This is so clearly the prominent idea of- the apostle, that Professor Stuart cannot avoid seeing and admitting it before he gets through. Thirdly, not only the general context and the course of argu- i la chapters vi. and vii. the apostle answers the standing objection, that this method of justification leads to licentiousness, by proving that it is the only effectual means of sanctification ; the law being as incompetent for the one purpose as the other. Then comes the swelling grandeur of the eighth chapter, in which he exults in the certainty and security of this method of salvation. STUART ON THE ROMANS. 55 ment require this view of the apostle's object, but also all the leading clauses separately considered. This point, therefore, will become clearer at every step, as we advance. The delightful fact, that the grace of the gospel superabounds over the evils of the fall, is, however, not the less true, because its exhibition is not the main object of the passage before us. As Professor Stuart takes a false view of the design of this passage, we are not surprised to find him involved in perplexity, at the very first step in his exposition. He is very much at a loss about the connection, as indicated by the words Std rovro, in the beginning of the 12th verse, which he says " are so difficult," in this connection. He devotes more than two pages to this point. We suspect his readers see very little difficulty in the case. The whole doctrine of the preceding part of the epistle, and the assertion of the immediately preceding verses, is, that by one man, not by our merits, we are justified. What more natural association, or what plainer inference, than the analogy between this and the other grand fact in the history of men. Tholuck and Flatt, Professor Stuart remarks, both represent these words as illative, " but they do not show how the sequel is a deduction from what precedes." Neither of these writers seems to have felt any difficulty in the case. Tholuck dismisses the words in two lines, explaining them thus, ^' Aus dem hisher Gesagten geht hervor" — i. e., "It follows from what has been said." So much for the scope of the passage and its connection. Let us now inquire into the meaning of VERSE XII. " Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned." Every reader feels that something is wanting to complete the sense in this verse. We have here only one half of the compari- son. The question is, where are we to seek the other. We think with Professor Stuart, that the majority of interpreters are right, " in regarding verses 13-17, as substantially a parenthesis, (thrown in to illustrate a sentiment brought to view in the pro- tasis verse 12) ; and I find," he continues, " a full apodosis only in verses 18, 19, where the sentiment of verse 12 is virtually re- 56 STUARTONTHEROMANS. sumed and repeated, and where the apodosis regularly follows, after an ovro) aai" As this is the only satisfactory view of the passage, it is important that it should he borne in mind. Verses 18, 19, then, it is admitted, resume and repeat the sentiment of verse 12 : of course, whatever is obscure in verse 12, may fairly be illustrated from verses 18 and 19. It is by no means unusual for the apostle thus to interpret himself ; and after qualifying or confirming a position, resume and carry out his original idea. In the present instance, Paul, intending to run a parallel between the fall and the restoration of men, begins with the usual sign of a comparison — as by one man sin and death entered into the world, so by one man justifi- cation and life. But the protasis needed confirmation, and he therefore gives it, before fully expressing the apodosis ; and, as at the close of this confirmation, the idea of the correspondence, which he had in his mind, is really expressed by calling Adam a type of Christ, he feels that this position needed limitation and illustration, and he, therefore, gives both in verses 15, 16, and 17, and then resumes and states fuUy the main idea. There is considerable diversity of opinion, as to the meaning of the clause, sin entered into the ivorld^ and death by sin. 1. By d[j,apTLa, or sin, in this case, Calvin and a host of com- mentators, ancient and modern, understand corruption, deprav- ity, vitiositas; and by entered into the world, not simply com- menced, but was spread over the world : so that the idea is, all men became corrupt, and consequently, subject to death through Adam. 2. Others, suppose that the meaning is merely, sin commenced with Adam, and death as its necessary consequence. He was the first sinner, and the first sufierer of death. 3. Others understand the apostle as sajdng — through Adam, men became sinners. Adam was the cause of sin and death — - el^ rbv Koofiov being equivalent with elg navrag rovg dvdp(x)novg. Hence the phrase, sin entered into the world, is equivalent with all sinned, or became sinners. We think the last is the true sense, because the second leaves out of view, the main idea expressed by dc' ivog, and because Paul evidently intended to express a comparison, which is not, as Adam died for his sin, so all men die for theirs ; but, as Adam was the cause of sin and death, so Christ of righteousness STUART ON THE KOMANS. 51 and life. We shall not however, discuss this point here, as the whole matter will come up more advantageously when we came- to the latter part of the verse. Another interesting inquiry is, as to the meaning of the word death in this passage. And here again we are happy to be able to agree with Professor Stuart, who, in accordance with the \'iews of the great body of evangelical commentators, understands the word in its ordinary biblical sense, when connected with sin. The death which is on account of sin, is surely the death which is the wages of sin. All the penal consequences of sin are, there- fore, included in the term. ^' Indeed," says Professor Stuart, " I see no philological escape from the conclusion, that death in the sense of penalty for sin in its full measure, must be regarded as the meaning of the writer here." — P. 208. As it is not our purpose to write a commentary on this passage, we do not ad- duce the grounds of this conclusion. They may be seen in Pro- fessor Stuart, and other commentators. Where we agree, there is no necessity for argument. An important inquiry. Professor Stuart says, arises respecting the words fcal ovrcog, viz., does the apostle mean to say, that in consequence of Adam's sin, sin and death came upon all men ? Or, does he mean, that as Adam died on account of his sin, so, in like manner, all men die, because all sin ? In other words, do these words intimate a connection between the sin of Adam, and the sin and condemnation of his race ? or, merely the inva- riable connection between sin and death ? Professor Stnart de- cides for the latter. On page 215, he says, " Consider what the writer asserts : ^ Death came on Adam on account of sin, and in like manner death came" upon all men, because all have sinned/ " But what becomes of the 61 hog, if this be a correct view of the substance of the verse ? Surely, these words are too prominent here, and in their frequent repetition throughout the passage, to be thus left out of view. It was through one man, that sin came upon all men, and that all die. Besides, as remarked above, it was confessedly not the object of the apostle to compare the case of Adam with that of other men, and say, as Adam died, so all men die ; but to compare Adam and Christ, as the one caused death, so the other caused life. Again, Professor Stuart himself, admits that verses 18, 19, resume and repeat the sentiment of verse 12, and that those verses clearly convey the idea, that 58 STUART ON THE ROMANS. Adam's sin is the cause of the condemnation of his race. Of course, then, verse 12 must express this idea. He says, indeed, it is " hinted" in the words elofiX-&e and diTiX'&E ; but if the com- parison between Adam and Christ be the design of the whole passage, this, which is the main idea, should be something more than " hinted at," in this verse, which is acknowledged to con- tain the first half of the comparison/ This matter, however, will appear clearer when we have considered the last clause in the verse, e^' w rcdvreq i'lfiaprov. We agree with Professor Stuart in thinking, that rendering £0' w, in whom, is inconsistent, if not absolutely with usage, yet with the construction of the sentence, and therefore cheerfully accede to the rendering in that, or because that. The important question now presents itself, what is meant by ndvreg i'niaprov ? On this subject, there are three opinions. 1st. That it means, all have actually and personally sinned. 2d. All have become corrupt or depraved ; and 3d. All became guilty, i. e., became sinners, and were so re- garded and treated. Professor Stuart and a multitude of others adopt the first view. Then, the sentiment of the verse is, " As by one man sin invaded the world and death on account of sin, so in like man- ner, death has passed on all men, because all sin." Sin began with Adam, as he died for his sin, so all men die for theirs. The connection between Adam's oftence and the sin and condemna- tion of men, is not expressed : it is merely " hinted at" * "We have found considerable difiSculty, in getting a clear idea of Professor Stuart's view of this passage. On page 200, he says, that verses 18, 19, virtually resume and repeat the sentiment of verse 12; and yet, on page 213, he says, "But it does not follow, because verse 19 asserts an influence of Adam upon the sinfulness of men, that the same sentiment must therefore be affirmed in verse 12 ; certainly not, that it should be directly asserted in the same manner." On the same page, he says, " It is possible that Koi ourug may imply this ; (the connection between Adam's offence and the sinfulness of his posterity,) which, with Erasmus and Tholuck, we might construe, et ita factum est, i. e., and so it happened, or and thus it was brought about, viz., thus it was brought about, that all men came under sentence of death, and also became sinners, etc. * * * Yet I am not per- suaded, that this is the true method of interpreting the words Kal ovruc.^^ What here is admitted as possible, is declared in page 215, "to be wholly inadmissible." We suspect, by the way, that Tholuck would hardly recognise, "so it happened that all men sinned in Adam, and were sentenced to death, by reason of this sin," as a correct exposition of his, " Insofern in Jenem Ersten,Sunde and Uebel hervortrat, ging es auch auf aUe Theile des Geschlechts iiber." STUART ON THE ROMANS. 59 The second view is given by Calvin, and by a large body of the most respectable commentators, ancient and modern. The meaning of the verse, according to them, is, '^ As by Adam de- pravity or corruption entered the world, and death as its conse- quence, and hence death has passed on all men, since all are corrupt^" so, etc. This, although it expresses a truth, is a view of the passage which, as we shall see, cannot be carried consist- ently through ; and it misses the real point of comparison be- tween Christ and Adam. Paul does not mean to say, that as Adam was the source, or cause of corruption, so Christ is the cause of holiness ; but as the offence of the one was the ground of our condemnation, so the righteousness of the other, is the ground of our justification. According to the third view, the sentiment of the verse is, " As through one man men became sinners, and consequently exposed to death, and thus death has passed on all men, because all are regarded and treated as sinners, (on his account)," (so, on account of one are they regarded and treated as righteous.) In favor of this view, the authority of a large number of com- mentators might be adduced. To us, it appears decidedly the correct one, and that which alone harmonizes with the rest of the passage. In support of this interpretation, we would re- mark : 1. That it is on all hands admitted, that the usus loquendi admits of this sense of the words ^' all have sinned." Thus in G-enesis, xliii. 9, Judah says to Jacob, " If I bring him not again, let me hear the hlame^ In Hebrew and Greek, it is, " I will be a sinner," i. e., let me be so regarded and treated. The same form of expression occurs in chapter xliv. 34. Bathsheba says, " I and thy son Solomon, shall be sinners," 1 Kings, chapter i. 21 ; according to our version, which expresses the sense correctly, " shall be counted offenders." This usage, indeed, is familiar and acknowledged. 2. Professor Stuart himself admits, that verses 18 and 19 ex- press the same idea with verse 12. But in those verses, the apostle teaches, that the offence of Adam was the ground of our condemnation, i. e., that on his account, we are regarded and treated as sinners. This Professor Stuart is forced to admit.* * With regard to verse 19, he gives indeed a different view; but, as we shaU BhoT^, at the expense of consistency. 60 STUART ON THE ROMANS. He over and over acknowledges, that the apostle, in various parts of this passage, represents death as coming on all men, on account of the sin of Adam, antecedently to any act of their own. Thus on page 226, he says, " Yerse 15 asserts, the many were brought under sentence of death by the ofience of Adam." This he explains as meaning, not that this offence was the occa- sion of our becoming sinners, and thus incurring death ; but that this offence was the ground of the infliction of death antecedent to any act of our own. " In like manner," he adds, " all receive some important benefits from Christ, even without any concur- rence of their own." See page 228. Verse 16, he tells us, re- peats the same sentiment in a more specific manner, and " adds au explanation, or rather a confirmation of it," page 229. He, therefore, renders this verse, " The sentence by reason of one (offence) was unto condemnation (was a condemning sentence,) etc." As this is a confirmation of the preceding sentiment, it can only mean " this sentence of condemnation was passed on all men on account of Adam's one offence." The 17th verse repeats again, he tells us, page 226, the sentiment of the two preceding ; and in commenting on this verse, page 234, he teaches, in ex- press terms, that " all are in a state of condemnation by reason of the offence of one," i. e., on the ground of the offence of one, antecedent to any act of their own, as his words must mean in connection with what he had just before asserted. Here then it is expressly taught, that men are condemned, i. e., regarded and treated as sinners, on account of Adam's sin. The 18th verse contains the same doctrine, because the identical words of verse 16 are therein repeated, and, according to Professor Stuart, verse 18 resumes and repeats the sentiment of verse 12. If, therefore, things which are equal to the same thing are any longer equal to each other, verse 12 must express the idea, that all men are regarded and .treated as sinners, on account of Adam's sin. Again, in the 19th verse it is said, "As we are constituted sin- ners by the disobedience of Adam, so we are constituted right- eous by the obedience of Christ." And as it is admitted, that this verse carries out the comparison commenced in the 12 th, if we can ascertain what Paul means by saying, ^^we are consti- tuted sinners," we may be certain of what he intended when he said, through Adam, " all sinned." But in the 19th verse, as STUARTONTHEROMANS. , ^1 we shall endeavor to prove, the words will admit of no other in- terpretation than the one mentioned ahove, viz., we are regarded^ and treated as sinners ; this, therefore, must be the meaning of the other expression in verse 12. Now we would request any impartial reader to review these passages. Let him remember, that we have given Professor Stuart's own exposition of them, (except of verse 19) : that he even cannot fail to see, that Paul says, for one offence ive die — • for one offence we are condemned— for one offence death reigns over all— for the disobedience of one ive are treated as sinners — • and we see not how any can resist the conclusion, that verse 12 (which, it is admitted, expresses the same sentiment,) teaches not the frigid dqctrine, that, as Adam sinned and died, in like manner all sin and die ; nor yet, that Adam's sin was the occa- sion of our sinning ; nor yet, again, that through Adam we are all corrupt ; but that on his account we are subject to death, or are regarded and treated as sinners. 3. As the phrases to which reference has just been made, are admitted to mean, that the sin of Adam was not the mere oc- casion, but the ground of condemnation to death, it must be remembered that in verses 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19, this idea is assumed as already proved. In each case, it is introduced by a " for if/' or some equivalent expression. This, of course, implies, that verse 12 contains this proposition, and that verses 13 and 14 (which it is admitted, establish the sentiment of verse 12',) prove it ; for, how could the apostle at every turn say, '^for if we die for Adam's sin," if nothing had been said beforehand of our being subject to death on his account ? But, according to Professor Stuart, verse 12 expresses no such idea. 4. Unless this be the meaning of the 12th verse, no satisfac- tory explanation can be given of verses 13 and 14. They are introduced by yap, and are obviously intended to establish the doctrine of the preceding verse. Now, if the doctrine of the 12th verse be only that all have personally sinned, and are, therefore, subject to death, then verses 13 and 14 are designed to prove that men were sinners before the time of Moses ; and this, in fact, is the view which Professor Stuart and others adopt. But who, in all the world, denied this ? Did the Jews, who called the Gentiles "sinners," as a name, and whose scriptures are filled with denunciations of the vices of the heathen living be- 62 , STUARTON THEROMANS. fore, as well as after, the law ? Besides, how utterly frigid and destitute of all point and purpose, in this connection, is such a sentiment. It is most unnatural to suppose that the apostle should stop in the midst of such a passage to answer the cavil — "as sin is the transgression of a law, there was no sin in the world before the time of Moses, and therefore it is not true, that all have sinned" — when the very persons for whose benefit this cavil is answered, believed that men were then not only sinners, but most pecuKarly and atrociously such. We do not believe an instance can be found in all of Paul's writings, in which he takes the trouble to answer an objection which the objector himself is supposed to know to be futile. Yet, such Professor Stuart sup- poses is the object of these verses. He might well remark, " that no intelligent or candid man" could make such an objec- tion. Those who cannot receive this view of these two verses, and yet reject the interpretation of verse 12, which we are endeavor- ing to support, are very much at a loss how to explain them. The unsuccessful attempts to derive any pertinent meaning from them, are almost numberless. On the other hand, if we regard the 12th verse as teaching that all men sin in Adam, or, to ex- press the same idea in different words, are regarded and treated as sinners on his account, then how natural and obvious the con- nection and reasoning. All men die on account of Adam's sin, is the proposition to be proved. The universality of death, (the infliction of penal evils,) is the medium of proof. How is this universality to be accounted for ? You may account for the fact, that some men die by the violation of the divine law, given to Moses ; and for the fact, that multitudes of others die from the violation of the divine law written upon their hearts ; but this will not account for all dying. Thousands die who have never personally sinned, and, consequently, if death be on account of sin, if it be penal, they must be accounted as sinners for the offence of Adam.^ 1 We are gratified to find, from page 212, that even Professor Stuart has no objec- tion to the "sentiment," all have sinned in Adam. "It must be confessed," he says, " that there is no more ground for objection to the se7itiment which the expression ('all have sinned,') thus construed would convey, than there is to the sentiment in verses 11 and 19. It is not on this ground that I hesitate to receive this interpreta- tion." His difficulties are philological ; yet, there is no philology in what follows, as far as we can perceive. The difficulty stated, is this : Paul says, men die who have STUART ON THE ROMANS. 63 5. It need hardly be repeated, that this interpretation is alone consistent with the main design of the apostle. It is not, as be- fore remarked, his object to illustrate the fact that Christ is the author of holiness, from the fact that Adam was the occasion of leading men to sin ; but he is treating the subject of justifica- tion, and illustrating the great gospel truth, that men may be treated as righteous, on account of what Christ has done, from the fact that they have been treated as sinners on account of what Adam did. And, finally, as a further confirmation of this exposition, it may be remarked, that the doctrine of the whole race being in- volved in the sin and condemnation of Adam, was clearly and frequently taught by the Jewish doctors ; and, there is little reason to doubt, it was the prevalent opinion of the Jews at this period. If this were the case, we cannot refuse to admit, that Paul designed to teach what his readers could hardly fail to un- derstand him to assert. Accordingly, impartial men, who do not themselves hold the doctrine of imputation, do not hesitate to acknowledge that Paul teaches it in this passage. This is the case with Knapp, as quoted in a former number of this work, VERSES XIII, XIV. We have, necessarily, anticipated most of the remarks which we deem it requisite to make, respecting these verses. They are evidently designed to confirm the sentiment of verse 12. If that verse teaches, as we have endeavored to show it does, that aU men are regarded and treated as sinners on account of the sin of Adam, there can be little difficulty in understanding them. never sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression ; but how, it is asked, is their 3in different from his, when it is the very same sin imputed to them, or propagated to them? But cannot men be said to be treated as sinners on account of Adam's sin, and it still be true, that they did not sin as he did? Is it not involved in the very- terms of the proposition, that they did not sin as Adam did, *. e., personally, if they are only (quoad hoc) treated as sinners on his account? So Christ is declared to be without sin, and yet treated as a sinner. We are persuaded this objection will pre- vent no one, except Professor Stuart, from receiving the sentiment of verse 12, as thus explained, if this be all. It is equally destitute of weight when directed against the idea of a vitiated nature derived from Adam being the ground of men's dying; for this vitiated nature is not Adam's act ; his first sin propagated to all men. It is well to remark here, that on this page Professor Stuart uses the phrases treated as sinners on account of Adam, and sinners in him, as equivalent. It would have been a great comfort to his readers, had he continued thus to regard them. 64 STUART ON THE ROMANS. The phrase " sin ivas in the world!' is evidently of the same import with, " men were sinners" — sinners, in the sense of ndvreg fjliaprov of verse 12 ; either actual sinners, or corrupt, or were re- garded and treated as sinners. The last is, of course, the true meaning, if our exegesis of the preceding verse is correct. All men are so regarded, Paul says, on account of Adam ; for, they were so treated before the time of Moses, and, consequently, not for the violation of his law, etc. The words, '^sin is not imputed where there is no laio,^ are in- terpreted by Professor Stuart after Calvin and others, as mean- ing, is not imputed hy men, as sin — that is, men do not regard it, or consider it as sin. But, in the first place, it is, to say the least, very doubtful, whether the word tXXoyelrat can be properly so rendered ; and, in the second, the phrase, to impute sin, spoken in reference to Grod, is so common in the Scriptures, that there can be little doubt the words are here to be understood in the ordinary w^ay. The only reason for departing from this sense here, is the supposed difficulty of interpreting the passage, when the words are so explained ; but this difficulty vanishes, as we have already seen, if the sense of verse 12 be rigidly appre- hended. Professor Stuart, in commenting on this verse, says, page 217, et seq., there are some, " who state the whole of the apostle's reasoning in the following manner, viz. : 'Men's own sins were not imputed to them on the ground of their transgressing any law, until the law of Moses was given ; yet, they were counted sinners, (dfiapTia ijv h KoafuS) ; consequently, it must have been by reason of Adam's sin imputed to them, inasmuch as their own offences were not imputed.' " We should not notice this pass- age, if Professor Stuart did not seem to ascribe this revolting doctrine to all who believe in the imputation of Adam's sin. It is perfectly plain, from what follows, that he has no reference to the opinion of such men as Whitby, who understand the apostle as teaching that men did not, anterior to the time of Moses, in- cur the specific evil of natural death by their own transgressions. Though sinners in the sight of God, and so regarded and pun- ished, yet their sins were not imputed to death : this w^as a punishment all incurred in Adam. This is altogether a difierent view from that which Professor Stuart here has in his mind. He argues to show, that men were accountable for their own trans- STUART ON THE ROMANS. QJ5t jrressions, and that men never were counted of God as without actual sin ; of course, he ascribes the negative of these propo- sitions to those whom he opposes. Now, who are they, who thus teach that '' men's personal sins were not at all reckoned" until the law of Moses ? He tells us, they are those who say, " men have only original or imputed sin charged to their account," He names Augustine and President Edwards, as though they held this opinion. He asks, "How can the sin of Adam be imputed to all his posterity, and yet their own personal sins be not at all reckoned ;" and on page 223, he seems to make all who supj)ose the dissimilitude referred to in the 14th verse consists in the fact that Adam was an actual sinner, and others to whom refer- ence is here made, sinners only by imputation," hold this doc- trine. For this is the interpretation he says he has proved to be contrary to the declarations of the Old and New Testaments. From all this, it would really appear, that Professor Stuart means to represent all who hold the doctrine of imputation, as teaching that men were not accountable for their own sins be- fore the time of Moses. It would be an easy matter for any one to refute the doctrine, if he is permitted to state it in this man- ner, provided he can find readers ignorant enough to receive such statements. It is hardly necessary to say that no such absurdity is involved in the interpretation given above. When Professor Stuart says, that men die on account of Adam's sin, verse 16, does he mean to say they do not die on account of their own ? Or, when he says that for "one offence" they are condemned, would he admit they are not condemned for their own multiplied transgressions ? We presume not. In like manner, when we represent the apostle as arguing, that men are regarded as sinners on account of Adam's sin, because the universality of death cannot be ac- counted for in any other way, we leave the full accountability of men for their own sins of thought, word, and deed, completely unimpaired. It is not only unjust to ascribe the opinion in question to those who hold the doctrine of imputation, but we know no class of men to whom it can be fairly attributed, as Professor Stuart states it. He certainly does Tholuck and Schott, especially the former, injustice, in ascribing the substance of this opinion to them. Tholuck says expressly, " This non-imputation does hy no 6 '•V^ OF THU * vji^^ ■UJfI7BRSIT7 66 STUART ON THE ROMANS. means remove guilt, since Paul has expressly asserted, that men (without a revelation) were without excuse," He says, indeed, that the accountability of men for their indi^ddual transgressions, decreases in proportion to their ignorance and insensibility (when this is not the result of their own conduct), but he does not, even in substance, assert that men are chargeable only with imputed sin before the time of Moses. The phrase, " Sin is not imputed where there is no law," interpreted in reference to God, Tholuck understands comparatively. Professor Stuart makes it mean, "sin is not regarded ;" this he also must take in a comparative sense, since it is not true, that men without a written law hava no sense of sin. If Professor Stuart will allow Tholuck and Schott the liberty he assumes himself, the whole absurdity of the opinion he opposes is gone. That these writers make the apostle reason inconclusively, we think true ; but we do not think Pro- fessor Stuart has done them justice. It appears to us, indeed, very strange, that he should represent them as holding in sub- stance, that men were counted sinners before the time of Moses, " by reason of Adam's sin being imputed to them," when neither of these Writers holds the doctrine of imputation at all. It seems, in fact, to be the main design of Schott's dissertation to disprove it. On page 335, he says, " Vidimus hucusque, verbis v., 12, nulla inesse vestigia dogmatis de imputatione peccati Adamitici." And as to Tholuck, his whole exposition is founded upon a dif- ferent principle. It would really be worth Professor Stuart's while to make a distinction between the imputation of Adam's sin, and the transmission of a vitiated nature from him to his posterity. As all other theological writers make this distinction, he might as well do so. We are sure the works of such writers would be clearer to him, than they can be at present ; for it must seem strange to him to hear them saying in one breath, that corruption, or vitiositas, has been propagated to all Adam's posterity, and in the next, deny that his sin is imputed to them, if these two things are the same. But to return from this long digression. The next clause of any difficulty in these verses, is " even over them who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression.^' The sim- ple question is, what is the point of difference intended by the apostle ? Is it, that those referred to had not broken any posi- tive, or any externally revealed, law ? Or is it, that they had STUART ON THE ROMANS. #^ not sinned personally ? As there is no doubt the words may express either idea, the only question is, which best suits the context ? And here we may remark, that there can be little doubt on this point, if our exegesis of the preceding verses is cor- rect. If it is Paul's object to prove, that men are treated as sinners (i. e., die) on account of Adam, then is it essential that he should show that there is a class which die, who are not per- sonally sinners. This class is not the whole mass of men (even from Adam to Moses), but a certain set only out of this general class. Hence, secondly, it is to be noticed, that the very con- struction of the passage would seem to require this interpreta- tion. Paul says, death reigned over all, from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned as Adam did. Here an evi- dent distinction is marked between two classes of the victims of death ; one general, and the other subdivision under it. But if the latter clause be descriptive of the general class from Adam to Moses, this distinction is entirely lost. It, of course, would not do to say, death reigned over aU who had not broken any positive law, even over those who had not broken any positive law. The second clause must mark a peculiar class. Death reigned over all men, even over those whose death cannot be ac- counted for on the ground of their personal transgressions. An- other great objection to the opposite view is, that if it be adopted, no satisfactory explanation can be given of the connection of these verses with the preceding, nor of the apostle's argument. According to the view adopted by Professor Stuart, we must as- sume what we know to be incorrect, that the Jews thought the Gentiles were not sinners ; and that Paul argues to prove they were, even though they had no written law. According to Tho- luck's view, the apostle's argument, as Professor Stuart correctly remarks, is entirely inconclusive. He would make the apostle reason virtually thus, "As men were, comparatively speakiDg, not responsible for their offences, when involved in ignorance and destitute of a revelation, the cause of their death is to be sought in their participation of the corrupt nature of Adam." In this argument there is no force, unless it be assumed that men were entirely free from responsibility for actual sin, before the time of Moses — an assumption which Tholuck rejects, as inconsistent with truth and the apostle's doctrine. In short, we know no in- terpretation of this passage, but the ordinary one given above, 68 STUART ON THE ROMANS. which makes the apostle argue conclusively, and express a senti- ment at once pertinent and important. In what sense, then, is Adam a type of Christ ? According to our view, the answer is plain : The point of resemblance is, that as Adam's sin was the ground of the condemnation of many, so Christ's righteousness is the ground of their justification. That this is the correct view, we think evident from what has already been said, and will become more so from what follows. These verses are a commentary on the last clause of the 14th verse — Adam is a type of Christ. There is a strong analogy be- tween them ; and yet, there are striking and instructive points of difference. The first (verse 15) is derived from the diversity of the results they produce, viewed in connection with the charac- ter of Grod. The one brought death, the other life : if, then, we die on account of what one man did, lioio much more shall we live on account of what one has done. If the one fact is consist- ent with the divine character, how much more the other. It is clear, therefore, that the apostle designs to illustrate the cardinal idea of the gospel, viz., to the imputation of the merit of one to a multitude, or the justification of many on the ground of the righteousness of one. The most important phrase in this verse, and that on which the interpretation of the whole depends, is the second clause — ^^For ifhy the offence of one the many die." That there is a causal connection between the sin of Adam and the death of his posterity here asserted, must of course be admitted. The only question is, as to its nature. Does Paul mean to say, that Adam's ofi'ence was the occasion of men's becoming sinful, or of their committing sin ; and that thus on this account, they be- come subject to death ? Or, does he mean, that Adam's was the ground of their exposure to death, antecedent to any transgres- sions of their own ? That the latter is his meaning, we think very evident, for the following reasons : 1. It is not to be questioned that the words admit as naturally of this explanation as the other. " By the offence of one, many die," is the assertion : whether the offence is the mere occasional cause, or the judicial ground, of their dying, must be determined STUART ON THE ROMANS. 69 from the context. No violence is done the words, by this inter- pretation. 2. This interpretation is not only possible, but necessary, in this connection, because the sentiment expressed in this verse is confessedly the same as that taught in those which follow ; and they, as we shall endeavor to show, admit of no other exposition. The sentence of condemnation, it is there said, has passed on aU men for one offence of one man. 3. The whole drift and design of the apostle's argument re- quires this interpretation. As it was not his design to teach that Christ was either the source of sanctification, or the occasion of men securing eternal life by their own goodness ; so it would be nothing to his purpose to show, that Adam was the occasion of men becoming wicked, and thus incurring death for their own offences. Happily, there is no necessity for arguing this point at present. Professor Stuart interprets the phrase precisely as we do. He teaches very explicitly, that the apostle does not make the of- fence of Adam the mere occasion of the death of his posterity, but that it was the ground of its infliction. They die on account of his sin, independently of, and antecedent to, any offence of their own. This, which we submit is the true unsophisticated doctrine of imputation, is, according to Professor Stuart, the doctrine of Paul. It will, therefore, not do for him any longer, either to disclaim the doctrine, or contemn its advocates. Lest the reader should be incredulous on this point, and deem it im- possible that so warm an opposer of a doctrine should thus him- self" expressly teach it, we refer him to the analysis of verses 15, 16, 17, on page 226, and to all that is said on verse 15. We can here give a few specimens only of his language. " Adam did by his offence cause -^dvarog to come on all without exception, inas- much as all his race are born destitute of holiness, and in such a state that their passions will, whenever they are moral agents, lead them to sin. All too are heirs of more or less suffering. It is true then, that all suffer on Adam's account ; that all are brought under more or less of the sentence of death," page 227. Of course, a man's being born destitute of holiness, exposed to a certainty of sinning, is not on account of any thing in himself. It is not on account of his own sins, that this evil (ddvaro^) comes upon him ; its infliction is antecedent to any act of his TO STUART ON THE ROMANS. own. This is imputation. This is what Professor Stuart says^ has happened to all the posterity of Adam ; although it is pre- cisely what he affirms, page 239, is entirely repugnant to Scrip- ture, in opposition to justice, and to the first principles of moral consciousness. Again, " To say that ol noXXol d-ne-^avov Slo, Addfi, is not to say, that all have the sentence executed on them in its highest sense (which is contradicted by fact) ; but it is to say, that in some respect or other, all are involved in it ; that, as to more or less of it, all are subjected to it ; and that all are exposed to the whole of the evil which death includes,'' page 228. We presume, few believe that death in its highest sense, eternal misery, is actually " executed" on all men, on account of Adam's sin. We readily admit, Paul teaches no such doctrine ; but, according to Profes- sor Stuart, he does teach that deatJi (penal evil, according to his own subsequent explanation), comes on all men antecedently " to any voluntary act of their own." This is the whole doctrine of imputation. It is but putting this idea into other words, to say, "that men are regarded and treated as sinners on Adam's account ;" for, to be treated as a sinner, is to be made subject to the Mvarog threatened against sin. It matters not what this Mvarog is. Professor Stuart himself says, it is " evil of any kind." The mere degrees of evil surely do not alter the principle. It never entered any one's mind, that the death threatened against all sin and all sinners, was the same precise form and amount of evil. It is evil of any and every kind consequent on sin, and dijffers, in character and amount, in every individual case of its infliction. Taken, therefore, as Professor Stuart explains it, ia this general sense, it is mere trifling to maintain that the doc- trine of imputation is rejected by one man, who holds that it involves, in a given case, so much suffering, and retained by an- other who holds it involves either less or more. Zachariae makes it include, in this case, only natural death, and yet avows the doctrine of imputation ; Professor Stuart makes it include a thousand- fold more, yet says he rejects imputation. According to him, it includes the loss of original righteousness, the cer- tainty of actual sin, and temporal suff'erings. Now, these are tremendous evils ; viewed in connection with the moral and im- mortal interests of men, they are inconceivable and infinite. All STUART ON THE ROMANS. Tl this evil comes on men, not for any offence of their own, but solely on account of Adam's sin. We are at a loss to conceive what Professor Stuart can object to in the common doctrine, that all men are subject to death, t. e., penal evil, on account of the sin of Adam ? Will he say, that it is shocking to think of myriads of men suffering forever, simply for what one man has done ? Happily, we hold no such doctrine. We believe as fully and joyfully as he does, that the grace, which is in Christ Jesus, secures the salvation of all who have no personal sins to answer for. Will he say, that it is in- consistent with the divine goodness and justice, that rhen should be condemned for the sin of another ? But this is his own doc- trine, taught too plainly and frequently, to be either mistaken or forgotten. Will he say, I do not hold the penalty to be so severe as you do ? Loss of holiness, temporal suffering, certainty of sinning, and a consequent exposure to eternal death — this is a heavier penalty than that which Turrettin supposes to be di- rectly inflicted on account of Adam's sin. Will be further answer, I hold that Christ has more than made up the evils of the fall ? For whom ? For all who have no personal sins ? So say we. Yea, for all who will accept of his grace ; so say we again. We would fain hope that no film of prejudice or prepossession is so thick as to prevent the reader from perceiving, that Pro- fessor Stuart teaches the doctrine of imputation as fully as any one holds or teaches it ; and secondly, that his objections are either founded in misconception, or directed against what he ad- mits to be a doctrine of the Bible. If he is so constituted as to believe, that the evils, above referred to, come upon us on ac- count of the sin of Adam, and yet be horrified at the idea that one man should die for the iniquity of another, we must console ourselves with the conviction, that it is an idiosyncrasy, with which no other man can sympathize. The second point of difference between Christ and Adam which the apostle mentions, is stated in the 16th verse, viz. : Adam brings on us the guilt of but one sin ; Christ frees us from the guilt of many. * In other words, in Adam we are condemned for one oflence ; in Christ, we are justified from many. We give this verse in the translation, and with the explanatory clause of Professor Stuart, as it appears on page 230 : " Yea, [the sen- 72 STUART ON THE ROMANS. tence,] by one who sinned, is not like the free gift ; for the sen- tence by reason of one [offence] was unto condemnation [was a condemning sentence] ; but the free gift [pardon] is of many of- fences, unto justification, L e., is a sentence of acquittal from condemnation." We think this a correct exhibition of the mean- ing of the original. The most interesting clause in the verse, is the second, " the sentence was for one offence unto condemna- tion" — Kgiiia e^ evbg elg KaraKpLfia. The same question presents itself with regard to these words, as in relation to the correspond- ing clause in the preceding verse. Does Paul mean to say, that the one offence of Adam was the occasion of our being brought into condemnation, inasmuch as it occasioned our be- coming sinners ? Or, does he mean that his offence was the ground of our condemnation ? The latter is, as we think, the only interpretation which the words in this connection can possi- bly bear. This seems evident in the first place, from the ordin- ary meaning of the terms. It is admitted on all hands, that Kplfia means properly a judicial decision ; and we are willing to admit, that it often by metonomy means, punishment or con- demnation. But it cannot have that meaning, here ; for it is connected with aardicpiiiaj since the apostle would then say con- demnation or punishment leading to condemnation^ has come on all men. Besides, every one here recognizes the common Hellen- istic construction of eig with the accusative after verbs, signifying to he, to become, to regard, instead of the nominative. The sen- tence was to condemnation, is, therefore, the same as saying the sentence was condemnation, or, as Professor Stuart correctly renders it, " a condemning sentence." This condemning sentence is said to be, hy, or for, one offence. What is the natural mean- ing of such an expression ? Is it, that the offence was the oc- casion of men's sinning ? Or, that it was the ground of the sentence ? Surely, the latter. But secondly, in this place we have the idea of pardon on the one hand, which supposes that of condemnation on the other. If, as Professor Stuart says, the latter part of the verse means, we are pardoned for many offences, the former must mean we are condemned for one. Hence, thirdly, we remark, that the whole point, meaning, and truth, of the passage is lost, unless this in- terpretation be adopted. The antithesis in this verse is evi- dently between the one offence, and the many offences. To make STUART ON THE ROMANS. 78 Paul, therefore, say that the offence of Adam was the occasion of our being involved in a multitude of crimes, from all of which Christ saves us, is to make the evil and the benefit perfectly tantamount. Adam leads us into offences, from which Christ saves us. Where, then, is the contrast, if the evil incurred through Adam is identical with the evil from which Christ saves us ? Paul evidently means to assert, that the evil from which Christ saves us is far greater than that which Adam has brought upon us. He brought the condemnation of one offence only ; Christ saved us from many. Fourthly ; this interpretation is so obviously the correct one, that Professor Stuart himself fully 'admits it. It is involved in the translation of the verse, which we just quoted from him, "the condemning sentence was by reason of one offence ;" and still plainer on page 226, "The condemnation which comes upon us through Adam, has respect only to one offence ; w^hile the justification effected by Christ, has respect to many offences." To say that our condemnation " has respect to one offence,'' is to say, we are condemned for one offence. And again, on the same page, he tells us, that "verse 16 repeats the same sentiment, (i. e., with 15th verse,) but in a more specific manner." What is, according to Professor Stuart, the sentiment of verse 15 ? Not that Adam's offence was the occasion, but the ground, of our being subject to ^dvarog, i. e., condemned.^ Of course, then, verse 16, which repeats this sentiment in a more specific man- ner, must mean that the one offence is the ground of our con- demnation. We may remark here, as the words under consideration will, in their connection, admit of no other interpretation than that just given, so the idea which they express being the same as that contained in verses 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, may fairly be applied to explain the equivalent clauses in those verses, which, in them- selves, may be less definite and perspicuous. To explain, there- fore, verse 12 as teaching either that the corrupt nature derived from Adam, or the actual sins which he was the occasion of our committing, are the ground of death, or condemnation, com- ing upon us, is inconsistent with the plain and admitted meaning of this clause, which asserts that the ground of condemnation I We shall show directly, that Professor Stuart admits, that being subject to death for Adam's sin, and being condemned on account of it, are equivalent expressions. 74 STUART ON THE ROMANS. here contemplated is neither our corrupt nature, nor our actual sins, but the one offence of Adam. Consequently, the interpre- tation given above of verses 12, 13, and 14, is the only one which can be carried consistently through. We must here pause to notice as remarkable an example of inconsistency, on the part of Professor Stuart, as we remember ever to have met with. On page 230, he tells us, ngiiJia elg Kard- Kgifia means ^^ a condemning sentence," and on the next page, after remarking that Kpiiia means either a sentence of condemna- tion or punishment, he asks, how the phrase is to be understood here ? " The very expression," he says, "" shows that Kpiixa is to be taken as explained abovej viz., as meaning the evils inflicted by Adam's sin ;" and then adds, whether this evil be loss of original righteousness, or a disposition in itself sinful, "it is true in either case, that the npii-ia, the evil inflicted or suffered, is of such a nature as to lead the way to KardicpLfj,a, condemnation, i. e., ■^avarog, in its highest and most dreadful sense." That is, on one page, we are told the words mean " a sentence of condemnation," and on the next, " certain evils which lead to condemnation" — two inconsistent and opposite interpretations. Need this be proved ? Need it be argued, that a sentence of condemnation is one thing, punishment another ? If Kgiiia here means the former it cannot here mean the latter It is surely one thing to say, that a sentence of condemnation has come upon us for Adam's sin, and a very different one to say, that certain evils have come upon us which lead the way to our incurring condem- nation ourselves. Let it be remembered, that this is one of the most important clauses in this whole passage ; one on which, perhaps more than any other, the interpretation of the whole depends ; and we think our readers will share our surprise, that Professor Stuart's views should be so little settled as to allow him to give such opposite views of its meaning in two consecu- tive pages. This surprise will be increased, when they observe on page 235, when speaking of the 18th verse, he reverts to his first interpretation, and makes it mean, a sentence of condemna- tion. This too is the interpretation of Tholuck, Flatt, Koppe (verse 15), Turrettin, and, in fact, of almost all commentators. The verse 17 either contains an amplification merely of verse 15, or peculiar emphasis is to be laid on the word XaiJipdvovreg, or, as Flatt and Professor Stuart suppose, it expresses the idea, STUART ON THE ROMANS. T^ that Christ not only secures the pardon of our many offences, as stated in verse 16, but confers upon us positive happiness and glory. " The sentiment," Professor Stuarfc says, " runs thus : ' for if all are in a state of condemnation by reason of the offence of one, much more shall those towards whom abundance of mercy and pardoning grace are shown, be redeemed from a state of condemnation, and advanced to a state of happiness/ " Here, we wish the reader to remark, 1st. That Professor Stuart says, the phrase " death reigns," designates a state of condemnation. This is expressly asserted on page 233. 2d. That all are brought into this state of condemnation, by the offence of one. The first clause of the verse he thus translates, "For if by the offence of one, death reigned by means of one." By this he means, not that the offence of Adam was the occasion merely of death reigning over all, or of all being brought into a state of condemnation, but that this offence was the ground of their condemnation, antece- dent to any act of their own. This must be his meaning ; for he thus explains the words " by the offence of one many die," in verse 15 ; and he can hardly maintain that the words, " by the offence of one death reigns," express a different idea. Besides, he tells us expressly, that this verse (verse 17) repeats the senti- ment of verse 15 — see page 226. We wish the reader, 3d. To remark, that if verse 17 expresses the sentiment, ^ all men are in a state of condemnation on account of the offence of Adam,' and if it repeats the sentiment of verses 15, 16, and if verse 18 (con- taining the identical words and expressing the same idea with verse 16) repeats the sentiment of verse 12, then does verse 12, by Professor Stuart's own showing, express the idea that all men are condemned on account of Adam's sin, antecedent to any act ,of their own. Thus we have our interpretation of that verse con- firmed, and Mr. Stuart's overthrown by the Professor himself. 4th. The reader should notice, that Mr. Stuart was led to the correct, though, for him, inconsistent, interpretation of verse 17, by objecting to Tholuck's rendering dinaLoovv?] holiness, instead of justification. He very properly remarks, that such an interpreta- tion is inconsistent with "the antithesis to the state of condem- nation indicated by 6 -ddvaroq ejSaolXevae in the preceding clause." He insists, very reasonably, that the two parts of the sentence should be made to correspond. If the former speaks of condem- nation, the latter must of justification. This obvious principle 76 STUART ON THE ROMANS. of interpretation, the reader will find Professor Stuart forgets, when he comes to the 19th verse. There is another important admission which must he noticed, and that is, that the all who suffer for Adam's sin, are not the all who are benefited by Christ ; the two classes are not necessarily coextensive. " If all are in a state of condemnation by reason of the offence of one, much more shall those towards ivliom abundance of mercy and pardoning grace are shoivn. be redeemed from a state of con- demnation, and advanced to a state of happiness." All are not thus redeemed from condemnation, and advanced to a state of happiness. This, too. Professor Stuart, it will be seen, forgets. VERSES XVIII., XIX. We come now to those verses in which, as we have already seen, the comparison, commenced in verse 12, is resumed, and carried through. Professor Stuart thus translates the 18th verse : '^ Wherefore as by the offence of one (sentence) came upon all men unto condemnation ; so also by the righteousness of one (the free gift) came upon all unto justification of life." Does it re- quire any argument to prove, that this verse means, ^ As men are condemned on account of the offence of one man, so they are justified on account of the righteousness of one man ?' We hardly know how the apostle could have spoken in plainer terms. To make him here say, that the offence of Adam was the mere occasion of our condemnation, is to do the most obvious violence to the passage ; because, 1. We have shown that this cannot be the meaning of these identical words, as they occur in the 16th verse. 2. Because, such an interpretation is inconsistent with the whole scope and design of the passage. 3. Especially, be- cause it violates the pointed antithesis in this verse, or forces us to suppose that Paul teaches that the righteousness of Christ was the mere occasion of men becoming holy. Surely, if 6id ex- presses the occasional cause in the one member of the sentence, it must in the other. But, if we are not prepared to admit that Christ's righteousness is the mere occasion (and not the ground) of our justification, then we cannot maintain that Adam's sin is the mere occasion of our condemnation. 4. We may remark, ad hominem, that Professor Stuart admits that the corresponding clauses in the preceding verses, express the idea, that the offence of Adam was the ground of the condemnation of men. On ac- STUART ON THE ROMANS. *l^^ count of that offence, antecedent to any act of tlieir own, death reigns over them, or they are (as he expresses it), " in a state of condemnation/' Of course, then, he cannot be permitted to turn round, and say that the same words, in the same connection, teach here a different doctrine. There is no escaping the plain meaning of this verse. The very form of introduction proves that Paul is repeating an idea previously presented and estab- lished, ^' Wherefore as;" and this idea, as we have abundantly shown, Professor Stuart himself admits, is, that all men die, all are condemned, on account of Adam's sin. The expression ^^justification of life," Professor Stuart justly remarks, means, that "justification which is connected with eter- nal life." It need hardly be stated, that to say, "justification comes on all men," is equivalent to saying, " all men are justified," or, "all are constituted righteous." The apostle, therefore, does here assert, that, " as all are condemned for Adam's sin, so all are justified on account of the righteousness of Christ." To say, as Professor Stuart says, that the latter clause of this verse means that salvation is merely provided and offered to all, is to give all exegesis to the winds. When it is affirmed, that a man is condemned, or that he is pardoned, how can this mean that he is not condemned, or not pardoned, but merely that an oppor- tunity is offered, or an occasion presented, for the one or the other ? At this rate, we may say that all men are condemned for murder, as all have opportunities to secure this result. What- ever, therefore, "justification of life" may mean, Paul does assert that all men (of whom he is speaking) do receive it. It is at utter variance with all Bible, and all common usage, to make the words mean any thing else. Who ever announces to a con- gregation of sinners, that they are all justified — they are all con- stituted righteous — they all have the justification of eternal life ? No one. Neither does Paul. But does not this necessarily make the apostle teach universal salvation ? Must not the all men of the second clause, be coex- tensive with the all men of the first ? We confidently answer, No. And it is a matter of surprise how Professor Stuart can urge such an objection, when he knows it admits so easily of a complete refutation ; and that, too, by his own admission. The plain meaning of the passage is, ' as all connected with Adam 78 STUART ON THE ROMANS. are condemned, so all connected with Christ are justified/ The first all includes all the natural descendants of Adam (Christ, who was a man, is not included) ; the second all includes the people of Christ, all connected with him hy faith. Is this incon- sistent with usage ? Look at 1 Corinthians, xv. 21 — ^ As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made partakers of a glori- ous resurrection,' as the last clause there confessedly means. Is the second all, in this case, coextensive with the first ? Certainly not. ^ All connected with Adam die ; all connected with Christ live.' How can any man, who admits, as Professor Stuart does (see page 524), that Paul, in this passage, is speaking only of Christians, and, consequently, that the all of the second clause must be confined to them, be serious, in objecting to the same in- terpretation in the perfectly analogous passage before us ? But, secondly, Paul himself clearly intimates, or rather states in so many words, that the all men who are justified by Christ, are the all " who receive the abundance of mercy and pardoning grace,"' verse 17. This, as we understand him. Professor Stuart admits ; for he surely does not mean to say, that all men absolutely do re- ceive this gift, and do reign in life with Jesus Christ. Finally, it is impossible to carry the opposite interpretation through, There are two classes opposed, or contrasted, in verses 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19, and these are the same throughout. Now, is it true, that the grace of God abounds to all men absolutely, in the meaning of verse 15 ; that all are gratuitously pardoned for their many ofiences, as asserted in verse 16 ; that all reign in life with Christ, as is said in verse 17 ; that all are justified with the justification of eternal life, as stated in verse 18 ; that all are ^''constituted righteous," that is, as Professor Stuart explains it, "justified, pardoned, accepted, and treated as righteous," as taught in verse 19 ? This is plainly out of the question. Neither Professor Stuart, nor any other man, except a Universalist, can say all this. We are persuaded, there must be an end to all interpretation of Scripture, and to all understanding of language, if we are to be made to believe, that, being forgiven for many offences, being justified, being regarded and treated as righteous, mean merely, that the offer and opportunity of salvation is af- forded to all men. We may as well shut up the Bible at once, and go bow at the footstool of the Pope, if this be exegesis. Is it not clear, then, the objection to the common view of these pas- STUART ON THE ROMANS. 79 sages cannot be sustained, unless violence be done to every just principle of language. We have arrived at last at verse 19—" For as by the disobe-" dience of one man, the many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of one, shall many be constituted righteous." The first question of interest on this verse is, what is its relation to the 18th ? Is it a mere amplification ? Or, does it assign a reason for the preceding declaration ? Or, may we adopt Storr's view of the 18th, and make the apostle there say, "as in the condemnation of one man, all were condemned, so in the justifi- cation of one all are justified ;"' and then understand the 19th verse, as assigning the ground of the truth thus presented. As it does not essentially alter the meaning of the verse before us, which of these views is adopted, we need not stop to discuss this point. A more important question is. What does Paul mean by say- ing, by the disobedience of one man the many tvere constituted sinners ? Here we meet the three interpretations, before noticed when speaking of the 12th verse. 1. Adam's sin was the occa- sion of our becoming actually sinners. 2. By the transmission of his depraved nature, we are rendered corrupt. 3. On account of his sin, we are regarded and treated as sinners. Professor Stuart adopts the first, many Calvinistic and modern commenta- tors the second; the majority, we presume, of all classes, the third. That this last is the correct, and, indeed, the only possi- ble one in this connection, we think very plain, for the following reasons : 1. Usage, as is on all hands acknowledged, admits of this interpretation as naturally, to say the least, as either of the others. 2. With no show of reason can it be denied, that "to constitute sinners," and " to constitute righteous," are here cor- relative expressions. If the former means, " to make corrupt, or actual sinners," then the latter must mean, " to render holy." But this the phrase cannot here mean — a. Because, " to consti- tute righteous," is substituted for the phrase, "free gift of justi- fication" of the preceding verse ; the dLKamavvT] of the 17th and the 6iK.aiG)^evTE<; of the first part of the chapter ; b. Because such an interpretation is entirely inconsistent with the scriptural use of the terms, justify and justification, and would overturn the very 1 This is, make TrapuKTofia and diKuiufia mean, not offence and righieovsnesSy but condemnrtion and justification. so STUART ON THE ROMANS. foundation of the doctrine of justification by faith, as taught by Paul and the other sacred writers. We are never said to be con- stituted personally holy, by the righteousness of Christ, c. And finally, ad liominem, Professor Stuart tells us, "constituted righteous" means, ^'justified, pardoned, accepted, and treated as righteous." With what semblance of consistency, then, can he deny that " constituted sinners" means " regarded and treated as sinners ?" Has he forgotten what he said on the 17th verse, that if the one part of the verse speaks of condemnation, the other must speak of justification, and vice versa .? But, 3. Not only does the antithesis here demand this interpretation, but it is no less imperatively demanded, in order to maintain any consistency in the exposition of the whole passage. We have seen that Professor Stuart admits that verses 15, 16, 17, and 18, all speak of our being condemned, or dying, on account of Adam's sin, and justified on account of Christ's righteousness. Shall, then, the 19th verse alone assert a diff'erent, and in this connection, an incoherent idea ? And 4. The design and scope of the whole com- parison, requires this interpretation. As we have so frequently remarked, the apostle is not contrasting sin and holiness, but condemnation and justification. He is not illustrating the way, in which men become holy, by the way in which they become corrupt ; but the fact that vve are regarded and treated as right- eous on account of one man, by the fact that we have been re- garded and treated as sinners, on account of another. It is, therefore, not only in violation of the plainest principles of inter- pretation, but at the expense of all consistency, that Professor Stuart makes the clause under consideration mean, the ^ disobe- dience of Adam was the occasion of men becoming personally and actually sinners.' In reviewing the ground we have now gone over, how simple, natural, and conclusive, is the argument of the apostle, accord- ing to the common interpretation ; and how forced, incoherent, and contradictory the view Professor Stuart would have us to adopt. Paul tells us (verse 12), that by one man sin entered into the world, or men were brought to stand in the relation of sinners before God ; death, consequently, passed on all, because for the one offence of that one man, all were regarded and treated as sinners. That this is really the case, is plain ; because, the execution of the penalty of a law cannot be more extensive than STUART ON THE ROMANS. 81 its violation ; and, consequently, if aU men are subject to penal evils, all are regarded as sinners in the sight of God. This universality in the infliction of penal evil, cannot be accounted for on the ground of the violation of the law of Moses, since many- died before that law was 'given ; nor yet, on account of the more general law written on the heart, since even they die who have never personally sinned at all. We must conclude, therefore, that men are regarded and treated as sinners on account of the sin of Adam. He is, therefore, a type of Christ ; and yet, the cases are not entirely analogous ; for if it be consistent, that we should suffer for what Adam did, how much more may we expect to be made happy for what Christ has done. Besides, we are condemned for one sin only on Adam's account ; whereas, Christ saves us not only from the evils consequent on tliat transgression, but from the punishment of our own innumerable offences. Now, if for the offence of one, death thus triumphs over all, how much more shall those who receive the grace of the Grospel (not only be saved from evil), but reign in life, through Christ Jesus. Wherefore, as on account of the offence of one, the condemna- tory sentence has passed on all the descendants of Adam, so on account of the righteousness of one, gratuitous justification comes on all who receive the grace of Christ ; for as on account of the disobedience of the one, we are treated as sinners, so on account of the obedience of the other, we are treated as right- eous. Let it be remarked, that there is not a sentiment (to the best of our knowledge) contained in this general analysis, which has not the sanction, in one place or other, of Professor Stuart's au- thority. We will now very briefly attend to his objections to the doc- trine of imputation as presented in his commentary on the 19th verse. After stating, page 237, that the doctrine does not lie in the word KarEorddriaav ; nor in that word in connection with Slcl rfjg napaKOTJg rov 8v6g ; and arguing well to show that Sia with a genitive may express an occasional, or instrumental cause, as well as an efficient one, he says, ^* we must come then to the ex- amination of the whole phrase, in order to get the satisfaction which is required. And if now, * the many became sinners by the disobedience of Adam,' must it not follow that his sin is im- 6 S2 STUART ON THE ROMANS. puted to them, i. e., reckoned as theirs ? In reply, I would ask, Why should this be a necessary consequence of admitting the apostle's assertion ? If a writer should say, that millions in Europe have become or been constituted profligates, by Voltaire, would the necessary meaning be, that the sin of Voltaire was put to their account ? Certainly not ; it would be enough to say, in order fully to explain and justify such an expression, that Voltaire had been an instrument, a means, or occasion of their profligacy." It is perfectly apparent that Professor Stuart had not, in writing this paragraph, the slightest conception of the argument for imputation founded on this passage. He admits, what cannot be denied, that the words will bear either of these two senses, ^ we are treated as sinners,' or, ' become sinners' per- sonally. The question is, what is their meaning here ? Now if Paul says, that all men die for Adam's ofience antecedent to any act of their own ; if on account of that ofi'ence they are con- demned (as Professor Stuart admits he does say) ; and then that "we are constituted sinners" by his disobedience, as ^we are constituted righteous (that is, confessedly, treated as such) for the obedience of Christ ;' we think it very hard to disprove that he means to say, that we are treated as sinners on his account, or, in other words, have his sin put to our account. The next paragraph is still more strange. " I will select," says Professor Stuart, " a case more directly in point still ; one taken from the very epistle under consideration, and which, therefore, must serve to cast direct light on the usus loquendi of Paul. In Romans, vii. 6, this apostle says, ' Our sinful passions are by the law/ Again, in verse 7, ^ I had not known sin, ex- cept BY the law.' Again, in verse 8, ' Sin taking occasion, by the commandment, wrought in me aU manner of concupiscence ;' and so again in verse 11." He then asks whether it can be in- ferred from these passages, that the law is "the efficient cause of all sin," or, that " there is evil in the law, which evil is put to our account, i. e., merely imputed to us ?" We confess we can scarcely see how such reasoning, or rather such writing, can be answered. If it needs refutation, we almost despair of giving it. We can only say, we know no two propositions more diverse, than, ^ Adam is the efficient cause of our sins,' and ^ Adam's sin is put to our account.' How any mind can regard them as equiv- STUART ON THE ROMANS. 83 alent, is to us a marvel. We as much believe that " the law is the efficient cause of all sin," as that Adam is. And when asked whether the passages quoted prove ^ there is evil in the law, which evil is put to our account T we answer, No, without the least idea what bearing it has on the point in hand. Did any one imagine, that the argument for imputation was founded simply on the use of the word ^id^ such reasoning might be suffi- cient ; but this is not the case. The real argument we have re- peatedly stated above. Is it not lamentable to see important doctrines rejected, and long received interpretation spurned by such a man, for such reasons ? Yet these are his exegetical reasons as here presented. The theological ones are such as follow : " We must then examine," says Professor Stuart, " the nature of the case. It is (according to the common theory of imputa- tion), that the sin of one man is charged upon aU his posterity who are condemned to everlasting death because of it, antece- dent to it, and independently of any voluntary emotion or action on their part." We object to the accuracy of this definition. The words " to everlasting death" should be left out, because it matters not what men are condemned to, as far as the doctrine is concerned. The doctrine is this, ^ The sin of Adam is so put to the account of his posterity, that they are condemned on ac- count of it, antecedent to any act of their own.' This is our doctrine ; and as we have seen, it is totidem verbis, what Profes- sor Stuart says Paul teaches in verses 15, 16, 17, of this chapter, although it is also the doctrine which he now argues against with so much vehemence. (The reader will see that Mr. Stuart's ob- jections are not directed against the clause " everlasting death," and consequently its omission does not alter the case.) His first objection is, that the doctrine " appears to contradict the essen- tial principles of our moral consciousness." We never can force ourselves into a consciousness that any act is really our own, except one in which we have had a personal and voluntary con- cern." " A transfer of moral turpitude is just as impossible as a transfer of souls." " To repent, in the strict sense of the word, of another's personal act, is plainly an utter impossibility." We, in our simplicity, had hoped never to hear again, at least from Professor Stuart, these objections against this doctrine. They 84 STUAKTONTHEKOMANS. have so abundantly and frequently been proved to be founded in an entire misconception of its nature, that it is useless, because hopeless, to go over the proof again, for those who still refuse to see it. We can therefore, only say we no more believe in " the transfer of moral turpitude," than ^* in the transfer of souls." Nor do we believe it possible " to repent, in the strict sense of the word, of another's personal act." Nor yet again, do we be- lieve that two and two make twenty, and still we, not a whit the less, believe the doctrine of imputation. If it be any amusement to Professor Stuart to write thus, we cannot object ; but to call it arguing against imputation, is a strange solecism. But secondly : " Such an imputation as that in question (viz., such as includes the idea of " a transfer of moral turpitude," and that " an act is really our own in which we have had no personal concern"), would be in direct opposition to the first principles of moral justice as conceived of by us, or as represented in the Bible. That ^ the son shall not die for the iniquity of the father,' is as true as that ^ the father shall not die for the iniquity of the son,' as God has most fully declared in Ezekiel xviii." It would really seem that Professor Stuart is some how infatuated on this subject ; that he is unable to keep the same Mea in his mind long enough to write two consecutive paragraphs How is it, he does not see that the idea of imputation, on which this sentence is founded, is as different as day from night, from that involved in the preceding ? In the one, ^ the transfer of moral turpitude,' and identity of act, are included ; in the other both of these ideas are necessarily excluded, and the whole doctrine is, that ' one should die for the iniquity of another.' It is not within the limits of possibility that he should understand the prophet as saying ^ the moral turpitude of the father shall not be transferred to the son, nor his act be really the act of his offspring.' This cannot be ; of course Professor Stuart's idea of imputation, when writing this paragraph, was the opposite of the one he had when writing the preceding. But again ; ^ that a son should die for the iniquity of his father,' " is," he says, " in direct opposition to the first principles of moral justice." He wonders how President Edwards could im- agine that the declaration of the prophet was meant to be con- fined to the several individuals of the race of Adam, and not to STUART ON THE BOMANS. 9p be applied to the peculiar covenant relation between him and his posterity. And yet, as we have seen, Professor Stuart himself teaches, yea, on the very next page re-affirms, that all men do die on account of the iniquity of Adam, Such inconsistency is wonderful. He seems to feel, notwithstanding the warmth with which he argues, that all is not quite right, for he introduces an objector as suggesting to him, " But still you admit that the whole human race became degenerate and degraded, in consequence of the act of Adam." To which he replies, ^' I do so : I fully be- lieve it. I reject all attempts to explain away this. I go further : I admit not only the loss of an original state of righteousness, in consequence of Adam's first sin, but that temporal evils and death have come on all by means of it," &c. Yes, respected sir, you admit what you deny, and deny what you admit, in such rapid succession, your readers are bewildered. That, ^ one should die for the iniquity of another is, on one page opposed to all justice, and on the next, we not only ' all die for Adam's sin/ but we are born destitute of holiness, with " a nature degraded and degenerated, in itself considered ;" we are involved in a cer- tainty of sinning, and " are in imminent hazard of everlasting death." Of all this, you teach that Adam's sin is not the occa- sion merely, but that these evils come upon us antecedent to any voluntary emotion of our own. Nay, more, they are all in their nature penal, for in the next page you tell us, they are '■^ part of the penalty of the law;" a small part, as you are pleased to think, though a much larger part than Turretin and other strenuous advocates of the doctrine of imputation, believe to be directly " inflicted on our race" for Adam's offence. We have now seen enough to convince the reader of two things : First, that the doctrine of imputation is not touched either by Professor Stuart's exegesis or metaphysics. It is pre- cisely where it was before ; and Second, that his whole expo- sition of this passage (Romans, v. 12-19), is so inconsistent with itself that it cannot by possibility be correct. In reading this por- tion of his commentary we have been reminded of a remark of Lord Erskine in reference to one of Burke's efibrts in the House of Commons, "It was a sad failure, but Burke could bear it." 86 STUART ON THE ROMANS. It was our intention to extend these remarks to the Excursus on Komans v., at the end of the volume. But we have made this article much too long already. We must, therefore, defer the execution of this purpose, to another occasion, should such be granted us. We think it will then appear, that if our New Haven brethren can claim one-half of what Professor Stuart says, we can establish our right to the other. III. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY/ Our readers are probably aware that the Unitarian clergymen of Boston and its vicinity, priding themselves in the name of liberal Christians, have never professed to agree entirely among themselves in their doctrinal views. Of late, however, a portion of their number have advanced sentiments which, in the appre- hension of the rest, exceed even the limits of the most liberal Christianity. Hence this Discourse on the Latest Form of Infi- delity. The pamphlets before us do not enable us to ascertain precisely what this new form of infidelity is, nor how far it is embraced by the Boston clergy. We know, indeed, that it has its origin in German philosophy, and that the Kev. Mr. Emerson delivered an address before the same Association which listened to Mr. Norton's Discourse, which was a rhapsodical oration in favor of pantheism. We know also that that oration called forth an earnest remonstrance and disclaimer from some of the friends and officers of the Cambridge school of theology. The public papers moreover informed us that Mr. Emerson delivered, with some applause, a series of popular lectures on the new philosophy, to the good people of Boston. We are, however, ignorant both as to the number of those who embrace this new philosophy, and as to the extent to which they carry it. It may be inferred from Mr. Norton's discourse, that he considered his ' A Discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity, delivered at the request of the Association of the Alumni of the Cambridge Theological School, on the 19th of July» 1839, with notes. By Andrews Norton. Cambridge: Published by John Owen, 1839. Pp. 64. A Letter to Mr. Andrews Norton, occasioned by his Discourse before the Associa- tion of tlie Alumni of the ^Cambridge Theological School, on the 19th of July, 1839. By an Alumnus of that School Boston: James Munroo & Co., 1839. Pp. 160 Princeton Review. 88 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. opponents as denying either the possibility of a miracle, or the truth of the New Testament history in reference to the miracles of Christ. Why else should he make the truth of the evangeli- cal history, and the absolute necessity of a belief in miracles, in order to faith in Christianity, the burden of his discourse ? "The latest form of infidelity," he says, " is distinguished by assuming a Christian name, while it strikes directly at the root of faith in Christianity, and indirectly of all religion, by denying the mira- cles attesting the divine mission of Christ."' On another page, he says, "Christianity claims to reveal facts, a knowledge of which is essential to the moral and spiritual regeneration of men, and to offer, in attestation of those facts, the only satisfactory proof, the authority of Grod, evidenced by miraculous displays of his power/" Again : "If it were not for the abuse of language that has prevailed, it would be idle to say, in denying the miracles of Christianity, the truth of Christianity is denied. It has been vaguely alleged, that the internal evidences of our religion are sufficient, and that the miraculous proof is not wanted ; but this can be said by no one who understands what Christianity is, and what its internal evidences are."'' These quotations are sufficient to exhibit the two prominent doctrines of the discourse, viz : that miracles are the only satis- factory evidence of a divine revelation ; and that the denial of the miracles of Christianity, is a denial of Christianity itself. These doctrines are not necessarily connected. For, although it is certain that if the former be true, the latter must be true also ; it does not follow that if the former be false, the latter must be false. It may be incorrect, as it doubtless is, to make miracles the only satisfactory proof of Christianity, and yet it may be perfectly correct to say that a denial of the miracles of Christ, is a denial of the gospel, not because the only sufficient proof of the truth of the gospel is denied, but because the miraculous character of the gospel enters into its very essence. The advent, the person, the resurrection of Christ, were all miraculous. He cannot be believed upon, without believing a miracle. Rev- elation is itself a miracle. All the words of Christ suppose the truth of his miracles. They can, therefore, no more be separated from his religion than the warp and woof can be separated, and yet the cloth remain entire. The apostle expressly teaches us, 'Discourse, p. 11. 'Discourse, p. 18. 3 Discourse, p. 21. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 89 that if the resurrection of Christ be denied, the whole gospel is denied. While, therefore, we dissent from Mr. Norton as to his first proposition, we fully agree with him as to the second. ~ The obvious objection to the doctrine, that miracles are the only adequate proof of divine revelation, is that the great major- ity of Christians, who are incapable of examining the evidence on which the miracles rest, are thus left without any sufficient ground of faith. This objection does not escape Mr. Norton's attention. His answer is the same as that given by Catholic priests and high churchmen, everywhere, viz., they must believe on trust, or as he prefers to express it, on the testimony of those who are competent to examine the evidence in question. As they are forced to beheve a thousand things, without personal examination, on the testimony of others, he thinks it not unrea- sonable that they should receive their religion on the same terms. If they believe that the earth turns round because astronomers tell them so, why may they not believe that the gospel is true because learned men vouch for the fact ? It is hardly necessary to remark, that every Christian knows that such is not the foundation of his faith : he has firmer ground on which to rest the destiny of his soul. He does not believe Grotius or Paley; he believes God himself, speaking in his word. The evidence of the truth is in the truth itself. The proposition that the whole is greater than a part, is believed for its own sake. And to higher intellects, truths at which we arrive by laborious pro- cess, appear in their own light, as axioms appear to us. So also with regard to morals. There are some propositions which every human being sees to be true, the moment they are announced. There are others which must be proved to him. And the higher the moral cultivation, or purity of the soul, is carried, the wider is the range of this moral intuition. So also with regard to religious truth. That God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and un- changeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiaess, justice, good- ness, and truth ; that he is not a Jupiter, or a Moloch, is believed with an intimate conviction which no argument nor external evidence can possibly produce. It is believed for its own sake. It cannot be understood or perceived in its true nature without the persuasion of its truth rising in the mind. No man believes that malignity is wrong on external authority ; and no man believes that God is good, because it can be logically 90 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. demonstrated. Tlie ground of faith in moral truth, from the nature of the case, is the perception of the nature of the truth believed. It is seen and felt to be true. That one man does not see a proposition in morals to be true, can have no effect upon him who does perceive it. And the only way to produce conviction in the mind of him who doubts or disbelieves, is to remove the darkness which prevents the perception of the truth to be believed. If seen in its true nature, it is believed ; just as beauty is believed as soon as seen. ^' Faith is no work of reason, and therefore can- not be overthrown by jt, since believing no more arises from arguments than tasting or seeing."' It is very true, that the great majority of men have no such perception of the peculiar truths of the gospel as produces this unwavering faith. The only belief that they have rests on tra- dition, or prejudice, or, in the learned few, on the external evidences of the gospel. The reason of this fact, however, is not that the doctrines in question do not contain the evidence of their own truth, but that the minds of the majority of men are not in a state to perceive it. What is the reason that savages do not perceive many things to be wrong, the moral turpitude of which is to us a matter of intuition ? The reason lies in the state of their minds. So, also, the ^' natural man receive th not the things of the Spirit of Grod ; for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them ; for they are spiritually dis- cerned. But he that is spiritual discerneth all things." The spiritual man, then, (that is, the man under the influence of the Spirit of God,) discerns the excellence of the things of the Spirit ; and he receives them because he does discern them. He sees the excellence of the divine character ; the glory of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ ; the perfection of the divine law ; the accordance of the declarations of God with his own experience ; the suitableness of the plan of salvation to his necessities, and to the perfections of God. He feels the power which attends these truths in his own soul, and his faith, there- fore, rests not on the wisdom of man, but on the power of God. It must be remembered, that the Bible is a whole. The believer sees these doctrines every where, and he therefore believes the ' Der Glaube ist kein Werk der Yernunft, kann also auch keinen Angriffen der- selben unterliegen, well Glauben so wenig durch Grriinde geschieht, als Sclimeckeu Und Sehen. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 91 whole. One portion of Scripture supposes and contirms another. The authority of the ancient prophets, of Christ, ^nd of the apostles, is one and indivisible. As the prophets testified to Christ, so he testified of them. As Christ testified of the apos- tles, so did they testify of him. The object of the believer's faith, therefore, is the whole Bible. He sees every where the same Grod, the same law, the same Saviour, the same plan of redemption. He believes the whole, because it is one glorious system of effulgent truth. As this is* the doctrine of the Bible on this subject, so it is also the doctrine of the church. Were it our present object to estab- lish this point, the correctness of the above statement could be easily proved. We cannot forbear, however, to quote the following beautiful passage from the Westminster Confession : " We may be moved and induced," says that venerable symbol, "by the testimony of the church, to an high and reverend esteem for the Holy Scripture ; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole, (which is to give all glory to God,) the full discovery which it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the word of God ; yet, notwith- standing, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy- Spirit, bearing witness by and with the truth in our hearts." Owen wrote a treatise on this subject, which bears the impress of his sound and vigorous understanding, as well as of his inti- mate acquaintance with the nature of true religion.' In his Treatise on the Reason of Faith, he says : " The formal reason of faith, divine and supernatural, whereby we believe the Scrip- tures to be the word of God, in the way of duty, as it is required of us, is the authority and veracity of God alone, evidencing themselves unto our minds and consciences, in and by the Scrip- ture itself. And herein consisteth that divine testimony of the Holy Spirit, which, as it is a testimony, gives our assent unto the Scripture, the general nature of faith, and, as it is a divino * See his work on the Divine Authority, Self-evidencing Light, and Power of the Scriptures, with an answer to the inquiry, How we know the Scriptures to be the word of God? 92 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. testimony, gives it the especial nature of faith divine and super- natural. " This divine testimony given unto the divine original of the sacred Scriptures, in and by itself, wherein our faith is ultimately resolved, is evidenced and made known, as by the character of the infinite perfections of the divine nature which are in and upon it ; so by the authority, power, and efficacy, over and upon the souls and consciences of men, and the satisfactory excellence of the truths contained therein, wherewith it is accompanied." This view of the ground of faith is confirmed by the experience and testimony of the people of God in all ages. It is a monstrous idea, that the thousands of illiterate saints who have entered eternity in the full assurance of hope, had no better foundation for their faith than the testimony of the learned to the truth of the Bible. Let the advocates of such an opinion ask the true Christian, why he believes the word of God, and they will find he can give some better reason for the hope that is in him than the faith or testimony of others. Let them try the resources of their philosophy, empirical or transcendental, on a faith founded on the testimony of the Holy Spirit by and with the truth ; let them try the effect of demonstrating that such and such doctrines cannot be true ; they will assuredly meet with the simple answer, ^'One thing I know, whereas I was blind now I see." It is by no means intended to undervalue the importance of the external evidence of a divine revelation, whether derived from miracles, prophecy, or any other source, but simply to protest against the extreme doctrine of Mr. Norton's discourse : that such evidence is the only proof of a divine revelation, and that all who cannot examine such evidence for themselves must take their religion upon trust. The refutation of this doctrine occupies much the larger portion of the Letter of the Alumnus of the Cambridge Theological School, the title of which is placed at the head of this article. The argument of the Alumnus, as far as it is a refutation, is perfectly successful. With his own doctrine, we are as little satisfied as with that of Mr. Norton. "The truths of Christianity," he tells us, "have always been addressed to the intuitive perceptions of the common mind."^ » Letter, &c. p. 116. I THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 93^ He quotes with much commendation, the following passage from Professor Park, of Andover : '' The argument from miracles is not the kind of proof to which the majority of cordial believers in the Bible are, at the present day, most attached. They have neither the time nor the ability to form an estimate of the historical evidence that favors or opposes the actual occurrence of miracles. They know the Bible to be true, because they feel it to be so. The excellence of its morality, like a magnet, attracts their souls ; and sophistry, which they cannot refute, will not weaken their faith, resulting as it does, from the accordance of their HIGHER NATURE WITH THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE." This language, as coming from Professor Park, if it be any thing more than a specimen of the desire to express a familiar truth in a philosoph- ical form, is something far worse. If this "higher nature" of man, which thus accords with the spirit of the Bible, is his renewed nature — ^his nature purified and enlightened by the Holy Spirit — then we have a solemn truth disguised in order to secure favor with the world. But if this " higher nature " be the nature of man, in any of its aspects, as it exists before regei;iera- tion, then is the language of Professor Park a betrayal of the scriptural truth. The doctrines of depravity, and of the necessity of divine influence are virtually denied. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh ; unless a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God; the carnal mind is enmity against God; the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him ; we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called (and to them only) Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. To assert, therefore, the accordance of the higher nature of unrenewed men with the spirit of the Bible, is to contradict one of the primary doctrines of the word of God. It contradicts, moreover, universal experi- ence. Does the character of God, as a being of inflexible justice and perfect holiness ; do the doctrines of Christ crucified, of the corruption of man, of the necessity of regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost, and of eternal retribution, commend them- selves to the hearts of unrenewed men ? Are they not, on the contrary, rejected by those who delight to talk of the accordance of their higher nature with the spirit of the Bible ? If the passage on which we are commenting, refers to nothing M THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. more than the accordance between the ethics of the Bible and the moral sense of men, and between its general representations of God and human reason, it is still more objectionable. It supposes that all that is peculiar to the gospel, all that distin- guishes it from a system of natural religion, may be left out of view, and yet its spirit, its essential part, remain. Is the spirit of a system which makes Christ a mere man, which denies the apostacy of our race, which rejects the doctrines of atonement and regeneration, the spirit of the Bible ? Then, indeed, has the offence of the cross ceased. While, therefore, we dissent from Mr. Norton's doctrine, that miracles are the only adequate proof of a divine revelation, and that those who cannot examine that proof for themselves, must believe upon the testimony of others, we dissent no less earnestly from the doctrine of his opponent, that Christianity is addressed to the intuitive perceptions of the common mind ; that it is embraced because of the accordance of its spirit with the higher nature of man. We believe the external evidence of the Bible to be perfectly conclusive ; we believe its internal evidence, (that is, its majesty, its purity, its consistency, its manifold perfections,) to be no less satisfactory; but we believe also, that the ultimate foundation of the Christian's faith, is the testimony of the Holy Spirit, by and with the truth in our hearts. Though the author of the letter to Mr. Norton devotes most of his attention to the refutation of the doctrine above stated, respecting miracles, the feature of the discourse which seems to have given him and his friends the greatest umbrage, is its denunciatory^ character ; that is, its venturing to assert, that those who deny the miracles of Christianity are infidels. This, it appears, was considered singularly out of taste, and incongru- ous, seeing the discourse was delivered before an association of liberal theologians. Its members, it is said, "agree in the rejection of many articles of faith which have usually been held sacred in the church ; a traditional theology has taken no strong hold of their minds ; they deem the simple truths of Christianity more important than the mysteries that have been combined with them ; but the principle of their union has never been made to consist in any speculative belief ; no test has been required as a condition of fellowship ; the mere suggestion of such a course would be met only with a smile of derision." The Association THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY, 95 " is composed of the alumni of a theological school, which has always claimed the favor of the community, on account of its freedom from an exclusive spirit ; its confidence in the safety and utility of thorough inquiry in all matters of faith ; its attachment to the principles of liberal theology ; and its renunciation of the desire to impose articles of belief on the minds of its pupils."' That the exclusive principle should be adopted in a discourse before such an audience was not to be expected. By this prin- ciple is meant, '^ the assumption of the right for an individual, or for any body of individuals, to make their own private opinions the measure of what is fundamental in the Christian faith. As liberal Christians,'' it is said, ^' we have long protested against this principle, as contrary to the very essence of Protestantism. It was not because our exclusive brethren made a belief in the Trinity a test of allegiance to Christ, that we accused them of inconsistency with the liberty of the gospel ; but because they presumed to erect any standard whatever, according to which the faith of individuals should be made to conform to the judg- ment of others. It was not any special application of the principle that we objected to ; but the principle itself ; and, assuredly, the exercise of this principle does not change its character, by reason of the source from which it proceeds.'" This strikes us as very good declamation, but very poor reason- ing. There may be just complaint about the application of the exclusive principle ; but to complain of the principle, is certainly very unreasonable. The author of this letter is just as exclusive as Mr. Norton, and Mr. Norton as the Trinitarians. They draw the line of exclusion at different places ; but all must draw it some where. An infidel is a man who denies the truth of the Christian religion. That religion is certainly something. Differ- ent men may have different views of what it consists, or what is essential to it. But all must regard it as embracing some doc- trines, or it would cease to be a religion ; and, consequently, they must regard those who reject those doctrines as infidels, whether they say so or not. This Alumnus would hardly call Mohammedans Christians, though they reckon Abraham and Christ among the prophets, and believe in God and the immor- tality of the soul. Would he then call him a Christian who denies the divine mission of Christ, the being of an intelligent * Letter, &c., pp. 6 and 6. « Letter, &&, pp. 23 and 24. 96 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. Grod, and the existence of the soul after death, merely because he lives in a Christian country, and assumes the Christian name ? This would be to make liberality ridiculous. Yet such claimants of the Christian name are beginning to abound. Mr. Norton, therefore, is not to be blamed, even as a "liberal theologian," for the adoption of the exclusive principle. He may have drawn the line in an inconvenient place ; he may have violated the code of Unitarian etiquette, in making a belief in miracles essential to a belief in Christianity, and thus justly exposed himself to the charge of a breach of privilege ; but he can hardly be blamed for making the belief of something necessary to entitle a man to the name of a Christian. We have no doubt, his real offence was in drawing the line of exclusion in such a manner as to cast out 'of the pale of even liberal Christianity, some who are not disposed to be thus publicly disowned. This is, indeed, distinctly stated. " Your declaration," says the author of the letter, to Mr. Norton, " is that a certain kind of evidence, in your view, establishes the truth of Christianity, and that he who rests his faith on any other is an infidel, notwithstanding his earnest and open profes- sions to the contrary. You thus, in fact, denied the name of Christian to not a few individuals in your audience, although you avoided discussing the grounds by which their opinions are supported. For it is perfectly well known, that many of our most eminent clergymen — I will not refrain from speaking of them as they deserve on account of my personal sympathy with their views — repose their belief on a different foundation from that which you approve as the only tenable one." It is plain, therefore, that the offensive exclusiveness of Mr. Norton's Dis- course consisted in denying the Christian name to those who deny the miracles of Christ. It appears to us, however, that the writer of this letter does Mr. Norton great injustice. He accuses him of confounding 'Hwo propositions which are essentially distinct : a belief in a divine revelation, and a belief in the miracles alleged in its support. You utterly confound," it is said, "the divine origin of Christian- ity, and a certain class of the proofs of its divine origin." — P. 34. Mr. Norton does not confound these two things ; nor does he, as represented by this writer, pronounce all those to be infidels whose faith rests on any other foundatian than miracles. He declares those to be infidels who deny the miracles of the New THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 97 Testamentj but this is a very different affair. Many who feel the force of other kinds of evidence much more than that of miracles, and whose faith, therefore, does not rest on that foundation^ admit their truth. Mr. Norton's doctrine is, that the miraculous accounts contained in the New Testament are so interwoven with all the other portions of the history, and enter so essentially into the nature of the whole system of Christianity, that they cannot be denied, without denying what is essential to the Christian religion. There is no confusion here of the thing to be proved, and the proof itself. It is true, he teaches that miracles are the only proof of a divine revelation. But this is only one of his reasons for maintaining that the rejection of the miracles of Christianity, is a rejection of Christianity itself We believe this latter proposition, though we do not believe the former. We be- lieve that miracles are essential to Christianity, though we do not believe that they are the only sufficient proof of its divine origin. The Alumnus moreover censures Mr. Norton severely, for call- ing Spinoza an Atheist and Pantheist. The propriety of this censure depends on the sense given to the terms employed. An Atheist is one who denies the existence of God. But what is (xod ? If the term be so extended as to include even a blind vis formativa operative through the universe, then there never was an Atheist. But if the term is used in its true scriptural sense ; if it designates an intelligent and moral being, distinct from his creatures, whose essence is not their essence, whose acts are not their acts, and especially whose consciousness is not their consciousness, then Spinoza was an Atheist. He acknowledges no such being. The universe was God ; or rather all creatures where but the phenomena of the only really existing being. It may, indeed, seem incongruous to call a man an Atheist, of whom it may with equal truth be said, that he believed in nothing but God. But in the sense stated above, which is a correct and acknowledged sense of the term, Spinoza was an Atheist. ^' We come now," says the Alumnus, " to a still more extra- ordinary mistake, which arose probably from the habit, too prevalent among us, of grouping together theologians who have scarcely anything in common, but the language in which they write. You class Schleiermacher with the modern German school, whose disciples are called Rationalists or Naturalists." — P. 133. This lie says is as whimsical a mistake as if a foreigner 98 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. were to describe the celebrated Dr. Beecber as one of the most noted of the Unitarian school, in New England. This mistake is not quite as whimsical as the author supposes. The term Eationalist is, indeed, commonly employed to designate those who, making reason the source as well as the standard of relig- ious truth, deny all divine revelation. Have the pietists, says Khor, the superintendent- of Weimar, yet to learn that we admit no other revelation in Christ than such as occurred in Socrates or Plato ? Of such Kationalists, who are in Germany just what the Deists are in England, Schleiermacher, and all the transcendal school, were the determined and contemptuous opponents. In another sense, however, the term Eationalist is applicable, and is in faot applied, to the transcendentalists of the highest grade. Under the head' of the Mystiscli-spekulative Rationalismus, Tholuck includes the gnosticism of the first centuries, the Pan- theists of the middle ages, and of modern Germany.' To this class of mystical Kationalists, Schleiermacher undoubtedly be- longed. As, however, the term is generally applied to the deistical opposers of a supernatural revelation, with whom he was ever in controversy, it certainly produces confusion to call Schleiermacher himself a Rationalist. As to the question, whether he was a Pantheist, as it is a matter about which his learned cotemporaries in his own country are at variance, we may well stand in doubt. Few unbiassed readers of his Reden iiber die Religion, however, could regard him in any other light when those discourses w^ere written. They are, to be sure, a rhapsody, full of genius and feeling, but still a rhapsody, in which the mean- ing is a very secondary concern ; which the reader is not expected to understand, but simply to feel. Such a book may betray a man's sentiments, but is hardly fit to be cited in any doctrinal contro- versy. Schleiermacher was a very extraordinary man. Though he placed far too little stress on historical Christianity, (i. e., on the religion of Christ, considered as objective revelation, recorded in the New Testament,) yet as he made Christ the centre of his mystical system, exalting him as the perfect manifestation of God, he exerted an extraordinary influence in breaking down the authority of those deistical Rationalists, who were accustomed to speak of Christ as altogether such an one as themselves. He was once a Moravian, and there is reason to believe, that the ' Thohick's GlaubwnSrdigkeit der evangel Geschich. &c., Ch. 1. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 99 interior life of his soul existed, after all, more under the form thus originally impressed upon it, than under the influence of his subsequent speculations. It was no uncommon thing for him to call upon his family to join with him in singing some devout Moravian hymn of praise to Christ ; and though his preaching was of a philosophical cast, yet the hymns which he assigned were commonly expressive in a high degree, of devotional feeling and correct sentiment.' Such a worshipper of Christ ought not to be confounded with such heartless Deists as Paulus, Wegschei- der, and Khor. The Alumnus makes another objection to Mr. Norton's dis- course, the justice of which we admit. It does not fulfil the expectations which the annunciation of his subject excites. It is not a discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity ; it is a mere consideration of one subordinate feature of that form, viz., the denial of the miracles of the New Testament. And this feature is by no means characteristic of the system, as this denial was as formally made by Paulus as it is now by Strauss, men who have scarcely any other opinion in common. Mr. Norton's discourse gives us little insight into the form which infidelity has recently assumed in Germany, and still less into the nature of the opinions which have begun to prevail in his own neighborhood. Accord- ing to the Alumnus, it is better adapted to mislead than to inform the reader, as far as this latter point is concerned. " Yoti announce,' says he to Mr. Norton, " as the theme of your dis- course, Hhe characteristics of the times, and some of those opinions now prevalent, which are at war with a belief in Chris- tianity.' This, certainly, was a judicious opening, and I only speak the sentiments of your whole audience, when I say that it was heard with universal pleasure. It at once brought up a sub- ject of the highest importance, of no small difiiculty, and of singular interest to our community at the present moment. It gave promise that you would discuss the character and tendency of opinions now prevalent in the midst of us ; that you would meet some of the objections which have been advanced to popular theological ideas ; that you would come directly to the great questions that are at issue between different portions of the audience which you addressed. But instead of this mode of pro- ' It was his habit to have these hymns printed on slips of paper and distributed to the people at the door of his church. 100 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. ceeding, you adopted one which could not have been expected from your statement of the subject, and which I conceive to have been singularly irrelevant to the demands of your audience, and the nature of the occasion. Instead of meeting, face to face, the opinions which have found favor with many of the theologians in this country, which are publicly maintained from the pulpit and the press, in our own immediate community, which form the cardinal points on which speculation is divided among us, you appear studiously to avoid all mention of them ; no one could infer from your remarks, that any novel ideas had been broached in our theological world, excepting such as can be traced back to the sceptical reasonings of Spinoza and Hume, and a compara- tively small class of the modern theologians of Germany."'' He then denies that the writings of Spinoza, Hume, or of the German Rationalists, (in the limited sense of that term,) were exerting any influence among the theologians of Boston, and that the speculations which really prevailed, had a very different origin. It is clear, from all this, that a serious and wide breach has occurred between different classes of the Unitarian divines in New England, but the real character of the novel ideas cannot be learned either from Mr. Norton's discourse or from the letter of the Alumnus. It is, indeed, sufficiently plain, from the man- ner in which the latter speaks of pantheistic wTiters, that the new philosophy is the source of the difficulty. Speaking of the system of Spinoza, which he admits to be pantheistic, in a philo- sophical sense, inasmuch as it denies "real, substantial existence to finite objects," he says, " no one who understands the subject, will accuse this doctrine of an irreligious tendency. It is religious even to mysticism ; on that account, as well as for certain philo- sophical objections it labors under, [the Bible, it seems, has nothing to do with the question,] I cannot adopt it as a theory of the universe ; but, I trust, I shall never cease to venerate the holy and exalted spirit of its author, who, in the meek simplicity of his life, ihe transparent beauty of his character, and the pure devotion with which he wooed truth, even as a bride, stands almost ^ alone, unapproached,' among men." — P. 126. Such lan- guage, in reference to a system which denies the existence of a personal God, the individuality of the human soul, which neces- > Letter, &c., pp. 17 and 18. i THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDEL.ITY. 101 sarily obliterates all distinction between right and wrong, betrays a singular perversion of ideas, and an entire renunciation of all scriptural views of the nature of religion. To call that obscure and mystic sentiment religion, which arises from the contempla- tion of the incomprehensible and infinite, is to change Christian- ity into Buddhism. The result in fact, to which the philosophy of the nineteenth century has brought its votaries. In another place, however, he says of the leading school in modern German theology, " that the impression of the powerful genius of Schleiermacher is every where visible in its character ; but it includes no ser\ile disciples ; it combines men of free minds, who respect each other's efforts, whatever may be their individual conclusions ; and the central point at which they meet is the acknowledgment of the divine character of Christ, the divine origin of his religion, and its adaptation to the world, when presented in a form corresponding with its inherent spirit, and with the scientific culture of the present age. There are few persons who would venture to charge such a school with the pro- mulgation of infidelity ; there are many, I doubt not, who will welcome its principles, as soon as they are understood, as the vital, profound, and ennobling theology, which they have earnestly sought for, but hitherto sought in vain." — P. 146. It is difficult to know how tiiis paragraph is to be understood. If restricted to a few of the personal friends and pupils of Schleiermacher, such as Liicke, Ullmann, Twesten, and a few others, the description has some semblance of truth. But, in this case, it is no longer the " leading school of modern German theology" that the writer is describing. And if extended to the really dominant school, the description is as foreign from the truth as can well be imagined. We have so recently exhibited at considerable length, the nature of the prevalent system of German theology and philoso- phy,' that we may well be excused from entering again at large upon the subject. As, however, it is a subject of constantly increasing interest, it may not be amiss to give a few additional proofe of the true character of the Latest Form of Infidelity. In doing this, we shall avail ourselves of the authority of such men as Leo, Hengstenberg, and Tholuck, men of the highest rank in their own country for talents, learning and integrity. We shall let ^ Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, January, 1839. 102 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. them describe this new form of philosophy, which is turning the heads of our American scholars, inflating some and dementing others ; and we shall leave it to our transcendental countrymen, if they see cause, to accuse these German scholars and Christians of ignorance and misref)resentation. It is well known to all who have paid the least attention to the subject, that the prevalent system of philosophy in Germany is that of Hegel ; and that this system has, to a remarkable degree, diffused 'itself among all classes of educated men. It is not confined to recluse professors or speculative theologians, but finds its warmest advocates among statesmen and men of the world. It has its poets, its popular as well as its scientific journals. It is, in short, the form in which the German mind now exists and exhibits itself to surrounding nations, just as Deism or Atheism was characteristic of France during the reign of terror. That a system thus widely difi'used should present different phases might be naturally anticipated. But still it is one system, called by one name, and, despite of occasional recriminations among its advocates, recognised by themselves as one whole. The general characteristic of this school is Panthe- ism. This, as has been said, is " the public secret of Germany;" and " we must," says Hengstenberg, " designedly close our own eyes on all that occurs around us, if we would deny the truth of this assertion."' And on the following page, he says, that though^ there are a few of the followers of Hegel who endeavor to recon- cile his principles with Christianity, yet they are spoken of with contempt by their associates, who, as a body, are "with the clearest consciousness, and as logically as possible devoted to Pantheism." They are, moreover, he adds, hailed as brothers by the advocates of popular Pantheism, who denounce, under the name of pietism, at once Christianity, Judaism and Deism. This was written four years ago, a long period in the history of modern philosophy, and since that time, the character of the school has developed itself with constantly increasing clearness. In allusion to the French Chamber of Deputies, this school is divided into two parts, the right and the left. The former teach the principles of the philosophy in an abstruse form, as a philos- ophy ; the other gives them a more popular and intelligible form. This latter division again, is divided into the centre left and ex- ' Kirchen-Zeitung, January, 1836, p. 19. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 103 treme left. The one preserving some decorum and regard to public morals in their statements; and* the other recklessly carry- ing out their principles to the extreme of licentiousness. To the extreme left belong the class which is designated " Young G-ermany," of which Heine is one of the most prominent lead- ers. This class profess themselves the true disciples of the extreme right ; the extreme right acknowledge their fellowship with the centre left, and the centre left with the extreme left. The respectable portion of the party of course express themselves with disapprobation of the coarseness of some of their associates, but they speak of them only as the unworthy advocates of the truth. Thus says Hengstenberg, " Professor Vischer, one of the most gifted of the party, expresses himself with an energy against the ' young Germans/ which shows that his better feelings are not yet obliterated, and yet acknowledges their principles with a decision and plainness which prove how deep those principles enter into the very essence of the system, so that the better portion of the party cannot, with any consistency reject them. In the Halle Jahrbuch, page 1118, he speaks of the Rehabilita- tionists' as the ' unworthy prophets of what, in its properly understood principle, is perfectly true and good.' He says, ^It is well, if in opposition to the morality of Kant and Schiller, the rights of our sensual nature should, from time to time, be boldly .- asserted.' He complains, page 507, of the pedantry of his coun- try, where the want of chastity is placed on a level with drunk- enness, gluttony, or theft, and so expresses himself that every one sees that he considers incontinence a virtue under certain circum- stances, and conjugal fidelity a sin."' Though this dominant party, therefore, has its divisions, its outwardly decent, and its openly indecent members, it is one school, and is liable to the general charges which have been brought against it as a whole. It may well be supposed that a system so repugnant to every principle of true religion and sound morals, could not be openly advocated, without exciting the most decided opposition. This opposition has come from various quarters ; from professed phi- losophers and theologians, and from popular writers, who have attacked the system in a manner adapted to the common mind. ' The name assumed by those who plead for the rehabilitation of the flesh, i. e., for the restoration of the sensual part of our nature to its rights, of which Christianity has so long deprived it, 2 Preface to Kirchen-Zeitung, for 1839, p. 30. 104 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. Professor Leo, of Halle, has adopted this latter method of assault. He is one of the most distinguished historians of Germany ; and, until within a few years, himself belonged to the general class of Kationalists. His History of the Jews was written in accordance with the infidel opinions which he then entertained. Having, how- ever, become a Christian, he has publicly expressed his sorrow for having given to the history just mentioned, the character which it now bears, and has, with great boldness and vigor, attacked the writings of the leading German school in theology. This step has excited a virulent controversy, and produced an excitement, particularly at Halle, such as has not been known for many years. Hengstenberg says, that Leo has not been sustained in this conflict, by the friends of truth, as he had a right to expect. "One principal reason," he adds, " of this reserve, is no doubt, in many cases, the reckless vulgarity of many of his oppo- nents. When they see what Leo has had to sustain, they tremble and exclaim, Vestigia me torrent ! A decorous controversy with opponents who have something to lose, they do not dread, but they are unwilling to allow themselves to be covered with filth. ''' Hengstenberg, however, is not the man to desert the truth or its advocates, let what will happen. He stands like a rock, despite the violent assault of open enemies and the coolness of timid friends, the firmest and the most efficient defender of Christianity in Germany. Leo entitled his book against the latest form of infidelity, " Hegelingen ;" that is, Hegelians of the left, in allusion to the division of the school into a right and left side. It is presumed, he gave it this title, because it was intended to be a popular work, designed to exhibit the principles of the school in a manner suited to the apprehensions of the ordinary class of educated people. It was, therefore, directed, not against that division of the school which wrapped up its doctrines in the impenetrable folds of philosophical language, but against that division which have spoken somewhat more intelligibly. With regard to the charges which Leo brings against this school, Hengstenberg says, "No one at all familiar with the literature of the day, needs evidence of their truth. Instead of doubting, he may rather wonder that an abomination advocated for years past, should now first, as though it were something new, ' Kirchen-Zeitung, p. 21. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. lUO be thus vehemently assaulted, and that the charges should be directed against comparatively few and unimportant writers." This latter circumstance he adds, however, is accounted for, as Leo professed to confine himself to the productions of the year preceding the publication of his own book. Leo's first charge is this : ^' This party denies the existence of a personal God. They understand by God, an unconscious power which pervades all persons, and which arrives to self-con- sciousness only in the personality of men. That is, this party teaches Atheism without reserve.'^ With regard to this charge, Hengstenberg remarks : " Whoever has read Strauss's Life of Jesus, and Vatke's Biblical Theology, where Pantheism, which every Christian must regard as only one form of Atheism, is clearly avowed, cannot ask whether the party in general hold these doctrines, but simply whether the particular persons men- tioned by Leo, belong, as to this point, to the party. About this, who can doubt, when he hears Professor Michelet say, beside many other things of like import, ^ God is the eternal movement of the universal principle, constantly manifesting itself in individ- ual existences, and which has no true objective existence but in these individuals, which pass away again into the infinite.' [In other words, God is but the name given to the ceaseless flow of being.] When he hears him denouncing as unworthy of the name, * the theistical Hegelians, who believe in a personal God, in another world .?'" — P. 22. " Professor Yischer," adds Hengsten- berg, "is so far from being ashamed of Pantheism, that he glories in his shame, and represents it as the greatest honor of his friend Strauss, that he has logically carried out the principle of the immanence of God in the world.' That the Professors Gans and Senary agree with him and with Strauss, not only in gen- eral, but in this particular point, Michelet, ^ certain of their assent,' has openly declared. According to Dr. Kiihne, Hegel's God ^ is not Jehovah,' he is, ^ the ever streaming immanence of spirit in matter.' To this representation. Dr. Meyen agrees, and says, ' I make no secret, that I belong to the extreme left of Hegel's school. I agree with Strauss perfectly, and consider him (seine Tendenz) as in perfect harmony with Hegel.' Another writer, the anonymous author of the book ' Leo vor Gericht,' ridicules the charge of Atheism as though it were a trifle. He represents the public as saying to the charge, ' What does it 106 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. mean ? Mr. Professor Leo is beyond our comprehension : Wodan, heathenism, Hegel's Grod, Atheism ! ha ! ha ! ha !' " That Tholuck looks on the doctrine of Strauss, with whom these other writers profess agreement, and who is an avowed disciple of Hegel, in the same light, is clear from his language in his Anzeiger, for May, 1836 : " Strauss,'' he says, "is a man who knows no other Grod than him who, in the human race, is con- stantly becoming man. He knows no Christ but the Jewish Rabbi, who made his confession of sin to John the Baptist ; and no heaven but that which speculative philosophy reveals for our enjoyment on the little planet w^e now inhabit." Nothing, however, can be plainer than Strauss's own language : "As man, considered as a mere finite spirit, and restricted to him- self, has no reality ; so God, considered as an infinite spirit, restricting himself to his infinity, has no reality. The infinite spirit has reality only so far as he unites himself to finite spirits, (or manifests himself in them,) and the finite spirit has reality only so far as he sinks himself in the infinite.'" How docs this differ, except in the jargon of terms, from le peuple-dieu, of Anarcharsis Clootz, the worthy forerunner of these modern Atheists ?' " If," says another writer in Hengstenberg's Journal, " man- kind is the incarnate Godhead, and, beside this incarnate divine spirit, there is no God, then w^e have a most perfect Atheism, which removes us from Christianity far beyond the limits of Mohammedanism, the heathenism of the Indians and Chinese, or of our Pagan ancestors." '^ Hegel, and his school, maintain that God is not an individual person, as opposed to other individuals, since individuality is of necessity exclusive, limited and finite. Since God is a trinity, wherein the outw^ardness of number is merged in substantial unity, so God is an universal person ; because the comprehension of individuals in unity is universality. This is what is meant by the expression : ' God is personality itself The simple question, whether they believe in the God whom Christians are bound to honor and love," continues this writer, " is here complicated with an obscure definition of the " Leben Jesu, p. 730. 2 " J6 prechai hautement," said Clootz in the French Convention, "qu'il n'y a pas d'autre Dieu que la nature, d'autre souverain que le genre humain, le peuple-dieu.' Thiers: Histoire de la Revolution Fran., Vol. Y., p. 197. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 107 Trinity, which no man can think removes the mystery of the sub- ject, by saying Die Ausseiiichkeit der Zahl zu oiner substantiel- len Einheit umgebogen ist (the outwardness of number is merged in substantial unity). The charge of denying the true God remains in full force, this justification of themselves to the con- trary notwithstanding." And on the following page, he adds, " that this school, to be honest, when asked, ^ Do you deny God and Christianity T ought to answer, ' Certainly, what you Chris- tians of the old school call God and Christianity ; we would teach you a better doctrine/"* We have seen how that portion of this dominant school, which retain some respect for themselves, and for the opinion of others? veil their God-denying doctrines in philosophical formulas unin- telligible to the common people, and mysterious and mystical to themselves. Stripped of its verbiage, the doctrine is, that men are God ; there is no other God than the ever-flowing race of man ; or that the universal principle arrives to self-consciousness only in the human race, and therefore the highest state of God is man. The extreme left of the school trouble themselves but little with words without meaning. They speak out boldly, so that all the world may understand. " We are free," says Heine, " and need no thundering tyrant. We are of age, and need no fatherly care. W^e are not the hand-work of any great mechanic. Theism is a rehgion for slaves, for children, for Genevese, for watch-makers." ^' Leo," says Hengstenberg, " charges this party with denying the incarnation of God in Christ, and with turning the gospel into a mythology. If the previous charge is substantiated, this requires no special proof. If the existencs of God, in the Christian sense of the terms, be denied, we must cease to speak of an incarnation in the Christian sense of the word. The doctrine of the immanence of God in the world, says Professor Yischer, (Halle Jahrbuch, s. 1102,) forbids us to honor ' God in the letter, or in single events, or individuals.' It regards, 'as a breach in the concatenation of the universe, that an individual should be the Absolute.' According to this view, there is no other incarna- tion than that which Professor Michelet, in harmony with the Chinese philosophers, teaches, that ' God must constantly appear here on earth in a form which affects our senses, (als sinnlicher,) ' Kirchen-Zeitung, February, 1839. 108 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. though constantly changing that form (als ein sich aufgeheben- der und aufgehobener), and in this statement, if I mistake not, the whole school will recognize the eternal incarnation of God/ The Absolute attains consciousness in a series of individuals, no one of which fully represents him, but each has significance only as a member of the whole. This incarnation of God is eternal, but all individuals are perishing and transitory ; the Absolute constantly fashions for itself new individuals, and rejects the former as soon as they have answered their end. These form Hhe Golgotha of the Absolute Spirit ;' they surround, like bloodless ghosts, the throne of the monster that devours his own children ; that, void of love, strides through ages, trampling and destroying all that lies in his way/' Such is the awful language in which Hengstenberg describes the God of the Hegelians. The incarnation of God, then, according to this school, did not occur in Christ, but is constantly occurring in the endless succes- sion of the human race. Mankind is the Christ of the new system, and all the gospel teaches of the Son of God is true only as it is understood of mankind. Strauss teaches this doctrine with a clearness very unusual in a philosopher. " The key," says he, " of the whole doctrine of Christ, is that the predicates which the church have affirmed of Christ, as an individual, belong to an Idea, to a real, not to a Kantian unreal idea. In an individual, in one Godman, the attributes and functions which the church attribute to Christ, are incompatible and contradictory ; in the idea of the race they all unite. Mankind is the union of the two natures, the incarnate God, the Infinite revealed in the Finite, and the Finite conscious of its infinity. The race is the child of the visible mother and of the invisible Father, of the Spirit, and of nature ; it is the true worker of miracles, in so far as in course of its history, it constantly attains more complete mastery over nature, which sinks into the powerless material of human activity. It is sinless, so far as the course of its development is blameless ; impurity cleaves only to the individual, but in the race, and its history, it is removed. The race dies, rises again, and ascends to heaven, in so far as by the negation of its natural element (NatUrlichkeit) a higher spiritual life is produced, and as by the negation of its finitude as a personal, national, worldly spirit, its unity with the infinite spirit of heaven is manifested. By faith in this Christ, is man justified before God ; that is, by the THE LATEST FORIJ OF INFIDELITY. 109 awakening tlie idea of the nature of man in him, especially as the negation of the natural element, which is itself a negation of the spirit, and thus a negation of a negation, is the only way to tnie spiritual life for man, the individual becomes a partaker of the theanthropical life of the race. This alone is the real import of the doctrine of Christ ; that it appears connected with the person and history of an individual, has only the subjective ground, that his personality and fate were the occasion of awaken- ing this general truth in the consciousness of men, and that at that period the culture of the world, and indeed the culture of the mass at all periods, allowed of their contemplating the Idea of the race, only in the concrete form of an individual."' Tholuck, whose charity for philosophical aberrations is very wide, remarks on this passage, '^As the incarnation of God occurred not in an individual, but comes to pass only in the constant progress of the race, so the individual as a mere item of the race, has fulfilled his destiny at the close of his earthly course, and the race alone is im- mortal. It is not we that enter a future world, the future world goes foiward in this, the more the spirit becomes aware of its infinitude, and by the power of reason, gains the mastery over nature. This ideal jjerfection is to be attained, not in heaven, but in the per- fection of our political and social relations. This system there- fore comes to the same result with the materialism of the Encyclopedists, who mourned over mankind for having sacrificed the real pleasures of time for the visionary pleasures of eternity, and the protracted enjoyments of life, for the momentary hap- piness of a peaceful death. It agrees moreover, despite of its intellectual pretensions, with the wishes of the materialistical spirit of the age, which sets as the highest end of man, not the blessings promised by the church, but according to the ' Young Germans,' the refined pleasures of life, and according to politi- cians, the perfection of the State." It is strange that men holding such views should trouble themselves at all with the gospel. As this system, however, has arisen in a Christian country, there was but one of two things to do, either to say that real Christianity means just what this system teaches, or to explode the whole evangelical history. Some have taken the one course, and some the other, while some ' Strausa's Leben Jesu, Th. ii. s. 734, quoted by Tholuck, in his Glaubwurdigkeit, Ac., p. 19. 110 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. unite both. That is, they reject the gospel history as a history ; they represent it as a mere mythology ; but as the ancient phi- losophers made the mythology of the Greeks and Eomans a series of allegories containing important truths, so do these modern philosophers represent the gospels as a mere collection of fables, destitute in almost every case of any foundation in fact, but still expressive of the hidden mysteries of their system. It is by a mytho-symbolical interpretation of this history that the truth must be sought. The life of Jesus by Strauss is a labor- ious compilation of all the critical objections against the New Testament history, which he first thus endeavored to overturn, and then to account for and explain as a Christian mythology. " Had this book," says Hengstenberg, " been published in Eng- land, it would have been forgotten in a couple of months."' In Germany it has produced a sensation almost without a parallel. It has become the rallying ground of aU the enemies of Chris- tianity open and secret, and the number of its advocates and secret abettors is therefore exceedingly great. The author, says Tholuck, " has uttered the sentence which so few dared to utter; * The evangelical history is a fable.' He has uttered it at a time when the deniers of the truth were filled with spleen at the prospect of a constantly increasing faith in the gospel. With what joy then must this hypocritical and timid generation hail a leader who gives himself to the sweat and dust of the battle, while they hide behind the bushes, and rub their hands, and smile in each other's faces.'" 3. Leo's third charge against this party is that they deny the immortality of the soul. " This point also needs no further proof," says Hengstenberg, " since the former have been proved. With the personality of God falls of course that of man, which is the necessary condition of an existence hereafter. To a Pan- theist, ' the subject which would assert its individual personality, is evil itself.' (Michelet.) It is regarded as godless even to cherish the desire of immortality. According to the doctrine of the eternal incarnation of God, it must appear an intolerable assumption for an individual to lay claim to that which belongs only to the race ; he must freely and gladly, cast himself beneath the wheels of the idol car that he may make room for other incarnations of the Spirit, better adapated to the advancing age. » Kirchen-Zeitung, January 1, 1836, p. 36. » Glaubwiirdigkeit, p. 34. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. Ill The proofs, however, of this particular charge are peculiarly abundant. Hegel himself, who ought not to be represented as so different from the Hegelingen, since the difference between them" is merely formal and not essential, involved himself in the logical denial of the immortality of the soul. This has been fully proved with regard to him and Dr. Marheineke in a previous article in this journal (that is, the Kirchen-Zeitung). It has also been demonstrated by Weise in the work : Die philosophische Ge- heimlehre von der Unsterblichkeit, as far as Hegel is concerned ; and with Weise, Becker has more recently signified his agree- ment. If this happens in the green tree, what will become of the dry ? " Kichter came out with such a violent polemic against the doctrine of immortality, that the party had to disavow him, for fear of the public indignation. When, however, they thought it could be done unnoticed or without danger, they acknowledged the same doctrine. Michelet endeavors most earnestly to free Hegers system from the charge of countenancing the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as from a reproach. He speaks out clear and plain his own views in wc rds which, according to him, Hegel himself had spoken, ^ Thought alone is eternal, and not the body and what is connected with its individuality,' that is, the whole personality, which, according to this system, depends entirely on the body (Leiblichkeit). * '^' * Euge (Hall. Jahrb. s. 1011) ridicules the scruples of theologians as to whether ' Philosophy can make out the immortality of the human soul ; whether philosophy has any ethics ; whether it can justify the gross doctrines of hell, of wailing, and gnashing of teeth, &c/ * Such vulgar craving,' he says, ' is beginning to mix itself with purely philosophical and spiritual concerns, and threatens to merge philosophy in its troubled element. The more this dog- matical confusion arrogates to itself; the more this senseless justification of the wretched errors of orthodoxy dishonors the free science of philosophy, the more necessary will it be to cast out this dung-heap of nonsense to the common mind (in das gemeine Bewustseyn).' Meyen at first puts on the air as though he would acknowledge the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. ^ The Hegelians,' he says, ' do indeed reject the sensual concep- tions of immortality, but they admit the doctrine as presented by Marheineke in his Theology.' The dishonest ambiguity of this 112 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. sentence will not escape notice. Dr. Marheineke denies the con- tinued personal existence of the soul after death, and attributes the belief of such a doctrine to selfishness. ' Whoever/ continues Meyen, 4s so conversant, as Hegel, with what is eternal in con- nection with spirit, must admit the eternity of the spirit.' Here again is intentional ambiguity. The question concerning the continued personal existence of the soul is silently changed for the question about the eternity of the spirit. A veil is thrown over the fact that Hegel, while he admitted the latter, denied the former, as Michelet and others have sufficiently shown. These preliminary remarks, transparent as they are, were only intended to prevent his being quoted in proof of the disbelief of immortality in the school to which he belongs. He immedi- ately comes out plainly with his own views and those of his party, yet so as still to leave a door open behind him, ' What though a Hegelian,' says he, ^ did not believe in the immortality of the soul in a Christian sense — let it be noticed that the words are here so placed, that the uninformed should infer that the school, as a whole, and its above mentioned leaders, do believe in immortality in a Christian sense — what then ? If I resign my- self to this, am I thereby a different person, or is the world for me different ? I would seek to acknowledge God in his works as before, and I would live as morally as ever.' At last, however, it becomes too hot for him, even in these thin clothes, and he casts them off, having assumed them only for the sake of his brothers in Hegel, who happen to be in office. ' Grass,' says he, * is already growing on the grave of Daub, is he therefore dead for his friends and for the world ? his works, and hence also his spirit, live. Many winter storms have already swept over the graves of Hegel and of Gothe, but does not their spirit still live among us ? It is, as Christ said, where two of you are met together, there am I in the midst of you.' Thus each continues to live according to ' To this passage Hengstenberg has the following note. " "We frequently meet, in the writings of this school, with similar shameful profanations of the Scriptures, which are seldom quoted without some mutilation, which is characteristic of the relation of the party to the word of God. These writers delight to transfer to Hegel what the Scriptures say of Christ. According to Bayrhoffer (Halle Jahrb. s. 343), Hegel • is the absolute centre, around which the present revolves.' His first disciples are compared with the apostles. ' Hinrichs is the rock of terminology, the strength and the support of the school' (Jahrb. s. 672). Leo, who has left the party, is com- pared with Judas, and even designated as ' the fallen angel of speculation ' (Hegel's THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 113 his words. The citizen in rememhrance of his family ; he who has distinguished himself in the kingdom of the spirit, still lives in that kingdom, and hence he who has worked for eternity is immortal.' " 4. ^'Leo, finally,'' says Hengstenherg, "accuses the school of wishing to pass themselves for Christians, by means of disguising their ungodly and abominable doctrines under a repulsive and unintelligible phraseology. This is a heavy charge. Honesty and candor have ever been the ornament of our national char- acter. They have ever been regarded as the innate virtues of a German. Whoever undermines them is a disgrace to his country. Yet who can say the charge is not well founded ? Several proofs of its truth have been given in what has been already said. A statement, however, by Professor Vischer, in his character of Dr. Strauss (Hall. Jahrb. s. Ill), is worthy of special attention. ^ How firm his (Strauss's) conviction as to the main point even then was, is shown in a highly interesting correspondence be- tween him and one of his friends, communicated to me through the kindness of the latter, and which now lies before me. It is touching to observe with what cheerful confidence in the saving power of the truth, he endeavors to remove the anxiety and scruples of his friend, who felt pained by the chasm which his scientific convictions had made between him and his congrega- tion ; how clearly he shows that it is no dishonesty to speak the language of the imagination (der Vorstellung), to introduce doctrine concerning the State). The school as a whole, is a copy of the church of Christ. According to Bayrhoffer, (Hegelinge s. 29) it should no longer be called a school, but 'the congregation of the idea,' or 'the spiritual kingdom of the idea.' Ruge applies the passage, ' The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force,' to the popular exhibition of Hegel's philosophy by Erdmann. The most shameful of these perversions, however, relate to the passages concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost. "Whoever comes out boldly against the spirit of Hegel, or of his disciples, or of the time, or of hell, is declared guilty of the sin against the Holy Spirit or rather the Spirit, (for the word holy they commonly leave out, it savors too much of morality ; when it is inserted, it is only for the sake of the allu- sion). 'The writings,' says Mey en, 'in which Leo has presented his new opinions, blaspheme the Spirit — hence God himself.' To which we answer : Yes, your spirit and your God we wish to blaspheme, for blasphemy of him is the praise of the God of heaven and of his Spirit. * * » " ■w'e can hardly express the admiration which we feel for Hengstenherg. No one who does not know how much alone and aloft he stands, and how much he has had to endure for his uncompromising opposi- tion to the enemies of God and religion, can appreciate the noble firmness and vigor of his character. 114 THE LATEST FOKM OF INFIDELITY. unobserved into the figures which alone float before the believer, the thoughts of the knower (des Wissenden)/ Here the zeal and skill with which Dr. Strauss teaches his friend how to lie, and instructs him how to steal from the congregation what they regard as the most precious treasure (and what, for that very- reason, it will be found impossible to rob them of), are represent- ed as a great merit, and the reader is exhorted to allow himself to be affected by this proof of his amiableness, and in the warmth of his sympathy to press his hand, and exclaim, how good you are ! We, however, cannot regard such conduct without the deepest moral abhorrence. The school endeavor to jutsify this course, from the relation which Hegel has established between conception and thought (Yortstellung' und Begriff). But this justification is completely worthless. It is not one whit better than the theories by which the robbers in Spain justify their vocation. Evil is not better, but on the contrary worse, and the more to be condemned when it is brought in formam artis. The relation assumed by Hegel between conception and thought, would allow at most of a formal accommodation. That yours is of that nature you cannot assert. * * -'' If the difference between your thought (Begriff) and our conception (Yorstel- lung) is merely formal, why do you rave vdth such hatred against us ? Why do you say that * pietism is a disease which corrupts the very life of the spirit ?' (Vischer, p. 526.) How can the question be about a mere formal difference ? Our Conception and your Thought are just as far apart as heaven and hell. We confess God the Father the maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ his only begotten Son ; you deny both the Father and the Son, and confess Antichrist, yea, would ySirselves be his members. * * * " Hengstenberg afterwards remarks that it is almost incredible I This translation of the words Vorstellung and Begriff is no doubt inadequate. The technical terms of a system do not admit of adequate translation, because the sense assigned to them in the system is arbitrary. The only method that can be pur- sued in such cases, is to give their nearest corresponding words the same arbitrary signification. Hegel calls that form of truth which is the object of absolute knowl- edge, a pure thought, Begriff; and that form in which it is the object of faith or feeling, Yorstellung. Or, the exercises of feeling, desire, will, &c., considered as objects of attention, are Vorstellungen ; these it is the office of philosophy, by the pro* cess of thinking, to turn into thoughts, Begriffe. And hence he says, Vorstellungen can be regarded as the metaphors of Begriffe. See his Encyklopadie, p. 5. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 115 to what an extent this deception and hypocrisy is carried. This course of conduct, however, though vciy characteristic of this modern school, is an old device. The Rationalists, to go no further back, were accustomed to speak of the Lamb of God, of the blood of Christ, &c., with the avowed purpose that the people should attach to these expressions their scriptural sense, while they employed them in a very different one. How strange too it sounds to hear this Alumnus of Cambridge speaking of ^'the divine character of Christ," of "the cross of Christ as the hope of the world'' and " of the anointing of the Holy Ghost.'' This community, we trust, is not prepared to have such solemn words made playthings of Let philosophers and errorists, who deny the truths of the Bible, find words for themselves, and not profane the words of God by making them a vehicle for the denial of his truth. One of the most monstrous examples of this perversion of scriptural language occurs in a passage quoted above from Strauss. He too will have it that a man is justified by faith in Christ, because as God is incarnate in the race, the race is Christ, and by faith in the race, or by coming to a proper apprehension of his own nature, man reaches his highest state of perfectioQ. Mr. Bancroft in his history talks of men being justi- fied by faith, meaning thereby, that they are justified by their principles. And the Oxford divines teach that we are justified by faith, since the thirty-nine articles say so, but then it is by the faith of the church.' " With this last charge, Leo," says Hengstenberg, " entered upon the department of morals ; and we could wish that he had dwelt longer on this part of the subject. It would then have ' It should be here stated that Dr. Strauss, at the close of his Life of Jesus, as first printed, had freely admitted the incompatibility of his views with the exercise of the ministry in the Christian church. This admission in the last edition, he has suppressed ; and in his letter to the authorities of Zurich when appointed a professor of the- ology in the University of that city, he says, he should not consider it a difficult matter to quiet the apprehensions of those who feared that he would labor to over- throw the Christian religion, that he would endeavor to sustain " the fundamental truths of Christianity," and only try to free it "from human additions." When it is considered that he regards as human additions almost every thing that the people of Zurich hold to be fundamental truths, there can be but one opinion of the dishonesty of this statement. The reputation for candor which he had gained by his first admission, has been lost entirely by these subsequent proceedings. Our readers are aware that the attempt to force Strauss on the people as a professor led to one of the most remarkable revolutions of our times. The people rose en masse and overthrew the government. 116 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. been shown, how this party are laboring to destroy all that Rationalism has left of religion and morality. What their ethics are, may be readily inferred from their religion. Where there is no personal God, there is no law, which men need fear to violate, as the expression of his will. If the distinction between God and man is removed, if man is set in the place of God, then nothing is more natural than that men should without reserve, and upon principle, give themselves up to all their inclinations and lusts. To suppress these desires, is to hinder the develop- ment of God ; if they do not become God as developed, they do become the nascent God ; if not good in themselves, they are relatively good, as transition-points in the progress of develop- ment. It is not sin, that is sinful ; but only impenitence, that is, cleaving to the relative good, which is vulgarly called evil, as though it were the absolute good. These painful results of the doctrine of this school, are everywhere, with the most logical con- sequence, avowed and brought to light. Ruge, in a passage already quoted, attributes the question, whether philosophy has any ethics, td 'vulgar craving' (gemeinen Bediirftigkeit), as much as the question, whether it can vindicate the gross doctrine of hell, &c. ; and insists that this whole ' dung-heap should be cast out into the mire of the common mind." In connection with Leo, and the editor (Hengstenberg himself), Menzel is desig- nated as 'the incarnation of protestant Jesuitism (Meyen. page 5), because he has appeared in defence of morality, now completely antiquated, against the young Germany. On every side, efforts are made to represent him, before the whole nation, as a marked man, on account of his conflict with that which the spirit of the pit in our day says to the common man. ' Upon Wolfgang Menzel," says Meyen, ' judgment is already executed ; he lies like a scurvy old dog on the foul straw which Herr von Cotta has in compassion left him, and can seldom muster courage to yelp ;' that all is over with his pitiful morality, which has gone to its rest.' The principles of the ' Young Germany' have been ad- vanced in the Literary Magazine of Berlin, with shameless effrontery, and the infamous advocates of those principles ' "Wolfgang Menzel was the editor of a periodical, called the Morgen-Blatt, belong- ing to Von Cotta, one of the principal booksellers in Germany. In that journal Menzel attacked, with great manliness and effect, the libertine principles of Heine, Gutzkow, and other writers of the extreme left of the pantheistic school. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 117 defended, and the sottish prudery of ^ the gray heads of the age/ who were disgusted at their song : ^ We lead a merry life/ has been turnM into ridicule." Hengstenberg then introduces the passage froVn Professor Vischer, quoted on a previous page, in which, while he condemns these young Germans as unworthy prophets, he defends their principles. This pantheistic school, therefore, is as subversive of all moral- ity, as it is of all religion. It does not admit the idea of sin. As there is no God, there is no law, and no transgression. Every thing actual, is necessary. The progress of the race, the ever nascent God, goes on by eternal undeviating laws, and all that occurs, in fact, is the action of the only God of which this sys- tem knows.' We do not think it right to stain our pages with the indecent ravings of those writers who, availing themselves of l^e principles of the decent portion of the school, have applied them to the service of sin. It is enough to show the nature of the system, that the Pantheist '^ does not believe in the con-._ tinned existence of the individual, in the reality of his freedom, in the deadly nature of sin, and its opposition to God. Individ- uals are to him but the phantasmagoria of the spirit. Liberty is but the subtle moment of determination. Sin is what a man, with his measure of knowledge and power, cannot avoid : remorse is, therefore, a forbidden emotion in his system."' The most offensive aspect of the whole system is, that in deify- ing men, it deifies the worst passions of our nature. " This/' says a writer in Hengstenberg's journal, " is the true, positive blasphemy of God — this veiled blasphemy — this diabolism of the deceitful angel of light — this speaking of reckless words, with which the Man of Sin sets himself in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. The Atheist cannot blaspheme with such power as this ; his blasphemy is negative ; he simply says there is no God. It is only out of Pantheism that a blasphemy can proceed, so wild, of such inspired mockery, so devoutly god- less, so desperate in its love of the world ; a blasphemy at once so seductive, and so offensive, that it may weU call for the destruction of the world."' ' Die Geschichte is der werdende Gk>tt, und dies Werden Gottes geschicht naoh ewigen Gesetzen; nirgends ein Sprung, liberal nur Entwickelung. Hengstenberg, in the Kirchen-Zeitung, January, 1836. ^ Kirchen-Zeitung, 1836, p. 611. 3 Kirchen-Zeitung, 1836, p. 611. lis THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. As an illustration, at once, of the confidence and character of these modem Pantheists, we shall give one more passage from Strauss, the most prominent and, perhaps, most respected writer of the school : " This disposition is not a secret of the philoso- phers only ; as an obscure instinct, it h^^ become the universal spirit of the age. It is acknowledged, that we no longer know how to build churches. But on the other hand, from an impulse which, as a miasma, has spread, especially over all Germany, monuments to great men and lofty spirits arise on every side. There is much that is ridiculous mixed with this feeling ; but it has its serious aspect, and is assuredly a sign of the times. The Evangelical Church Journal (Hengstenberg's) has taken the right view of the matter, when it pronounces accursed, as a new idolatry, the honor paid to the man on a pillar in the Place Ven- dome, and to him of the Weimar Olympus. In fact, they are Gods, before whom the God of the Church Journal may well tremble ; or, in other words, a heathenism which endangers its Christianity. If Heine has compared the accounts of O'Meara, Antommarchi, and Las Cases, with Matthew, Mark, and Luke, will not some one soon discover in Bettina's letters,' a new gos- pel of John .^ A new Paganism, or it may be a new Catholicism, has come over Protestant Germany. Men are no longer satisfied with one incarnation of God ; they desire, after the manner of the Indians, a series of repeated avatars. They wish to surround tlie solitaiy Jesus with a new circle of saints, only these must not be taken from the church alone ; but, as in the private chape! of the Emperor Alexander Severus, the statue of Orpheus stood beside those of Christ and of Abraham, so the tendency of the age is to honor the revelation of God in all the spirits which have wrought, with life and creative power, on mankind. The only worship — we may deplore it, or we may praise it, deny it we cannot — the only worship which remains for the cultivated classes of this age, from the rehgious declension of the last, is the worship of genius."^ » An enthusiastic girl, who wrote a series of letters to Gothe, filled with a raving Platonic love. * Vergangliches und Bleibendes in Christenthum. ' Selbst-gesprache Yon Dr. Strauss. In Zeitsohrift ; Der Freihafen, Gallerie von Unterhaltungsbildern aus den Kreisen der Literatur, Gesselschaft und Wissenschaft. Mit Beitriigen von Carus, Gans, Konig, Mises, Barnhagen von Ense, dem Fursten von Puckler, Rosenkranz, b THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 119 Such, then, is this Latest Form of Infidelity. It knows no intelligent or conscious God but man ; it admits no incarnation, but the eternal incarnation of the universal spirit in the human ra^e ; the personality of men ceases with their present existence, they are but momentary manifestations of the infinite and un- ending ; there is neither sin nor holiness ; neither heaven nor heil. Such are the results to which the proud philosophy of the nineteenth century has brought its followers. We have not drawn this picture. We have purposely presented it as drawn by men with regard to whose opportunities and competency there can be no room for cavil. It might be supposed, that a system so shocking as this, which destroys all religion and all morality, could be adopted by none but the insane or the abandoned ; that it might be left as St. Simonianism, Owenism, or Mormonism, to die of its own viciousness. This supposition^ however, overlooks the real nature of the system. We have pre- sented it in its ofiensive nakedness. It is not thus that it addresses itself to the uninitiated or timid. What is more ofiensive than Komanism, when stripped of its disguises, yet what more seductive in its bearing, for the vast majority of men ? There is everything to facilitate the progress of this new philoso- phy, it has a side for all classes of men. For the contemplative and the sentimentally devout, it has its mysticism, its vague- ness, its vastness. It allows them lo call wonder, a sense of the sublime or of the beautiful, religion. For the poet, too, it has its enchantments, as it gives consciousness and life to everything, and makes all things expressive of one infinite, endless mind. For^the proud, no Circe ever mingled half so intoxicating a cup. Ye shall be as God, said the archtempter of our race : ye are God, is what he now whispers into willing ears. For thejKain and frivolous, it has charms scarcely to be resisted. It gives them easy greatness. They have only to talk of the I, and the not I (or, as they prefer to have it, the me and the not me), and they are beyond the depth of all ordinary men. And even then, they are^ according to the system, far greater than they can pos- sibly think themselves to be. For Jhg._sensual, it is a perfect Strauss, Theodor Mundt, Kiilino u. A. Drittes Heft. The names of the contributors to this Journal, may give some idea of its character. Here we have Grans, Eosen- kranz, Strauss, prominent Hegelian philosophers or theologians, and the libertine prince of Puckler. 120 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. heaven. It legitimates and dignifies all enjoyments. It makes self-indulgence religion. It forbids all remorse and all fear. That a system so manifold as this, which has a chamber of imagery for every imagination, should find advocates and friends on every hand, is not a matter of surprise. There is still another circumstance which must be taken into consideration in account- ing, for the rapid progress of this new philosophy, and in specu- lating on its prospects. It has, in some of its principles, a certain resemblance to the truth. The Grod of the Bible is not the Grod of the Deist, or off the Rationalist, or of the worldling, a God afar off, who has no oversight or direction of his creatures. The world is not a machine wound up and left to itself The wonders of vegetable and animal life are not the result of the properties of matter acting blindly and without guidance. The Grod of the Bible is an everywhere-present, and ever-active Grod, in whom we live and move and have our being ; it is his Spirit that causes the grass to grow ; it is he that fashions the curious mechanism of our bodies, who numbers the hairs of our heads, and directs all our goings. All the changes in nature are pro- duced by his power, so that everything we see, is in truth a manifestation of God. But jthen the Bible does not merge God in the world or the world in ijrod. Though everywhere present in the world, God is not the world ; but a Being of infinite intel- ligence, power, excellence, and blessedness, guiding and control- ling his creatures, whose acts and consciousness are their own and not his. The chasm which divides the pantheistic from the scriptural view of God, is bottomless^ and the difference in the effects of the two views is infinite ; it is all the difference between infinite good and infinite evil. If there is anything impressed clearly on the Bible, it is the personality of God ; it is the ease and confidence with which his people can say Thou, in calling on his name ; it is that he ever says I of himself, and you, when addressing his creatures. It is doubtless in a good degree owing to the deceptive show of truth in this new system — to its pretending to bring back, if we may reverently so speak, God to the world from which Deists and Rationalists had so long banished him, that we are to attribute the hold which it has taken of many of the better class of minds ; audit is to this that it owes its most alarming aspect ; since those errors are always the most dangerous which THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 121 can put on the nearest resemblance to truth. A conflict, there- fore, is anticipated by the Christians of G-ermany with this new form of infidelity, far more lasting and deadly than any that has yet afflicted the church in that country. If Kationalism, so unattractive, so lifeless, made such inroads upon the church, " what," say they, " may be expected from Pantheism, a system so full of life, of feeling, oi mysticism, of poetry, whose disciples can, with a deceptive show, boast that they are religious, that they are introducing a new, beautiful, and universal religion, and give themselves out as a new sort of Christians ;" nay, who pre- tend at times to be real Christians, who say they believe in the Trinity, in the incarnation, redemption, resurrection, and all other doctrines of the Bible, that is, they express some philo- sophical enigma under these terms ; or at times speak of Chris- jbianity with affected respect, as good for the people in their present state, professing with Cousin that "philosophy is patient ; *•' '* * happy in seeing the great bulk of mankind in the arms of Christianity, she offers, with modest kindness, to assist her in ascending to a yet loftier elevation.'^' Strange therefore as it may seem, when we look at this system in its true character, it undoubtedly has already prevailed to a great extent in Germany ; and is making some progress in France, England, and our own country. Its true nature is dis- guised in obscure philosophical language, which many use with- out understanding, until it comes at last to the expression of their real opinions. We have evidence enough that this panthe- istic philosophy has set its cloven foot in America. First we had a set of young"men captivated by the genius and mysticism of Coleridge, republishing works through which were scattered intimations more or less plain of the denial of a personal God. This was thefirst step. In the writings of Coleridge the general tone and impression was theistical. He was an Englishman ; he had received too many of his modes of thinking and of expression from the Bible, to allow of his being a Pantheist except when musing. Next we had the writings of Cousin, a man of a differ- ent cast, with none of Coleridge's solemnity or reverence. A Frenchman, on whose mind the Bible had left no strong impress. Vain and presumptuous, and yet timid ; intimating more than he durst utter. As he has given the world nothing in the form * Cousin's Introduction to Hist, of Phil., p. 57. 122 THE LATEST FORM OF I N F I D E L IT Y. of a systeiDj it is only by these occasional intimations, that his readers can judge how far he adopts the ideas of the German school, whence all his opinions are borrowed. These intimations, however, are sufficiently frequent and sufficiently clear to make it plain that he is a denier of God and of the gospel. This has been clearly proved in the article in this Kevie\y already referred to/ He uses almost the very language of the Hegelians in expressing his views of the nature of God. " God exists as an idea," say the Hegelians ;"* " these ideas," i. e., of the infinite, finite, and the relation between them, " are God himself," says Cousin.^ According to the Hegelians, God arrives at conscious- ness in man ; and so Cousin teaches " God returns to himself in the consciousness of man." The German school teaches that everything that exists is God in a certain stage of development ; so also Cousin, "God is space and number, essence and life, indivisibility and totality, principle, end, and centre, at the summit of being and at its lowest degree, infinite and finite together, triple in a word, that is to say, at the same time God, nature, and humanity. In fact, if God is not everything he is nothing."* Surely there can bo but one opinion among Chris- tians, about a system which admits of no God but the universe, which allows no intelligence or consciousness to the infinite S]3irit, but that to which he attains in the human soul, which makes man the highest state of God. And we should think there could be, among the sane, but one opinion of the men who, dressed in gowns and bands, and ministering at God's altars, are endeavoring to introduce these blasphemous doctrines into our schools, colleges, and churches. "Ancient chronicles relate," says Leo, "there were watchtowers and castles for which no firm foundation could be obtained, until (by the direction of the practitioners of the black art), a child was built up in the walls. They made a little chamber in the foundation, placed within it a table with sugar and playthings, and while the poor, uncon- scious little victim was rejoicing over his toys, the grim masons built up the wall. This is a fable ; or, if true, belongs to a pagan age, and every nerve within us trembles, when we think of this abomination of heathenism. But are not those, who cut the people loose from the more than thousand years old founda-' ' Princeton Review, January, 1839. 2 Marheineke's Dogmatik, § 174. 3 Elements of Psychology, p. 400. * Ibid., p. 399. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 123 tion of their morality and faith, by teaching the rising generation that there is no personal Grod ; that the history of his only begot- ten Son is a cunningly devised fable, which does indeed, if properly understood, give a good philosophical sense ; that all subjective consciousness and feeling end with death ; that the greatest abominations that ever occurred were necessary, and thus reasonable, and a conscious and willful opposition to God is alone evil ; are not these the most cruel of masons, who immure the children of Germany in the walls of the tower of heathen ideas, in the bastions and watchtowers of the devil, enticing them within with the sugar toys of their vain philosophy, that they may perish in the horrors of unsatisfied hunger and thirst after the word of the Lord ?"' Shocking as this whole system is, we doubt not it will, to a certain extent, prevail even among us ; and God may bring good out of the evil. " There are two people,'' saysTTengstenberg, ''^in the womb of this age, and only two. They will become constantly more firmly and decidedly opposed, the one to the other. Unbe- lief will more and more exclude what it still has of faith ; and faith, what it has of unbelief Unspeakable good vfill hence arise. ^And the Lord said unto Gfdeon, by the three hundred Men that lapped, will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thy hand ; and let all the other people go, every man unto his own place.' Had the spirit of the times continued to make con- cessions, concessions would have been constantly made to it. But, now, since every concession only renders it more importun- ate, those who are not ready to give up everything, will mcce and more resist, and demand back again what they have already yielded. They began by giving up the first chapter in Genesis, as mythological, which even well meaning theologians, as Seller and Muntinghe, thought of little consequence. Soon, for the supposed greater honor of the New Testament, they gave up the whole Old Testament history, as mythological. Scarcely was this point reached, when they felt themselves under the necessity of giving up the first chapters of Matthew and Luke, with the Bincere assurance that these scruples about the early history of Jesus did not at all endanger the remaining portions of his life. Soon, however, beside the beginning, they gave up the end, the account of the ascension of Christ, as fabulous. Even here there ' Conclusiou of his Hegelingen. 124 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. was no rest. It was not long before the first three gospels were yielded to the enemy. They then retired on the gospel of John, and loudly boasted that there they were safe, not without some secret misgivings, however, that they lived only by the forbear- ance of the foe. He has already appeared, and availed himself of the same weapons which had already gained so many victories, and the gospel of John is now no better off than the rest. Now, at last, a stand must be taken ; a choice must be made ; either men must give up everything, or they must ascend to the point whence they first set out, and through the very same stations through which they descended. To this they will not be able, at once, to make up their minds ; they will at first believe that they can escape at a cheaper rate ; but let them twist and turn as they may, let them use what arts they please, the matter can have no other issue."' This has a special reference to the state of opinion in Germany. But it is not without its application to us. There are those in our country, even among the orthodox, who talk of a mythology of the Hebrews ; and others among the Unitarians, who , give up not only the miracles of the Old Testa- ment, but those of the New. All such must either go on or go back. Professor Norton cannot give up the first chapters of Matthew as fabulous, and call him an infidel who gives up the remainder. This new philosophy will break up the old divisions. It will carry some on to Atheism, and drive others back to the unmutilated Bible. This is not the only effect which this new leaven may be ex- pected to produce. As in Germany it has operated to the destruc- tion of Kationalism, so here it may serve to bring Socinianism and Pelagianism into contempt. Even some Unitarian ministers of Boston, we are told, have already discovered that " the religion of the day seemed too cold, too lifeless, too mechanical, for many of their flock."' " There are many, I doubt not," says this same authority, " who will welcome its principles {i. e., the principles 'of the leading school in modern German theology') as soon as they are understood, as the vital, profound, and ennobling theol- ogy which they have earnestly sought for, but hitherto sought in vain." If this is so, then farewell to Socinianism, and farewell to Pelagianism. If only for consistency's sake, those who, with this Alumnus, find in the transcendentahsm of Schleiermacher ' Kirchen-Zeitung, January, 1836. * Letter to Mr. Norton, p. 12. THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 125 the true philosophy, must feel or affect the contempt which he felt for the Rationalists and Pelagians. The ground on which they stand, however, is too narrow to afford them a footing. Schleiermacher gave up almost everything, except the incarna- tion of God in Christ. This was the centre of his system. Those whom he brought off from Rationalism, have almost all gone on, with the Hegelians^, to Atheism, or turned back to the Bible. And so it will be here. Indeed, the man who can see no harm in Pantheism, who thinks it a most religious system, and venerates its advocates, as is the case with this Alumnus, has but one step to take, and he is himself in the abyss. We should not, therefore, be surprised to see, in the providence of God, this new philosophy, which is in itself infinitely worse than Socinianism or Deism, made the means of breaking up those deadening forms of error, and while it Ipads many to destruction, of driving others back to the fountain of life. Though, for the reasons stated above, we think 'it not unlikely that this system will make a certain degree of progress in our country, we have no fear of its ever prevailing, either here or in England, as it does in Germany. Apart from the power of true religion, which is our only real safeguard against the most ex- travagant forms of error, there are two obstacles to the prevalence of these doctrines among Englishmen, or their descendants. They do not suit our national character. A sanity of intellect, an incapacity to see wonders in nonsense, is the leading trait of the English mind. The Germans can believe anything. Animal magnetism, is, for them, as one of the exact sciences. What suits the Germans, therefore, does not suit us. Hence almost all those who, in England, or in this country, have professed trans- cendentalism, like puss in boots, have made them ridiculous. If it was not for its profaneness, what could be more ludicrous than Mr. Emerson's address ? He tells us, that religious sentiment is myrrh, and storax, and chlorine, and rosemary ; that the time is coming when the law of gravitation and purity of heart will be seen to be identical, that man has an infinite soul, &c. How much, too, does Dr. Henry look, in Cousin's philosophy, like a man in clothes a great deal too large for him. It will not do. Such men were not made for transcendentalists. This is not meant in disparagement of those gentlemen. It is a real com- pliment to them, though not exactly to their wisdom. Coleridge 126 THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. is the only Englishman whom we know anything about, who took the system naturally. To him it was truth ; he was a mystic : he had faith in what he said, for his words were to him the symbols of his own thoughts. It is not so with others. They repeat a difficult lesson by rote, striving hard all the while not to forget. The Germans keep their philosophy for suitable occasions. They do not bring it into mathematics or history. With us, however, it is far too fine a thing to be kept locked up. If trans- cendental at all, we must be so always. Marheineke, the first almost in rank of HegeFs scholars, has written a history of the German Reformation, which is a perfect master-piece ; perfectly simple, graphic, and natural. From this history, the reader could not tell whether he was a Wolfian, Kantian, or Hegelian ; he would be apt to think he was a Christian, who loved Luther and the gospel. Compare this with Carlyle's History of the French Eevolution, which is almost as transcendental as HegeFs Encyklopadie. It is not, however, only or chiefly on this want of adaptation of the German mysticism to the sane English mind, that we would rely to counteract the new philosophy ; it is the influence of the Bible on all our modes of thinking. We believe in God the Father, the maker of heaven and earth. We must have a God who can hear prayer. In Germany, the educated classes, little in the habit of attending church, have, for generations felt comparatively little of the power of the Bible. There was no settled idea of a personal God, such as is visible in every page of the Scriptures, engraven on their hearts. They were therefore prepared for speculations which destroyed his very nature, and were content with a blind instinctive power, productive of all changes, and struggling at last into intelligence in the human race. Such a God may do for a people who have been first steeped in .infidelity for generations ;. but not for those who have been taught with their first lispings, to say. Our Father who art in heaven. The grand danger is, that this deadly poison wiU be introduced under false labels ; that this Atheism, enveloped in the scarcely intelligent formulas of the new philosophy, may be regarded as profound wisdom, and thus passed from mouth to mouth without being understood, until it becomes familiar and accredited. We feel it to be a solemn duty to warn our readers, THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY. 127 and in our measure, the public, against this German Atheism, which the spirit of darkness is employing ministers of the gospel to smuggle in among us under false pretences. No one wiU deny^ that the Hegelian doctrines, as exhibited above, are Atheism in its worst form ; and all who will read the works of Cousin, may- soon satisfy themselves that his system, as far as he has a sys- tem, is, as to the main point, identical with that of Hegel. » IV. BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT.' The doctrine of which this little book treats has always been regarded as the cardinal doctrine of the gospel. It was the bur- den of apostolical preaching ; the rock of offence to Jews and Greeks ; the corner-stone of that temple in which God dwells by his Spirit. The cross is the symbol of Christianity ; that in which every believer glories, as the only ground of his confidence toward God. The rejection of this doctrine, therefore, has always been regarded, and is, iu fact, a rejection of the gospel. It is ' the repudiation of the way of salvation revealed by God, and the adoption of some method not only different but irreconcilable. Whatever, therefore, affects the integrity of this doctrine, affects the whole system of religion. It lies in such immediate contact with the source of aU spiritual life, that the very nature of re- ligion depends on the manner in which it is apprehended. Though all moral and religious truths are in their nature sources of power, and never fail to influence, more or less, the character of those who embrace them, yet some truths are more powerM, and hence more important, than others. We may speculate with comparative impunity on the nature of angels, on the origin of evil, on the purposes of God, on his relation to the world, and even on the grounds and nature of human responsibihty ; but when we come to the question : How am I to gain access to God ? How can I secure the pardon of my sins and acceptance with him ? What is the true ground of hope, and what must I do to place myself on that ground so as to secure the assurance I Published in 1845, in review of a pamphlet entitled, "Christ, the only Sacrifice ; or the Atonement in its Relations to God and Man." By 1!Tathan S. S. Beman, D.D., Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Troy, New York. — Princeton Review. 130 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. of God's love, peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost ? then the less we speculate the better. The nearer we keep to the simple, authoritative statements of God's word, the firmer will be our faith, the more full and free our access to God, and the more hannonious and healthful our whole religious experience. Such is the informing influence of such experience, when it is gen- uine ; that is, when reaUy guided by the Spirit and conformed to the revelation of God, that it effects a far nearer coincidence of views in all the children of God than the multiplicity of sects and con- flicting systems of theology would lead us to imagine. The mass of true Christians, in all denominations, get their religion directly from the Bible, and are but little aft'ected by the peculiarities of their creeds. And even among those who make theology a study, there is often one form of doctrine for speculation, and another, simpler and truer, for the closet. Metaphysical distinctions are forgot in prayer, or under the pressure of real conviction of sin, and need of pardon and of divine assistance. Hence it is that the devotional writings of Christians agree far nearer than their creeds. It may be taken for granted that that mode of stating divine truth, which is most in accordance with the devotional language of true Christians ; which best expresses those views which the soul takes when it appropriates the doctrines of the gospel for its own spiritual emergencies, is the truest and the best. How, then, does the believer regard the person and work of Christ in his own exercises of faith, gratitude, or love .^ What is the language in which those exercises are expressed ? If we look to the devotional writings of the church, in all ages and countries, and of all sects and names, we shall get one clear, con- sistent answer. What David wrote three thousand years ago, expresses, with precision, the emotions of God's people now. The hymns of the early Christians, of the Lutherans, the Re- formed, of Moravians, of British and American Christians, all express the common consciousness of God's people ; they all echo the words and accents in which the truth came clothed from the mouth of God, and in which, in spite of the obstruc- tions of theological theories, it finds its way to every believing heart. Now, one thing is very plain, Dr. Beman's theory of the atonement never could be learnt from the devotional language of the church ; ours can. Everything we believe on the subject BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 131 is inwrought, not only in the language of the Bible, but in the language of Grod's people, whether they pray or praise, whether_ they mourn or rejoice. We have, therefore, the heart of the church on our side, at least. It lies on the very surface of the Scriptures : 1. That all men are sinners. 2. That sin, for its own sake, and not merely to prevent others from sinning, deserves punishment. 3. That God is just ; that is, disposed, from the very excellence of his nature, to treat his creatures as they deserve, to manifest his favor to the good, and his disapprobation towards the wicked. 4. That to propitiate God, to satisfy his righteous justice, the Son of God assumed our nature, was made under the law, fulfilled all right- eousness, bore our sins, the chastisement or punishment of which was laid on him. 5. That by his righteousness, those that be- lieve are constituted righteous ; that his merit is so given, reckoned or imputed to them, that they are regarded and treated as righteous in the sight of God. These truths, which lie on the surface of the Scriptures, are wrought into the very soul of the church, and are, in fact, its life. Yet every one of them, except the first. Dr. Beman either expressly or virtually denies. He denies that sin for its own sake deserves punishment. He everywhere represents the prevention of crime as the great end to be answered by punishment, even in the government of God. If that end can be otherwise answered, then justice is satisfied ; the necessity and propriety of punishment ceases. This is the fundamental principle of the whole system, and is avowed or implied upon almost every page. His argument in proof that repentance is not a sufficient ground for pardon, is that it has no tendency to prevent crime in others. In human govern- ments, he says, punishment is designed to prevent a repetition of crime by the criminal, and to prevent its commission by others. The foi-mer of these ends might be answered by repentance, but not the latter. So in the case of the divine government, re- pentance on the part of the sinner might, " so far as Ijis moral feelings are concerned," render it consistent in God to forgive, but then, " Where is the honor of the law .? Where is the good of the universe .^" — P. 57. The design of " penalty is to operate as a powerful motive to obedience." — P. 127. There is, he says, the same necessity for atonement as for the penalty 132 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. of the moral law, and that necessity he uniformly represents aa a necessity " to secure the order and prosperity of the universe/' —P. 128. It is of course admitted that the prevention of crime is one of the effects, and consequently one of the ends of punishment. But to say that it is the end, that it is so the ground of its in- fliction, that all necessity for punishment ceases when that end is answered, is to deny the very nature of sin. The ideas of right and wrong are simple ideas, derived immediately from our moral nature. And it is included in those ideas that what is right deserves approbation, and what is wrong deserves disappro- bation, for their own sake, and entirely irrespective of the con- sequences which are to flow from the expression of this moral judgment concerning them. When a man sins he feels that he deserves to suffer, or, as the apostle expresses it, that he is " worthy of death." But what is this feeling.? Is it that he ought to be punished to prevent others from sinning ? So far from this being the whole of the feeling, it is no part of it. If the sinner were alone in the universe, if there was no possibility of others being affected by his example, or by his impunity, the sense of ill-desert would exist in all its force. For sin is that which in itself, and for itself, irrespective of all consequences, de- serves ill. This is the very nature of it, and to deny this is to deny that there is really any such thing as sin. There may be acts which tend to promote happiness, and others which tend to destroy it ; but there is no morality in such tendency merely, any more than there is in health and sickness. The nature of moral acts may be evinced by their tendency, but that tendency does not constitute their nature. To love God, to reverence excellence, to forgive injuries, all tend to promote happiness, but no man, who has a moral sense in exercise, can say that they are right only because of such tendency. They are right, be- cause they are right, in virtue of their own inherent nature. And the opposite dispositions or acts are in their nature evil, irrespective of their tendency to produce misery. The theory that the end of punishment, even in the divine government, is to prevent crime, is only one expression of the more general theory, that happiness is the end of creation, and that all holiness is resolvable into benevolence. This theory is a product of the mere understanding, and does violence to the BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 133 instinctive moral judgment of men. We know that holiness is something more than a means ; that to be happy is not the end and reason for being holy ; that enjoyment is not the highest end of being. Our moral nature cannot be thus obliterated, and right and wrong made matters of profit and loss. The command not to do evil that good may come, would on this theory be a contradiction, since that ceases to be evil which produces good. All virtue is thus resolved into expediency, and the doctrine that the end sanctifies the means becomes the fundamental principle of virtue. It is strange that even when the moral feelings are in abeyance, and men are engaged in spinning from the intellect, a theory that will reduce to unity the conflicting facts of the moral world, they could adopt a view which reduces all intelligent beings to mere recipients of happiness, and degrades the higher attributes of their nature into mere instruments of enjoyment ; a theory which meets its refutation in every moral emotion, and which has proved itself false by its practical effects. We may safely appeal to the convictions of every man's breast, against this whole theory, and against the doctrine that sin is punished and deserves punishment only as a warning to others. No man, when humbled under the sense of his guilt in the sight of God, can resist the conviction of the inherent ill-desert of sin. He feels tliat it would be right that he should be made to suffer, nay, that rectitude, justice, or moral excellence demands his suffering ; and the hardest thing for the sinner to believe, is often, that it can be consistent with the moral excellence of God, to grant him forgiveness. Into this feeling the idea of counteract- ing the progress of sin, or promoting the good of the universe, does not in any measure enter. The feeling would be the same though there was no universe. It is ill-desert and not the gen- eral good, which every man feels in his own case, is the ground of his just liability to punishment. And without this feeHng there can be no conviction of sin. We may also appeal against this metaphysical theory to the universal consciousness of men. Though it is admitted that governmental reasons properly enter into the considerations which determine the nature and measure of punishment, yet it is the universal and intuitive judgment of men, that the criminal could not be rightly punished merely for the public good, if he did not deserve to be punished irrespective of that good. His suffering benefits the public because it is 134 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. deserved ; it is not deserved because it benefits the public. That this is the universal judgment of men is proved by every exhibition of their feelings on this subject. When any atrocious crime is committed, the public indignation is aroused. And when the nature of that indignation is examined, it becomes manifest that it arises from a sense of the inherent ill-desert of the crime ; that is, a sense of justice, and not a regard to the good of society which produces the demand for punishment. To allow such a criminal to escape with impunity, is felt to be an outrage against justice, and not against benevolence. If the public good was the grand end of punishment, then if punish- ment of the innocent would promote that most efiectually, the innocent should suifer instead of the guilty ; consequently if murders would be most restrained by the execution of the wives and children of the assassins, it would be right and obligatory to execute them, and not the perpetrators of the crime. If this would shock every man, let him ask himself why. What is the reason that the execution of an innocent woman for the public good, would be an atrocity when the execution of the guilty hus- band is regarded as a duty ? It is simply because the guilty de- serve punishment irrespective of the good of society. And if so, then the public good is not the ground of punishment in the gov- ernment of Grod, but the inherent ill-desert of sin. Men in all ages have evinced this deep-seated sense of justice. Every sacrifice ever offered to God, to propitiate his favor, was an expression of the conviction that the sin for its own sake deserved punishment. To tell a man who brought his victim to the altar, that the real philosophy of his conduct was to express a desire for his own re- formation, or for the good of society, would be a mockery. Such an idea never entered any human heart, when in the presence of God seeking his forgiveness. It is not pretended that this theory is taught in the Bible. It purports to be a philosophy. The Bible contradicts it on every page, because every page contains some expression of genuine human feeling, of the conviction of the real difference between right and wrong, of a true sense of sin, or of the great truth that our responsibility is to God, and not to the universe. The doc- trine, therefore, that sin is punished merely to preserve the order and prosperity of the universe, is an utterly false and revolting theory ; inconsistent with the intuitive moral judgments of men. BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 1S5 subversive of all moral distinctions, irreconcilable with the ex- perience of every man when really convinced of sin, and contra- dicted by everything the Bible teaches on the subject. ~ Dr. Beman again denies, and it is essential to his system that he should deny, the justice of God. He admits that Grod has a disposition to promote the welfare of his creatures, and so to order his moral government as to make it produce the greatest amount of happiness. This, however, is benevolence, and not justice. The two sentiments are perfectly distinct. This our own consciousness teaches. We know that pity is not reverence, that gratitude is not compassion, and we know just as well that justice is not benevolence. The two are perfectly harmonious, and are but different exhibitions of moral excellence. The judge of all the earth must do right. It is right to promote happiness, and it is right to punish sin ; but to refer the punishment of sin to the desire to promote happiness, is to attribute but one form of moral excellence to Grod, and to make his excellence less com- prehensive than our own. Dr. Beman speaks of commutative, distributive, and general justice. The former has relation only to the regulation of property, and has nothing to do with this subject. Distributive justice consists in the distribution of re- wards and punishments, according to merit or demerit. General justice, he says, embraces the general principles of virtue or benevolence by which God governs the universe. The second kind, he correctly says, is justice in the common and appropriate sense of the word. — P. 131. When we say that he denies the justice of God, we mean that he denies that justice, in its com- mon and appropriate sense, is an essential attribute of the divine nature. There is nothing in his nature that leads to the punish- ment of sin, but benevolence or a regard to the happiness of the universe. If that is secured, sin and all sin may go unpunished for ever. This, we say, is a denial of divine justice. It is a principle of our nature, and a command of God, that we should regard him as absolutely perfect ; that every moral excellence which we find in ourselves we should refer to him in an infinite degree. Why do we believe that God is merciful, but because he has so made us that we approve of mercy, and because he has in his word declared himself to be full of com- passion ? Our moral nature is as much a revelation of God's 136 BE MAN ON THE ATOTn^EMENT. perfections, as the heavens are of his wisdom and power. If therefore he has implanted in us a sentiment of justice, distinct from that of benevolence, we are constrained by the very consti- tution of our nature to refer that perfection to God. All men in fact do it. It enters into the sense of responsibility, into the nature of remorse, and into that fearful looking for of judgment which manifest themselves in every human breast. Men know that God is just, for they in their measure are just ; and they instinctively fear the punishment of their sins. To be told that God is only benevolent, that he punishes only when the happiness of his government requires it, is to destroy our whole allegiance to God, and to do violence to the constitution of our nature. This is a doctrine that can only be held as a theory. It is in conflict with the most intimate moral convictions of men. This, as already remarked, is evinced by the sacrificial rites of aU ages and nations, which derive their whole character and import from the assumption that God is just. If justice is merged into benevolence, they cease to have any significance as propitiatory offerings. If, then, distributive justice, justice " in its common and appropriate sense," is by the common consciousness of men declared to be a virtue, it is thereby revealed to belong to God ; and he can no more cease to be just, than he can cease to be benevolent or holy. This is only saying that if moral excellence leads us to judge that sin in itself deserves punishment, then the infinite moral excellence of God cannot but lead him to treat it as it deserves. Again : it is included in our conception of God as absolutely independent and self-sufficient, that the reasons of his acts should be in himself He is absolutely perfect, he acts with un- deviating rectitude, and by so acting he promotes the highest good of his creatures. But the good of his creatures is not the end of his actions, for of him, and through, him, and to him are all things. It is to subordinate God to the creature, to make the creature the end of his actions. He rewards one man and pun- ishes another, not because he will thus make others happy, but because it is right, and by doing right, the greatest good to others is the result. This is the view which both reason and Scripture present of God as infinite and self-sufficient, who is the beginning and the end of all things. It is hence plain how the justice of God necessarily flows from his holiness. He is so holy BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 1^7 that he delights in all that is good, and hates all that is evil ; and if he acts agreeably to his nature, he constantly manifests this love of excellence and hatred of sin. But what is reward and punishment but the manifestation of the approbation or disapprobation of God ? If holiness is communion with him, sin is alienation from him ; if his favor goes out towards the one, his displeasure goes out towards the other ; if the one is attract- ed, the other is repelled. The attributes of Grod are not so many distinct qualities, but one perfection of excellence, diversified in our conceptions, by the diversity of the objects towards which it is manifested. The justice of God is therefore nothing but the holiness of God in relation to sin. So long as he is holy, he must be just ; he must repel sin, which is the highest idea we can form of punishment. To say then that God punishes only for governmental reasons, is to destroy our very conception of his nature. That distributive justice is an essential attribute of God, is therefore revealed to us in the very constitution of our nature, in which we find a sense of justice, which is no more a form of benevolence than it is of reverence. It is revealed in all the operations of conscience ; in the common consciousness of men, as expressed in all their prayers, confessions, and sacrificial rites. It is revealed in the Scriptures in every possible way ; in all they teach of the nature of God, of his holiness, of his hatred of sin, of his determination to punish it ; in the institution of sacrifices, and in the law. If the precepts of the law are an expression of the divine perfection, so is the penalty. If the one declares what it is right for God to require, the other declares what it is right for him to inflict. If God does not command us to love him, merely to make his dominions happy, neither does he punish merely for the public good. The law is a revelation of what is right, and God will require and do right for his own sake, and not for another and a lower end. God then is just, and Dr. Beman and his theory, by denying that there is any such attri- bute in God as justice distinct from benevolence, do equal vio- lence to conscience, reason, and the Bible. Dr. Beman, again, denies that Christ made a true and proper satisfaction to divine justice, and thus departs from the common faith of Christendom, and seriously vitiates the whole doctrine of redemption. It is well known that at the time of the Re- 138 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. formation there was no controversy between Protestants and Komanists either as to the necessity or nature of the atonement. All classes of Protestants, and the church of Rome itself, united in teaching, 1. That the Son of God having assumed our nature, obeyed and suiFered in our stead, thereby making a true, proper, and complete satisfaction for our sins. And 2. That his right- eousness was so given or imputed unto us as to constitute us righteous in the sight of God. The Eomanists even reproached Protestants for not coming .up to their doctrine on this subject, insisting that the satisfaction of Christ was not only full and equivalent, but superabundant. ^^Pretium," says the Cat. Rom. i. 5, 15. " quod Christus pro nobis persolvit, debitis nostris non par solum et aequale fait, verum ea longe superavit."' It is one of the standing heads of theology in the Romish systems, Satis- factio Christi fuit de rigore justitiaB, which they prove ; and answer the common Socinian objections, viz., that such a satis- faction destroys the grace of salvation ; that it is impossible that the temporal sufferings of Christ should have such efficacy, etc. As to their views of the second point above mentioned, it is enough to quote the following passage from Turret tin, vol. ii., p. 709. " It is not questioned," he says, "whether the righteous- ness and merit of Christ are imputed to us ; for this the Papists dare not deny. The Council of Trent, sess. vi. c. 8, says, ^ Christ by his most holy passion on the cross merited justification for us, and satisfied God the Father in our behalf, and no one can be righteous to whom the merits of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ are not communicated." Hence Vasques, in 1. ii. q. 114, disp. 222, chap, i., says, 'We concede that not only what is within us, as sin, faith, righteousness, may be imputed to us, but also what is without us, as the merits and obedience of Christ ; because not only what is within, but also what is without, on account of which something is given to us, is said to belong to us (ad aliquem effectum), as though they were really our own.' Bellarmin, lib. ii., de Justif., cap. vii., acknowledges the same thing, when he says, ' If Protestants meant only that the merits of Christ are imputed to us, because God gives them to us, so that we can present them to God for our sins, he having assumed the burden of making satisfaction for us, and of reconciling us to the Father, the doctrine would be true." This is in fact pre- cisely what we do mean. For when he adds, ' we hold that the BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 139 righteousness of Christ is so imputed to us, as by it we become formally or inherently just/ he asserts what is gratuitous and false, on account of his own perverse and preposterous theory-of- moral justification." ' . The Lutheran church held the strictest form of doctrine as to the nature of Christ's satisfaction, and as to justification. That church teaches that the sufferings of Christ were strictly penal, that his obedience and death made a full and proper satisfaction to the law and justice of Grod, and are imputed to believers as the sole ground of their justification. We cannot swell our article with numerous citations in proof of a well known fact. In the Apology for the Augsburg Confession^ p. 93, it is said, '^ Christus, quia sine peccato subiit poenam peccati, et victima pro nobis factus est, sustulit illud jus legis, ne accuset, ne dam- net hos qui credunt in ipsum, quia ipse est propitiatio pro eis, propter quam justi reputantur." In the Form of Concord, it is said, "Justitia ilia, quae coram Deo fidei aut credentibus et mera gratia imputatur, est obedientia, passio, et resurrectio Christi, quibus ille legi nostra causa satisfecit et peccata nostra expiavit." — P. 684. Again, p. 696, " Humana natura sola, sine divinitate, geterno omnipotenti Deo neque obedientia, neque passione pro totius mundi peccatis satisfacere valuisset. Divi- nitas vero sola sine humanitate inter Deum et nos mediatoris partes implere non potuisset. Cum autem. * * * obedientia ilia Christi non sit unius duntaxat naturae, sed totius personae ; ideo ea est perfectissima pro humano genere satisfactio et ex- piatio ; qua aeternae et immutabili justitiae divinae '^ * * satis est factum." It will not be necessary to prove that the Keformed churches held precisely the same doctrine. There was no controversy be- tween them and the Lutherans either as to the nature of the satisfaction of Christ, or as to justification. They differed only as to the design of Christ's death, whether it had respect equally ^ It is characteristic of the church of Rome that while she holds the truth, she contrives to make it of no efifect by her traditions. Thus while she teaches that the merit of Christ is the ground of our justification, she makes those merits accessible only through her ministrations, and confounds justification and sanctification. And while she holds the truth as to the nature of Christ's satisfaction, she chooses to con- fine it to original and mortal sins, that she may make room for her own doctrine of satisfaction by good works and penances. The infinite value of the Saviour's merit, she perverts as a source whence to derive the power to grant indulgences, etc. 140 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. to all men, or had a special reference to his own people, a point which we hope to have room to discuss in the sequel of this article. We are now concerned only about the nature of the a,tonement. Bretschneider states, in a few words, the common doctrine on this subject of the two great divisions of the Pro- testant world. After saying that God, according to that doc- trine, is immutably just, and therefore must punish sin, and yet being immutably benevolent, he determined to provide redemp- tion, he proceeds, "For this it was necessary, 1. That some one in the place of men should fulfil the law which they ought to have kept ; and 2. That some one should endure the punish- ment (Strafen) which they had incurred. This no mere man could do, for no man (since all are subject to original sin) could perfectly keep the law, and every man must suffer for his own sin. Neither could any divine person accomplish the task, since he could not sustain suffering and punishment. He alone who is at once God and man, with a human nature free from sin, could accomplish the work."' This righteousness, he adds, " God imputes to men as though they had wrought it out them- selves.'^ Against this doctrine of satisfaction to the divine justice the Socinians were the first to object.'' Under the pressure of their objections the Kemonstrants in Holland gave way, and Grotius in his work, De Satisfactione Christi, though defending in the main the catholic or common doctrine, introduced the principle, that the satisfaction of Christ was rendered to the governmental justice of God. Very far below the doctrine of Grotius, in many important respects, is the theory of Dr. Beman. In some cases he falls even below Socinus. " God, as the supreme governor," he says, " must so conduct all his movements, whether of justice or mercy, as to leave on the minds of dependant creatures a deep and just impression, that the penalty of the law will be executed, and that the sinner must perish. To fix this impression indel- ibly in the breast of the sinner, is the object of the atonement" — P. 41.^ This, however, is probably a lapsus, such an one, how- ' Bretschneider's Handbuck der Bogmatik, vol. ii,, p 266. ' In the Racovian Catechism, it is asked, " Did Christ die that he might, properly- speaking, merit our salvation, or, in like manner, properly speaking, discharge the debt due for our sins ? Ans. Although Christians generally now hold that opinion, yet the sentiment is false, erroneous, and exceedingly pernicious." 3 Socinus taught that the atonement was designed, 1. To confirm the new BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 141 ever, as few men could make. He generally includes other in- telligent creatures. StiU, ^Yitll him, the atonement is a mere method of instruction ; a means to exhibit a certain truth ior the moral restraint or improvement of those to vp^hom it is made known. The gratuitous forgiveness of sin, it is said, would tend to produce the impression that Grod was indifferent to his law, and that sin might he committed with impunity. To counteract that impression, to teach, or declare that sin was, in the sight of God, an evil, and would be punished, and thus to open a way to exercise mercy, without weakening the motive to obedience, is the design of the death of Christ. Justice, in its " common appropriate sense," he says, '^ was not satisfied by the atonement of Jesus Christ." — P. 131. " The law, or justice, that is, dis- tributive justice, as expressed in the law, has received no satis- faction at all." — P. 133. So far as the atonement secured the government of God from the . evils of gratuitous forgiveness, it was a satisfaction to his benevolence, but not to justice in any other sense. — P. 182. It was designed to teach a certain truth ; it is " a symbolical and substantive expression of God's regard to the moral law." — P. S5. ^^It furnishes an expression of his regard for the moral law," and "evinces his determination to punish sin." — P. 91. "To fix indelibly this impression on the heart of the sinner is the object of the atonement." —P. 42. Our first remark on this subject, after showing, as we think we have done, that the whole basis of this theory is false, is that it is destitute of any semblance of support from Scripture. It hardly purports to be anything more than a hypothesis on which to reconcile what the Bible teaches with our views of moral gov- ernment. It is a device to make the atonement rational, to ex- plain away the mystery which hangs over it, and makes the whole august transaction perfectly intelligible. Dr. Beman says that the doctrine of the atonement enters " into the very texture of revelation, warp and woof." It is, he says, " the vital prin- ciple, in the very heart of the gospel."— P. 62. Surely then we have a right to have it treated as " a purely bibhcal question," covenant and all its promises, especially those of the pardon of sin, and of eternal life. 2. To assure us of the love of God. 3. To induce us to embrace the gospel 4. To encourage us by his example to trust in God. 5. To abrogate the old dis- pensation, eta 142 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. as he affirms it to be. Yet in his chapter on the nature of the atonement, so far as we can find, he refers to but one solitary text in the whole Bible ! It is a theory woven warp and woof out of the understanding, not even out of the conscience. The solitary passage which Dr. Beman cites as teaching his doctrine is Kom. iii. 25, where it is said that Grod set forth Christ as a propitiation for our sins, to declare his righteousness. " The object of the atonement," he says, " is here stated in explicit terms. It was required and made in order to open a consistent way for the publication of pardon, or for the exercise of grace to sinners. Its purpose was to declare the righteousness or moral rectitude and perfection of Grod in dispensing, in this instance, with the literal execution of the penalty of the law, and in be- stowing eternal life upon those who deserved to die." — P. 124. He afterwards, p. 132, says, the words just and righteousness as here used have " no direct reference to law," but express "those principles of virtue or benevolence by which we are bound to regulate our conduct, and by which God governs the universe." Then of course the passage might be rendered, " Christ was sent forth as a propitiation to declare the benevolence of God, that he might be benevolent even in remitting the sins of those that believe ;" an interpretation which needs no refutation. The first remark then to be made on this passage is, that it teaches the very reverse of what it is cited to prove. Dr. Beman himself says that in their " common and appropriate sense," the words just and justice have reference to law, and express what he calls distributive justice. Then if the language of the apostle is to be taken in a " common and appropriate sense," it teaches that the propitiation of Christ was designed as an exhibition of justice in its proper sense, in order to make it apparent that God was just even in remitting sin ; that the demands of justice had not been sacrificed, but on the contrary fully satisfied. It is only by taking the words in a sense that is inappropriate and unusual, that any other doctrine can be got out of the passage. Besides, Dr. Beman's interpretation is not only in direct opposition to the common meaning of the words, but to the necessary sense of the context. Satisfaction to justice is the formal idea of a propitia- tion ; and saying that Christ was a propitiation, is only saying in other words, that our sins were laid on him, that he bore the chastisement or punishment of our sins, in order that God might BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 143 be just, in justifying those that believe. Again : this interpre- tation is agreeable to the sense in which the words just, righteous, righteousness, etc., are familiarly used by the apostle. Is God unrighteous, he asks, who taketh vengeance ? Rom. iii. 5. He denounces the divine judgment, by saying, God will cut short the work in righteousness. Rom. ix. 28. See also 2 Thess. i. 5, 6. The obvious sense then of the passage in Rom. iii. 25, is the op- posite to that which Dr. Beman gives it.* But if we admit that the passage in question does teach that the atonement was designed to set forth God's regard for the good of the universe, what then .? would it establish Dr. Beman's theory ? Far from it. It is one of the most common fallacies of theological writers, to seize upon some one passage, and shutting their eyes to all others, assume that it teaches the whole truth on a given subject. The death of Christ was designed to answer manifold ends, more perhaps than it has yet entered into the heart of man to imagine. It would be the extreme of folly to take one of those ends, and infer that its attainment was its whole design, or let us into the full knowledge of its nature. Is it not said a hundred times that the death of Christ was designed, to exhibit the love of God ? Does this prove that it does not dis- play his righteousness. It is said to declare his wisdom ; does that prove it does not display his love ? It was desi,gned to bring us unto God, but does that prove it was not also an atonement ? It is not by taking any one view, or any one text, that we can arrive at the truth. We must have a theory which will embrace all the facts ; a doctrine which includes all the revelations God has made on this subject. The objection to Dr. Beman's view of the design of Christ's death is not that it is false, but that it is defective. It states only a part, and a subordinate part of the * " We see ourselves obliged," says Tholuck, " to admit, in this place, the idea of distributive justice (vergeltende Gerechtigkeit)." He afterwards says that the loss of that idea in theology has occasioned " unspeakable evil," and that tlie doctrine of atonement "must remain sealed up until it is acknowledged." See his Romer- brief, ed. 1842. He refers with approbation to Usteri's exposition of this passage in his FauUnischer Lehrlegriff. On turning to that author, we find he says, his object is to prove "that the representation contained in Rom. iii. 24, 25, viz., that God, to declare his righteousness, laid on Christ the punishment of the sins of men, is the doctrine of Paul." And he accordingly goes on to prove it, particularly from Rom. viii. 3. TJsteri is one of those writers who do not feel called upon to believe what the Scripture teaches, though they make it a point of honor to state its meaning fairly. 114 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. truth. The atonement is an exhibition of GocVs jourpose to maintain his law and to inflict its penalty, and thus to operate as a restraint and a motive on all intelligent beings, because it involves the execution of that penalty. It is this that gives it all its power. It would be no exhibition of justice, if it were not an exercise of justice ; it would not teach that the penalty of law must be inflicted, unless it was inflicted. We hold all the little truth there is in Dr. Beman's doctrine, but we hold un- speakably more. Our immediate object, however, is to call attention to the en- tire absence of all scriptural support for this theory. We have already shown that the only passage directly referred to does not teach what it is cited to prove, and that if it did, it would give no support to the theory built upon it. The surprising fact, however, should be more distinctly noticed, that while the Bible is said to be full of the doctrine of atonement, scarcely an at- tempt is made to prove its nature from the Bible. Christ is said to be a sacrifice, to bear our sins, to be a propitiation, a ransom, &c., &c., but no attempt is made to tell us what all this means. , There is no examination of the terms, no elucidation of the meaning they bore in the age of the apostles. The writer does not even pretend to found his theory upon them. In the chapter in which he gives his own view of the nature of the atonement, they are scarcely even mentioned. The whole affair is a piece of pure Rationalistic speculation, formed on certain principles of moral philosophy which have nothing to do with the Bible. It is assumed that happiness is the end of all things ; that to promote happiness is the essence of virtue ; that the prevention of crime, which causes misery, is the end of punishment ; that the death of Christ, as it tends to prevent crime, supersedes the necessity of punishment. There is the theory. And we can hardly avoid saying that it has more affinity with Jeremy Ben- tham, and " the greatest happiness" system, than it has with the Bible, or with the sympathies of Christians. Our next remark on this theory is that it is perfectly arbitrary. The Bible teaches that Christ was a sacrifice, that he bore our sins, that the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him ; that he propitiated Grod ; was a ransom ; was made sin, that we might be made righteous. These and similar statements set forth the nature of the atonement. There are many others do- BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 145 scribing some of its manifold effects. It declared the justice of God, exhibited his wisdom, set us an example, purifies his people, and in short, glorifies God and promotes the best ioterests of his kingdom. If you take in the former statements, there is perfect unity in all these representations. The work of Christ is a dis- play of the justice and love of God, it leads men to repentance, and exerts this moral influence on the universe, because it is a satisfaction to divine justice, and answers the demands of his law. But if the scriptural account of its nature be rejected, then it is a matter to be arbitrarily decided, which of its effects shall be selei^ted as determining its character. If Dr. Bern an says it is an atonement because it expresses God's regard to the order and welfare of his government ; Socinus may say, it is an atonement because it assures us of the love of God. The one is just as much right as the other ; for both are right as far as they go ; but both are arbitrary in selecting what suits their taste, or their philosophy, and rejecting all the rest. Dr. Beman does not pretend that his doctrine is taught in those passages of Scripture which really describe the nature of the atonement, neither does Socinus. Both say all that is figurative. The one says its nature is to be inferred from one of its effects, the other from another ; the one considers it as designed mainly to teach God's rectoral justice, the other his love. It is perfectly plain that on this plan the citadel is surrendered. Dr. Beman can have nothing to say to the Socinian, which the Socinian cannot retort on Dr. Beman. Both admit that we are saved by the death of Christ ; the one affirming that it is because it brings us to repentance, and thus makes our forgiveness consistent with the character of God and the interests of his kingdom ; the other, that it is because it reconciles forgiveness with the good of the universe, in a different way. It may also on this ground be made a fair subject of debate, which view really assigns most importance to the death of Christ. Is it clear that fear is more conservative than love ? that the ex- hibition of God's regard to law would have a greater effect in promoting holiness than the exhibition of his mercy ? We very much doubt it. And we confess ourselves very much at a loss to see, why the Socinian view of the design of the Redeemer's death should be regarded as a rejection of the doctrine of atone- ment, if his death was merely designed to exert a conservative 10 146 BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. influence on the moral government of God. Certain it is that this is not the doctrine against which the early Socinians contended. It is further plain that the principles of interpretation which Dr. Beman is obliged to adopt to reconcile his theorj^ with the Bible, are all that is wanted to serve the purpose of Socinians. They both deny that we are to take the language of Scripture according to its "common and appropriate sense," and agreeably to the mode of thinking prevalent in the age in which it was uttered. The vastly different views entertained by Dr. Beman and Socinus as to the person of Christ, make of course a corre- sponding difference in their whole religious system. But as to the nature of the atonement, we have always considered the ground advocated by Dr. Beman as utterly untenable against the arguments of Socinians. It is a rejection of the scriptural account, and after that is done, one theory has as much authority as another. Our third remark is, that this theory, besides being indepen- dent of Scripture, and perfectly arbitrary, is directly opposed to the explicit teaching of the word of God. Be it remembered that the Bible is admitted to be full of the doctrine of the atone- ment ; that it is the great central point in the religion of re- deemed man. It is also admitted that God has revealed not only the fact that we are saved by the obedience and death of Christ, but also the way in which his work is efficacious to that end. The Socinian says, it is by its moral effect upon men ; Dr. Beman says, it is from its tendency to prevent crime and preserve the order of the universe ; the common faith of Christendom is, that Christ saves us by satisfying the demands of law and justice in our stead. As the Bible is fuU of this doctrine it must enable us to decide which of these views is right, for the Bible was in- tended to teach us the way of salvation. We are taught then first, that Christ bore our sins. Heb. ix. 28 ; 1 Pet. ii. 24 ; Is. liii. 12, &c. It cannot be disputed that the usual scriptural meaning of the expression, to hear sin, is to bear the punishment due to sin. Lev. xxii. 9. If they keep not my ordinance " they shall bear sin for it." Num. xviii. 22, xiv. 33 ; Lev. v. 1, 17. " He is guilty, and shall bear his iniquity." Ez. xviii. 20. " The soul that sinneth it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son." No BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. l4? one doubts that this means, the son shall not be punished for the sins of the father, nor the father for the sins of the son. When_ therefore the Scriptures say that Christ bore our sins, they say in express terms, that he bore the punishment of our sins. This is rendered the more certain, because he bore them by suffering, or by dying ; and because the Scriptures express the same idea in so many other ways. This account of the nature of the atone- ment is found not only in poetical descriptions of Christ's sufferings, but in the most didactic portions of the Bible. The language used had an established sense in the minds of those to whom it was addressed, who could not fail to understand it ac- cording to its obvious meaning. That meaning, therefore, we are bound, by all the sound rules of interpretation, to believe the sacred writers intended to convey. How does Dr. Beman answer this ? Does he attempt to show that the phrase " to bear sin" does commonly mean to bear the punishment of sin ? or that it has not that meaning when used in reference to Christ ? As far as we have been able to find, he contents himself with some general remarks against taking figurative language in its literal sense. He subjects the passages, in which the phrase in ques- tion occurs, to no critical examination. He makes no attempt to show that figurative language may not convey a definite mean- ing, or that that meaning is not to be learnt from usage, and the known opinions of those to whom it is addressed. It is enough for him that he does not like the truth, which the passages in question would then teach ; that he cannot see how the innocent could so take the place of the guilty as to bear their punishment ; that he cannot reconcile this doctrine with the justice of Grod, nor with his views of other portions of Scripture. In the mean- time the plain meaning of the Scriptures stands, and those who find all other scriptural representations consistent with that meaning, and to whom it is in fact the very ground of their hope towards God, will receive it gladly, and in all its simplicity. The theory of Dr. Beman, then, which denies that Christ suffered the penalty due to our sins, must be admitted to be in direct conflict with these express declarations of the word of God.^ ^ Professor Stuart, in bis Commentary and Excursus on Eeb. ix. 28, says, 'To hewr (he sins of others, is to bear or endure the penalty due to them." Having proved this, he adds, "The sentiment of the clause then clearly is, that Jesus by his death (which 148 BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. Secondly, the Scriptures, in order to teach us the nature of atonement, say that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice unto God. What, then, is, according to the Scriptures, a sacrifice for sins ? " The essence of a propitiatory sacrifice," says Storr, "is the forgiveness of sin, through the transfer of punishment from the actual offender to another."^ The moderate Bishop Burnet says : " The notion of an expiatory sacrifice which was then, when the New Testament was writ, well understood all the world over, both by Jews and Grentiles, was this, that the sin of one person was transferred on a man or beast, who upon that was devoted or offered to Grod, and suffered in the room of the offending person ; and, by this oblation, the punishment of the sin being laid on the sacrifice, an expiation was made for sin, and the sinner was believed to be reconciled to God/'^ That this is the correct view of the scriptural doctrine concerning sacrifices, may be inferred : — 1. From its being confessedly the light in which they were generally regarded by the Jews and by the whole ancient world, and from its being a simple and natural explanation of the service. On this hypothesis, everything is significent and intelligible. 2. From the express didactic state- ments of the Bible. The life is said to be in the blood, and " I have given it to you as an atonement for your souls ; for it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul (life)." Lev. xvii. 11. The very nature of the service, then, was the substitution of life for life. The life forfeited was redeemed by the life paid. 3. From all the rites connected with the service, and all the ex- pressions employed concerning it. There was to be confession of sin, imposition of hands (as expressing the idea of transfer and substitution) : the sins were said to be laid on the head of the victim, which was then put to death, or, as in the case of the scapegoat, dismissed into the wilderness, and another goat sacri- ficed in its place. All these directions plainly teach that the nature of expiatory offerings consisted in the substitution of the could take place but once), endured the penalty that our sins deserved, or bore the sorrows due to us." When he further says, that the sufferings of Christ were not in all respects, and considered in every point of view, an exact and specific quid pro quo, as it regards the penalty threatened against sin, that the Saviour did not suffer a guilty conscience, or despair, would be pertinent, had he first proved that any re- spectable body of Christians held any such doctrine, or that a guilty conscience, or despair, is an essential part of the penalty of the law. * Zweck des Todes Jesu. Sec. 8. '^ Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles. Article 2. BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 149 victim for the offender, and in the infliction of the penalty of death incurred by the one upon the other. 4. That this is the scrip- tural doctrine on this subject, is made still plainer by the fact, that all that is taught by saying that the Messiah bore our sins, that our iniquities were laid upon him, that he bore our sorrows, that the chastisement of our peace was laid on him, is expressed by the prophet by saying, he made "his soul an offering for sin." Then an offering for sin is one on whom sin is laid, who bears sins, i. e., as has been shown, the penalty due to sin. 5. This view of the subject is further confirmed by a consideration of the effects ascribed to these sacrifices. They made atonement ; they propitiated God ; they secured the remission of the penalty in- curred. When an Israelite had committed an offence by which he forfeited his standing in the theocracy (that is, the favor of God as his theocratical ruler), he brought to the priest the ap- pointed sacrifice, made confession of his sin, the victim was slain in his place, and he was restored to his standing, and saved from being cut off from his people. These sacrifices always produced these effects ; they always secured the remission of the theo- cratical penalty for which they were offered and accepted. Whether they secured the forgiveness of the soul before God, depended on the state of mind of the offerer. Of themselves they had no such efficacy, since it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin. But nothing is plainer from Scripture than that the way in which the Israelites obtained the remission of the civil or theocratical penalties which they had incurred, was intended to teach us how sin is pardoned in the sight of God through Jesus Christ. If, then, the Bible, according to the almost unanimous judg- ment of Christians, teaches that the idea of an expiatory sacri- fice is, that by vicarious punishment justice is satisfied and sin forgiven ; if this was the view taken of them by Jews and Gen- tiles, then does the Bible in so constantly representing Christ as a propitiation, as a lamb, as a sacrifice for sin, expressly teach that he bore the penalty due to our sins, that he satisfied divine justice, and secured, for all in whose behalf that sacrifice is ac- cepted, the pardon of sin and restoration to the divine favor. To talk of figure here is out of the question. Admit that the language is figurative, the question is, what idea was it intended to convey ? Beyond doubt that which the sacred writers knew THE ' 150 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. with certainty would bo attached to it by their immediate readers, and which, in fact, has been attached to it in all ages of the church.' To tell a conscience-striken Israelite that a sacrifice was designed either 'to impress his own mind, or the mind of others, with the truth that God is just or benevolent, would have been a mockery. It was to him an atonement, a propitiation, a vicarious punishment, or it was nothing. And it is no less a mockery to tell a convinced sinner that the death of Christ was designed to lead him to repentance, or to preserve the good order of the universe. Unless the Kedeemer was a sacrifice, on whom our sins were laid, who bore the penalty we had incurred, it is to such a sinner, no atonement, and no ade- quate ground of confidence toward God.** Again : it is a part of the common faith of the Church, that Jesus Christ is a true and proper priest ; that what was sym- bolical and figurative with regard to other priests, is real as it regards him. He is called a priest ; it is proved that he has all ^ "It is not possible for us to preserve," says Bishop Burnet, "any reverence for the New Testament, or the writers of it, so far as to think tliem even honest men, not to say inspired men, if we can imagine, that in so sacred and important a matter they could exceed so much as to represent that a sacrifice which is not truly so. This is a subject which will not bear figures and amplifications ; it must be treated strictly, and with a just exactness of expression." — Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles^ the same page quoted above. ^ " The innate sense of divine justice, which all men possess, demands that the sinner should receive his due, that the stroke he has given to the law should recoil upon himself The deeper his sense of guilt, the less can he be satisfied with mere pardon, and the more does he demand punishment, for by punishment he is justified. "Whence do we derive this intimate persuasion of God's justice? Not from without; because men, as empirically guided, regard freedom from suffering as the highest good ; it must therefore be implanted in our nature by God himself The holiness of God, which reveals itself to the sinner by the connection between sufiering and transgression, has, therefore, a witness for itself in every human breast. Hence, on the one hand, the proclamation of pardon and reconciliation could not satisfy the conscience of the sinner, unless his guilt had been atoned for by punishment; and on the other hand, divine love could not ofier its blessings to the sinner, unless holiness was revealed together with love. It was therefore necessary that suffering commen- surate with the apostasy of man should be endured, which men would impute to themselves as their own. Such was the sufiering, inward and outward, of the Re- deemer. Two things were necessary, 1. That those sufierings should correspond to (entsprechen) the greatness of the sin of mankind; 2. That the sinner could rightly impute them to himself "—Tuoluok, Beilage ii., zum Hebraerlrief, p. 104. There is more real and precious truth, according to our judgment, in that short paragraph, than in all Dr. Beman'a book. BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 151 the qualifications for the office ; that he was divinely appointed ; that he performed all its duties, secures all its benefits ; and that his priesthood supersedes all others. We are accordingly com- manded to come to him in the character of a priest ; to commit our souls into his hands, that he may reconcile us to God, and make intercession for us. This is the scriptural method of rep- resenting the manner in which Christ saves us, and the nature of his work. Dr. Beman, in his chapter on the " Fact of the Atonement," which is directed against Socinians, avails himself of all the usual sources of scriptural proof ; and, in the course of the chapter, is forced to speak of Christ as a sacrifice and a Priest. But when he comes to the exposition of his views of the nature of the atonement, he finds it expedient, and even neces- sary, to leave that mode of representation entirely out of view. We hear no more of propitiating God, of Christ as a sacrifice, of his character as a Priest. It is now all moral government, the order and interest of the universe, symbolical teaching, exhibi- tion of truth and motives. Why is all this ? Why does not Dr. Beman's doctrine, admit of being thrown into the scriptural form ? Why must the terms sacrifice, priest, propitiation, be discarded when teaching the nature of the atonement ? For the very obvious reason that there is an entire incongruity between ■ his views and the word of God. What has a sacrifice and priest to do with governmental display ? This fact alone works the condemnation of Dr. Beman's whole theory. His plan of salva- tion, his method of access to God, is irreconcilable with that rep- resented in the Scriptures. There we are taught that, as the Israelite who had offended, came to the priest, who made an atonement for him in the appointed way, and thus reconciled him to God, so the penitent sinner must come to Christ as his High Priest, who satisfies the divine justice by presenting his own merits before God, and who ever lives to make intercession for him. Would this representation ever lead a human being to imagine that Christ merely makes pardon possible — that his death was a symbolical lesson to the universe .?• According to Dr. Beraan's theory, Christ is not a priest. We are under no necessity of recognizing him as such, nor of committing our- selves into his hands, nor of relying on his merits and in- tercession. A mere ])ossibility of salvation for all men is all that Christ has accomplished. But does this make him a 152 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. High Priest in the scriptural and universally received sense of the term ? A third method by which the Scriptures teach us the nature of the atonement, is by express declarations concerning the nature of his sufferings or the immediate design of his death. It is expressly taught that his sufferings were penal, that he en- dured the penalty of the law, and that he thus suffered not for himself but for us. This is a point about which there is so much strange misconception, that it is necessary to explain the mean-' ing of the terms here used. The sufferings of rational beings are either calamities, having no reference to sin, or chastisement designed for the improvement of the sufferer, or penal when de- signed for the satisfaction of justice. Now what is meant by the language above used is, that the sufferings of Christ were not mere calamities ; neither were they chastisements (in the sense just stated), nor were they simply exemplary, nor merely sym- bolical, designed to teach this or that truth, but that they were penal, L e., designed to satisfy divine justice. This is the dis- tinctive character assigned to them in Scripture. Again : by the penalty of the law is meant that suffering which the law demands as a satisfaction to justice. It is not any specific kind or degree of suffering, for it varies both as to degree and kind, in every sup- posable case of its infliction. The sufferings of no two men that ever lived, are precisely alike, in this world or the next, unless their constitution, temperament, sins, feelings, and circumstances were precisely alike, which is absolutely incredible. The objec- tion therefore started by Socinians, that Christ did not suffer the penalty of the law, because he did not suffer remorse, despair, or eternal banishment from God, was answered by cotemporary theologians, by denying that those things entered essentially into the penalty of the law. The penalty is in Scripture called death, which includes every kind of evil inflicted by divine justice in punishment of sin ; and inasmuch as Christ suffered such evil, and to such a degree as fuUy satisfied divine justice, he suffered what the Scriptures call the penalty of the law. It is not the nature, but the relation of sufferings to the law, which gives them their distinctive character. What degree of suffering the law demands, as it varies in every specific case, God only can determine. The sufferings of Christ were unutterably great ; still with one voice, Papists, Lutherans, and Keformed, rebutted BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. l53 the objection of Socinus, that the transient sufferings of one man could not be equivalent to the sufferings due to the sins of men, by referring, not to the degree of the Saviour's anguish, as equal to* the misery due to all for whom he died, but to the infinite dig- nity of his person. It was the Lord of glory who was crucified. As the bodily sufferings of a man are referred to his whole person, so the Scriptures refer the sufferings of Christ's human nature to his whole person. And he was a divine, and not a human person ; but a divine person with a human nature. This is an awful subject, on which all irreverent speculation must be very offensive to God. Let it be enough to say with the Scriptures that Christ suffered the penalty of the law in our stead, and that the penalty of the law was that kind and amount of suffering, which, from such a person, was a full satisfaction to the divine justice. All that our standards say on this point, they say wisely^ viz., that the Saviour endured the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, the accursed death of the cross, and continued under the power of death for a time. This was the penalty of the law ; for the wrath of God, however expressed, constitutes that penalty, in its strictest and highest sense. That the Scriptures do teach that Christ's sufferings were penal, has already been proved from those passages in which he is said to bear our sins, that our iniquities were laid upon him, that he suffered the chastisement of our peace, and that as a sacrifice he endured the death which we had incurred. The same truth is expressed still more explicitly in Gal. iii. 13. The apostle thus argues. The law pronounces accursed all who do not obey every command ; no man has ever rendered this perfect obedience, therefore all men are under the curse ; but Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us. There can be no doubt what the apostle means, when he says, that all men are under the curse ; nor when he says, cursed is every one who continueth not in all things written in the law to do them ; neither can it be doubted what he means when he says, Christ was made a curse. The three expressions, un- der the curse, accursed, and made a curse, cannot mean essen- tially different things. If the former mean that we were exposed to the penalty, the latter must mean that Christ endured the penalty. He hath redeemed us from the curse by bearing it in our stead.' * In this interpretation every modern commentator of whom we have any knowl- i5-i BEMAN ON THE ATONEMEN'i. To the same effect the apostle speaks in Eom. viii. 3. What the law could not do {i, e., effect the justification of men) in that 'it was weak through the flesh, that G-od did, having sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, or as a sin-offering, he condemned, i. e., punished sin, in the flesh, i. e., in him, who was clothed in our nature. This passage agrees, as to the principal point, with the one cited from Galatians. The sentence which we had incurred was carried into effect upon the Eedeemer, in order that we might he delivered from the law under which we were justly condemned. In 2 Cor. v. 21, the apostle, in urging men to he reconciled to God, presents the nature and mode of the atonement, as the ground of his exhortation. " For he hath made him to he sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be- come the righteousness of God in him." The only sense in which Christ, who was free from all sin, could be made sin, was by having our sins laid upon him ; and the only way in which our sins could be laid upon him, was by his so assuming our place as to endure, in our stead, the penalty we had incurred. " God made him to be sin," says De Wette, "in that he laid on him the punishment of sin." Here again we have precisely the same doctrine, taught under all the other forms of expression already considered. Christ was made sin, as we in him are made right- eous men; we are justified, he was " condemned ; we are freed from the penalty, he endured it ; he was treated as justice re- quired the sinner io be treated ; we are treated according to his merits and not our own deserts. Fourthly, there are various other forms under which the Scrip- tures set forth the nature of Christ's death, which the limits of a review forbid our considering. He has redeemed us ; he has purchased us ; he gave himself as a ransom, etc. It is readily admitted that all these terms are often used in a wide sense, to express the general idea of deliverance without reference to the mode by which that deliverance is effected. It cannot, however, be denied that they properly express deliverance by purchase, edge concurs, as for example, Koppe, Flatt, Winer, Usteri, Matthias, Riickcrt, Do Wette. What the apostle adds in the next verse, '• For it is written, cursed is every one that is hung upon a tree," is evidently intended to justify from Scripture the use of the word curse. Those publicly exposed as suffering the sentence of the law, are called cursed; hence, since Christ, though perfectly holy, did bear the sentence of the law, the word may be properly applied to him. BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 155 1. e., by the payment of what is considered equivalent to the person or thing redeemed. In the Bible it is not simply said that Christ has delivered us ; nor is it said he delivered us by power^ nor by teaching, but by his death, by his own precious blood, by giving himself, by being made a curse for us. Such representa- tions cannot fail to convey the idea of a redemption in the proper sense of the term, and therefore teach the true nature of the atonement. We are redeemed ; that which was given for us was of infinite value. If the Scriptures thus teach that Christ saves us by bearing our sins, or being made a sin-offering in our place, then the more general expressions, such as he died for us, he gave himself for us, we are saved by his death, his blood, his cross, and others of a similar kind, are all to be understood in accordance with those more explicit statements. To the pious reader of the New Tes- tament, therefore, the precious truth that Christ died as our substitute, enduring in his own person the death which we had incurred, redeeming us from the curse by being made a curse for us, meets him upon almost every page, and confirms his con- fidence in the truth, and exalts his estimate of its value, by this frequency of repetition and variety of statement. Fifthly, there is still another consideration in proof of the un- scriptural character of Dr. Beman's theory, which is too im- portant to be overlooked. The apostle, in unfolding the plan of redemption proceeds on the assumption that men are under a law or covenant which demands perfect obedience, and which threatens death in case of transgression. He then shows that no man, whether Jew or Gentile, can fulfill the conditions of that covenant, or so obey the law as to claim justification on the ground of his own righteousness. Still, as this law is perfectly righteous, it cannot be arbitrarily set aside. What then was to be done ? What hope can there be for the salvation of sinners ? The apostle answers by saying, that what the law could not do (that is, save men), God has accomplished by the mission of his Son. But how does the Son save us ? This is the very question before us. It relates to the nature of the work of Christ, which Dr. Beman has undertaken to discuss. Paul's answer to that question is, that Christ saves us by being made under the law and fulfilling all its demands. He fulfilled all righteousness, he knew no sin, he was holy, harmless, and separate from sinners. He 156 B E M A N ON THE ATONEMENT. bore our sins in his own body on tlie tree, and thus endured the death which the law threatened against sin. He has thus redeemed us from the law ; that, is, we are no longer under obligation to satisfy, in our own person, its demands, in order to our justification. The perfect righteousness of Christ is offered as the ground of justification, and all who accept of that right- eousness by faith, have it so imputed to them, that they can plead it as their own, and God has promised to accept it to their salvation. We can hardly persuade ourselves that any ordinary reader of the Bible can deny that this is a correct representation of the manner in which Paul preached the gospel. It is the burden of all his writings, it is the gospel itself as it lay in his mind, and as he presented it to others. It is the whole subject of the first eight chapters of his Epistle to the Komans, and of all the doctrinal part of his Epistle to the Galatians. In the former of these epistles, he shows that there are but two methods of justification, the one by our own righteousness, and the other by the righteousness of God. Having shown that no man has or can have an adequate righteousness of his own, he shows that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God, that is, the righteousness which is by faith in Jesus Christ, and which is upon all them that believe. This righteousness is so complete, that God is just in justifying those who have the faith by which it is received and appropriated. He afterwards illustrates this great doctrine of imputed righteousness by a reference to the case of Adam, and shows that as on account of the offence of one man a sentence of condemnation passed on all men, so, on account of the righteous- ness of one man, the free gift of justification has come upon all. As by the disobedience of one the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one the many are made righteous. It is involved in all this, that we are no longer under the law, no longer subject to its demand of a perfect personal righteousness, but justified by a righteousness that satisfies its widest claims. Hence the apostle so frequently asserts, ye are not under the law, ye are free from the law. But how ? not by abrogating the law, or by dispensing with its righteous claims, but legally, as a woman is free from her husband, not by deserting him, not by repudiating his authority, but by his ceasing to have any claim to her, which continues only so long as he lives. So we are freed from the law by the body of Christ, i. e., by his death. He was BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 157 made under the law that lie might redeem them who were under the law ; he hath redeemed us from its curse by being made a curse for us ; he has taken away the hand-writing which was against us, nailing it to the cross. There is, therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, because we are by this gospel freed from the law and its condemnation. Hence Paul teaches that if righteousness (that is, what satisfies the demands of the law) could have come in any other way, Christ is dead in vain. How exclusively this righteousness of Christ was the ground of the apostle's personal confidence, is plain from his pregnant declarations to the Philippians, that he counted aU things but dung, that he might win Christ, and be found in him ; not having his own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of Grod by faith. With this representation of the plan of salvation. Dr. Beman's theory is utterly irreconcilable. According to his theory, the demands of the law have not been satisfied. The relation of the sinner to the curse which this law pronounces against the trans- gressor, is legally — not evangelically — just the same that it was without an atonement. " The law has the same demand upon him, and utters the same denuuciation of wrath against him. The law or justice, that is distributive justice, as expressed in the law, has received no satisfaction at all." — P. 133. What then has Christ's atonement done for us ? He has simply opened the way for pardon. ^^All that the atonement has done for the sinner," says Dr. Beman, "is to place him within the reach of pardon." — P. 137. " The way is now open. Mercy can now operate. The door is open." — P. 106. The atonement " was required and made in order to open a consistent way for the publication of pardon, or for the exercise of grace to sinners." —P. 124. This theory directly contradicts the apostle's doctrine ; 1. Be- cause he teaches that Christ was made under the law for the purpose of redeeming them that are under the law, and that he was made a curse for us. We are therefore delivered from the law, as a covenant of works, and are not subject to its demands and its curse when united to him. 2. Because it virtually denies that Christ wrought out any righteousness which is the ground of our justification. He merely makes pardon possible, whereas Paul says that by his obedience we are made righteous, that we 158 BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. become the righteousness of God in him. On this new theory, the language of the apostle, when he speaks of not having his own righteousness, but the righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ, is unintelligible. 3. It destroys the very nature of justification, which is ^^an act of God's free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed unto us and receiv- -ed by faith alone." But according to this theory there is no such thing as justification ; we are merely pardoned. In Scripture, however, and in all languages, the ideas of pardon and justification are distinct and in a measure opposite.^ If we are justified, we are declared righteous. That is, it is declared that, as concerns us, on some ground or for some reason, the law is satisfied ; and that reason Paul says must either be our own righteousness, or the righteousness of Christ. Dr. Beman's theory admits of no such idea of justification. The sinner is merely forgiven, because the death of Christ prevents such forgiveness doing any harm. This is not what the Bible teaches when it speaks of our being made the righteousness of God in Christ ; or of his imputing righteousness to us ; or of our receiving the gift of righteousness. This is not what the convinced sinner needs, to whom, not mere pardon, but justification on the ground of a righteousness which, though not his own, is his, as wrought out for him and bestowed by the free gift of God, is necessary to peace with God. — Rom. v. 1. 4 It destroys the nature of justifying faith, and deranges the whole plan of salvation. In accordance with the Scriptures, faith in Jesus Christ is, in our standards, declared to be a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel. This is perfectly natural and intelligible, if Christ is our righteousness. If his work of obedi- ence and death is the sole ground of justification before God, then we understand what the Bible means by believing upon Christ, putting our trust in him, being found in him ; then the phrase, faith of Christ, which so often occurs as expressing the idea of a faith of which he is the object, has its appropriate meaning. Then, too, we understand what is meant by coming to Christ, receiving Christ, putting on Christ, being in Christ. I " The word dtKaiovv" says Do Wette, " means not merely negatively io pardon; but also afiBrmativcly io declare rlghieorisy BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 159 Upon Dr. Beman's theory, however, all this is well-nigh unin- telligible. We admit that a vague sense may be put on these expressions on any theory of the atonement, even that of the Socinians. If the death of Christ is necessary to salvation, either, as they say, by revealing the love of God, or as Dr. Beman says, by revealing his regard for law, then to believe in Christ, or to receive Christ, might be said to mean, to believe the truth that without the revelation made by his death, God would not forgive sin. But how far is this from being the full and natural import of the terms ! Who would ever express mere acquiescence in the fact that Christ has made salvation possible, by saying, "I would be found in him not having mine own righteousness, but the righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ ?" The fact is, the Socinian view is in some respects much easier reconciled with Scripture than that of Dr. Beman. The passage just quoted, for example, might have this meaning, \dz., we must have, not the moral excellence which the law can give, but that inward righteousness of which feith in Christ is the source. This would have some plausibility, but what " the righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ " can mean, as opposed to our own righteousness, on Dr. Beman's ground, it is hard to conceive. Again : according to the Bible and the common doctrine of the church, when a sinner is convinced of his sin and misery, of his entire unworthiness in the sight of God, he is to be directed to renounce all dependence upon himself, and to believe in Christ, that is, to place all his confidence in him. But if Christ has only made salvation possible, if he has merely brought the sinner within the reach of mercy, this is a most unnatural direc- tion. What has the sinner to come to Christ for ? Why should he be directed to receive or submit to the righteousness of God ? Christ has nothing to do with him. He has made salvation pos- sible, and his work is done ; what the sinner has to do is to submit to God. The way is open, let him lay aside his rebellion, and begin to love and serve his Maker. Such are the directions which this theory would lead its advocates to give to those who are convinced of their sin and danger. This is not a mere imagination ; such are the directions, commonly and character- istically given by those who adopt Dr. Beman's view of the atonement. Christ disappears in a great measure from his own 160 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. gospel. You may take up volume after volume of their sermons, and you will find excellent discourses upon sin, obligation, moral government, regeneration, divine sovereignty, etc., but the cross is comparatively kept out of view. Christ has no immediate work in the sinner's salvation ; and accordingly the common directions to those who ask what they must do to be saved, are, submit to God, choose him and his service, or something of sim- ilar import. "To such an extreme has this been carried, by some whose logical consistency has overcome the influence of scriptural language and traditionary instruction, that they have not hesi- tated to say that the command. Believe in Christ, is obsolete. It was the proper test of submission in the apostolic age, but in our day, when all men recognise Christ as the Messiah, it is altogether inappropriate. We doubt not that thousands who agree substantially with Dr. Beman, would be shocked at this language ; nevertheless it is the legitimate consequence of his theory. If the atonement is a mere governmental display, a mere symbolical method of instruction, then the command to believe in Christ, to come to him, to trust in him and his right- eousness, is not the language in which sinners should be address- ed. It does not inform them of the specific thing which they must do in order to l)e saved. Christ has opened the door, their business is now immediately with God. Again : Can any reader of the Bible, can any Christian at least, doubt that union with Christ was to the apostles one of the most important and dearest of all the doctrines of the gospel ? a doctrine which lay at the root of all the other doctrines of redemption, the foundation of their hopes, tlie source of their spiritual life ? But according to the theory that Christ's death is a mere symbolical method of instruction, an expression of a great truth, that it merely opens a way for mercy, what can union with Christ mean ? In what sense are we in him ? How are we his members ? How is it that w^e die, that we live, that we are to rise from the dead in virtue of that union ? What is meant by living by faith of which he is the object ? The fact is, this theory changes the whole nature of the gospel ; everything is altered ; the nature of faith, the nature of justification, the mode of access to God, our relation to Christ, the inward exercises of communion with him, so that the Christian feels disposed to say BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 161 with Mary, " They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." We do not believe there is truth enough in this theory to sus- tain the life of religion in any man's heart. We have no idea that Dr. Beman, Dr. Cox, or any good man really lives by it. The truth, as it is practically embraced and appropriated by the soul under the influence of the Holy Spirit, is the truth in the form in which it is presented in the Bible, and not as expressed in abstract propositions. It is therefore very possible for a man to adopt theoretically such an abstract statement of a scriptural doctrine, as really denies its nature and destroys its power, and yet that same man may receive the truth for his own salvation as it is revealed in the Bible. We see daily instances of this in the case of Arminians, who professedly reject doctrines, which are really included in every prayer they utter. In like manner we believe that many who profess to adopt the theory, that the death of Christ merely opens the way for mercy, that it is only ^the symbolical expression of a moral truth, deny that theory in every act of faith they exercise in Jesus Christ. Still the theory is none the less false and dangerous. It has its effect, and just so far as it operates, it tends to destroy all true religion. Its tendency, especially in private Christians, is counteracted by reading the Scriptures and by the teaching of the Spirit. But the evil of the constant inculcation of error and misrepresenta- tion of truth, cannot easily be exaggerated. The particular error concerning the nature of the atonement inculcated in this book, has, we believe, done more to corrupt religion, and to pro- mote Socinianism, than any other of the vaunted improvements of American theology, which, after all, are but feeble reproduc- tions of the rejected errors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The doctrine of atonement for which we contend as the dis- tinguishing and essential doctrine of the gospel, is, 1. That sin for its own sake deserves the wrath and curse of God. 2. That God is just, immutably determined, from the excellence of his nature, to punish sin. 3. That out of his sovereign and infinite love, in order to redeem us from the law, that is, from its demands and curse, he sent his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, who in his own person fulfilled these demands, and endured that curse in our stead. That his righteousness, or merit, thus 11 162 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. wrought out, is imputed to every one that believes, to his justifi- cation before God. This is the doctrine of the church catholic, overlaid, corrupted, and made of none eifect, in the church of Kome ; disembarrassed, reproduced, and exhibited as the doctrine of the Reformation ; in manifold forms since opposed or rejected, but ever virtually embraced and trusted in by every sincere child of God. What then are the objections to this great doctrine ? The first objection urged by Dr. Beman is, that it involves " a trans- fer of moral character between Christ and those for whom he died. Christ could not be punished on legal principles, until he was guilty in the eye of the law ; and his people could not be justified on legal principles, till its penalty was literally inflicted. This transfer of character, so as to render Jesus Christ the sinner, and the soul for whom he died, innocent, appears to us without foundation in reason and Scripture." The objection then is, that the doctrine that Christ endured the punishment of our sins, and that we are justified by the imputation of his righteousness, in-» volves such a transfer of moral character as to render Jesus Christ a sinner, and those for whom he died innocent. This objection is directed, not against this or that individual writer, but against whole bodies and classes of men, for Dr. Beman over and over asserts that there are but two views of the atonement, the one against which he brings this and other objections, and his own governmental theory. We have already show^n that the former is the common doctrine of all the churches of the Reformation. It is against them, therefore, this objection is brought. Our first remark on it is, that it is the old, often repeated, and often re- futed slander of Socinians and Papists, the latter corrupting and denying the doctrine of their own church. Our second remark is, that this is a gross, shocking, and, we are constrained in con- science to add, wicked representation. Dr. Beman betrays his want of faith in the truth of the accusation, though he makes it against hundreds and thousands of his brethren, by saying that a doctrine which represents Jesus Christ as a sinner, " appears to us without foundation in reason and Scripture !" Shocking blasphemy appears to us without foundation! What man who believed what he said could utter such language ? Is this the way in which a doctrine which represents the Son of God a sinner, is to be spoken of .^ No, Dr. Beman knew full well, that the doc- BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 163 trine lie writes against, includes no such blasphemy. He cannot be so grossly ignorant as not to know that the distinction be- tween the imputation and the infusion of sin and righteousness, is one for which the churches of the Keformation contended as for their life ; and that the distinction is plain, intelligible, scriptural, and unavoidable — one which he and all other men do make, and must make. "When the prophet says, " the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father," does Dr. Beman pre- tend to believe that he means that the moral character of the father shall iiot be transferred to the son ? that the sin of the one shall not be infused into the other ? Why then does he pretend to believe (for we hope it is mere pretence), that when we say, our sins were laid on Christ, we teach that our moral character was so transferred to him as to render him a sinner ? Our third remark is, that the objection is glaringly unjust. We say, in the very language of Scripture, that Christ bore our sins. We tell in what sense we understand that language, viz., that it means, not that Christ was rendered in a moral character a sinner, which is blasphemy, but that he bore the punishment of our sins, which is the universally admitted meaning of the Scrip- tural phrase. We say further, that by punishment we mean sufferings judicially inflicted as a satisfaction to justice. These things are so plain, they have been so often repeated, they so evidently do not involve the shocking doctrine charged on those who use this language, that we can have little respect for the man who can gravely and tamely repeat the charge, to the pre- judice of the truth, and to the wounding of his brethren. Dr. Beman's second objection is, that the system he opposes destroys " all mercy in God the Father, in the salvation of sinners, because it represents God as totajly disinclined to the exercise of compassion, till every jot and tittle of the legal curse was inflicted. On the same principle, grace or pardon in the re- lease of the sinner from future punishment would be out of the question ; for what grace, or pardon, or favor, can there be in the discharge of a debtor whose demand (debt ?) has been can- celled to the uttermost farthing ?" — P. 122. This objection is the staple of his book. On page 100 he represents us as teaching that " the Son of God endured the exact amount of suffering due, on legal principles, to sinners." On page 107, he says, " The amount of Christ's sufferings must consequently be the same as 164 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. the aggregate sufferings included in the eternal condemnation of all those who are saved by his merit. * * * The agonies which he suffered were equal to the endless misery of all those who will he saved by his interposition in their behalf." On page 146, he says, " If one soul were to be saved by the atonement, Christ must sustain an amount of suffering equal to that involved in the eternal condemnation of that one soul ; and if a thousaiid were to be saved a thousand times that amount, and in the same proportion for any greater number who are to be rescued from perdition and exalted to glory. To this scheme there are in- surmountable objections." True enough, but who hold that scheme ? Dr. Beman attributes it to all who believe in the atonement, and do not adopt his scheme, for he says there are but two. This doctrine, that the sufferings of Christ amounted to the aggregate sufferings of those who are to be saved, that he endured just so much for so many, is not found in any confession of the Protestant churches, nor in the writings of any standard theologian, nor in the recognized authorities of any church of which we have any knowledge. The whole objection is a gross and inexcusable misrepresentation/ In a more moderate form it was brought forward by the Socinians, and repelled by the writers of that and subsequent ages. De Moor is generally rec- ognized as the theologian of most authority among the churches of Holland, and Turrettin is admitted to be one of the strictest of the Geneva school, and they both answer this calumny, by denying that, according to their doctrine, there is any necessity for the assumption that Christ's sufferings were equal to the sufferings of all his people. Thus Turrettin, after quoting at length the objection from Socinus, answers it, 1. By showing that the Scriptures teach ^that the one death of Christ was a satisfac- tion for all ; that as by the one sin of Adam many were made sinners, so by the righteousness of Christ many are made right- eous. 2. By insisting on the distinction between pecuniary and penal satisfaction. A piece of money in the hand of a king is of no more value than in the hands of a peasant, but the life of a king is of more value than that of a peasant, and one com- ^ There was a little anonymous work called Gdhsemane^ republished some years ago in this country, which taught this quid pro qtio system of the atonement. But we do not know a single man, now of our church, who adopted the sentiments of that work. BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 165 mander is often exchanged for many soldiers. 3. He says the adversaries forget that Christ is God, and therefore though his sufferings could not be infinite, as they were endured by his finite nature, they were of infinite value in virtue of the infinite dignity of his person. Sin, he says, is an infinite evil, because committed against an infinite God, through the act of a finite nature. So the sufferings of Christ, though endured in his human nature, are of infinite value from the dignity of his person.^ Dr. Beman, under tliis head, frequently objects that we degrade the atonement into a mere commercial transaction, a payment of a debt, which, from the nature of the case, excludes the idea of free remission. Our first remark on this objection is, that the Scriptures use this same figure, and therefore it is right it should be used. When it is said, Christ purchased the church with his own blood, that we are redeemed not with coiTuptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, such language means something. In every metaphor there is a point of comparison ; the essential idea involved in the figure must be found in the subject to be illustrated. To purchase is to acquire, and to acquire by giving or doing something which secures a title to the thing acquired. When it is said that Christ purchased the church, it is certainly meant that he acquired it, that it is his, and that by his death he has secured a title to it, founded in the justice and promise of God. This does not make redemp- tion a commercial transaction, nor imply that there are not es- sential points of diversity between acquiring by money and acquiring by blood. Hence our second remark is, that if Dr. Beman will take up any elementary work on theology, he will find the distinction between pecuniary and penal satisfaction clearly pointed out, and the satisfaction of Christ shown to be of the latter, and not of the former kind. 1. In the one, the de- mand is upon the thing due, in the other case, it is upon the person of the criminal. Hence, 2. The creditor is bound to ac- cept the payment of the debt, no matter when or by whom offered ; whereas, in the case of a crime or sin, the sovereign is bound neither to provide a substitute nor to accept of one when offered. If he does either, it is a matter of grace. 3. Hence penal satisfaction does not ipso facto liberate ; the acceptance is * See the fourth vol. of his works, the treatise De SatisfacUone Ghristi, p. 289. The same answer to the same objection may be seen in De Moor, vol. iiL, p. 1030. I®S BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. a matter of arrangement or covenant, and the terms of that covenant must depend on the will of the parties. Dr. Beman lapsed into an important truth, when he said, " Christ suffered by covenant."— P. 98. What that covenant is, we learn from Scripture, and from the manner in which it is executed. The Bible teaches that, agreeably to that covenant, the merits of Christ do not avail to the benefit of his people immediately ; his children remain under condemnation as well as others until they believe ; and when they do believe they receive but the first fruits of their inheritance, they are but imperfectly sanctified, and are still subject to many evils, but being in a justified state their suflerings are chastisements and not punishments, that is, they are designed for their own improvement, and not to satisfy justice. The satisfaction of Christ, therefore, being for sin and by suf- fering, is expressly and formally declared not to be of the nature of pecuniary satisfaction. The grace of the gospel is thereby not obscured but rendered the more conspicuous. God is not ren- dered merciful by the atonement (as we be slanderously reported, as some afiirm that we say), on the contrary, the atonement flows from his infinite love. Dr. Beman writes as a Tritheist, or as against Tritheists, when he speaks of the work of the Son rendering the Father gracious, and attributes that representation to us. The Lord our Grod is one God. It was his infinite love devised the plan of redemption, and it was so devised, that the exercise of love should be perfectly consistent with holiness, in order that God might be just in justifying sinners. Surely then our doctrine does not obscure the grace of the gospel, at least as to the origin of the plan of mercy. But it is farther ob- jected that if Christ rendered a complete satisfaction to divine justice, then pardon becomes a matter of justice and not of grace. Justice to whom ? certainly not to the ungodly, the un- righteous, the utterly undeserving, and hell-deserving sinner. If Christ suffered by covenant, and fulfilled all the conditions of that covenant, then he acquired a right to its promises. If he purchased his church he has a right to it. If it was promised that for his obedience to death, he should see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied, then he, having done all that was required of him, has a right to the promised reward. But what right have we ? None in the world ; we are poor, and blind, and BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 167 miserable, having nothing, meriting nothing, our only hope is that we shall be treated, not according to our deserts, but ac- cording to the merits of another. The objection sounds strange to our ears, coming from such a quarter, that we destroy the grace of the gospel. What is sal- vation by grace, if it is not tliat God of his mere good pleasure provided redemption ; that he determines of his own will who shall be partakers of its benefits ; that those who are brought to repentance and faith, are not only justified avowedly on the ground of a righteousness which is not their own, but are made to feel and acknowledge as the very condition of their acceptance, their own ill-desert and misery ; and that they not only owe everything to Christ, but possess everything simply in virtue of their union with him, which union is kept up only by a self- renouncing, self-emptying faith .^ The feeblest infant resting on its mother's bosom, a new born lamb carried in the shepherd's arms, might with as much plausibility be suspected of doubting the love that sustains them, as the believer in Christ's having purchased the church with his own blood, of doubting the entire gratuitousness of his own salvation. It would be easy to retort, and show that it is Dr. Beman's doctrine that destroys the grace of salvation. If Christ only makes pardon possible, if the possibility of forgiveness is all we owe to him, to whom or what do we owe heaven ? Is it to our- selves, as some of the advocates of this doctrine teach ? This is the natural answer. Christ having made pardon possible, then God deals with men according to their works. Whatever answer Dr. Beman himself would give to the above question, it must, from the nature of his system, be tame compared with the an- swer which flows from the doctrine that we owe the blessed Re- deemer, not the possibility of pardon merely, but justification, adoption, sanctification, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. These things and all the blessedness they include or suppose, are not merely rendered possible, but actually se- cured and given for Christ's sake alone ; and hence the spirits of the just made perfect, whose robes have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, would drown in their thanksgiving to him that has cleansed them from all sin, the whispered acknowledgments of those who have nothing for which to give thanks but the possibility of pardon. 168 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. These objections which Dr. Bern an urges in vaKous forms throughout his book are all old, and have been answered a hun- dred times. There is indeed one objection which is certainly American. It seems there was no economy in the atonement. It saved nothing, and gained nothing. The atonement, it is said, is ^' the grand device of heaven for preventing misery and promoting happiness." — P. 108. And it is triumphantly urged (through some eight pages), that if Christ suffered as much as the redeemed would have endured there is no gain of happiness. It is "a mere quid pro quo transaction." — P. 111. We have already shown that no church, or class of men, hold that the blessed Kedeemer endured as much suffering as the redeemed would have endured. It is a mere misrepresentation. But dis- missing that point, the objectionitself is unworthy of a being gifted with a moral sense. Would it be nothing that unnumbered millions are saved from sin and made perfect in holiness ? Sup- posing there was no absolute gain as to the amount of misery prevented, that Christ had in a few years suffered all that finite beings through eternity could endure, still would the vast acces- sion to the holy inhabitants of heaven be nothing ? Does not the Bible say that he gave himself for his church, to purify and cleanse it ? that the promotion of the holiness was the design of his death ? Has it come to this, that the theory which makes happiness the end of the creation, must represent holiness as nothing, not worth giving thanks for, if gained at the least ex- pense of happiness ? This gross, epicurean view of the sublime and awful mystery of redemption, is a disgrace to the age and country that gave it birth. We have thus endeavored to show that the theory of atone- ment advocated by Dr. Beman is founded on the false assump- tion that the punishment of sin is for the prevention of crime, and not on account of its own intrinsic ill-desert ; that it of ne- cessity involves a denial of the justice of God, and makes mere happiness the end of creation ; that it is destitute of any sem- blance or pretence of support from the Scriptures ; that it is just as arbitrary, and as much a philosophical speculation, as the Socinian theory ; the latter asserting that the design of Christ's death was to display the love of God, and thus lead men to re- pentance, and the former, that it was intended to express his regard for his law, and thus act as a motive to obedience. We BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 169 fhrther endeavored to prove that tlie theory is in direct conflict with the Bible. The Scriptures teach, in every possible way,- that as man was under a law or covenant which requires perfect obedience, and threatens death in case of transgression, the Son of God was born of a woman and made under that law, fulfilling its conditions of perfect obedience and sustaining its curse for man's redemption ; and that his righteousness is freely imputed to all those who receive and rest upon it by faith. In denying this doctrine, which is the common faith of Christendom, Dr. Beman's theory involves the denial of justification, reducing it to mere pardon ; destroys the true doctrine of justifying faith ; overlooks the union between Christ and his people ; tends to banish Christ from view, and to vitiate the very source of all evangelical religion. We showed that his objections to this doctrine, with one melancholy exception, were the oft repeated and oft refuted calumnies of Socinians ; that the common doctrine does not in- volve the transfer of moral character or represent Christ as a sinner ; that so far from obscuring the grace of the gospel, or teaching that the atonement is the cause of the love of Grod, it represents it as flowing from that love, and presents, in the clearest possible light, the gratuitous nature of salvation. It is of grace that a Saviour was provided ; of grace that the benefits of his death are conferred on one rather than another. And though we rejoice to know that he has acquired a right to his church, having bought it with his own blood, yet his people know, feel, and acknowledge that to them everything is of grace — their vocation, justification, and final salvation. This is Christianity, a religion of which Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the author and the finisher, not the mere cause of the possibility of pardon. Our discussion of the all-important question respecting the nature of the atonement has run out to so ffreat a lensrth that we cannot claim much room for the consideration of its extent. Dr. Beman writes on this whole subject, very much as a man might be expected to write against Calvinism, who got his views of that system from the furious harangues of itinerant Methodist preachers. He quotes no authorities, establishes no assertions, but coolly goes on attributing just what opinions come into his head to those against whom he writes. Had he taken up any 170 BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. one author, or class of authors, cited from their writings their own exhibitions of doctrine, and proceeded to examine them, his readers would know what credit to give to his statements. He however has preferred to state in general terms that there are but two views of the atonement, his own and another. That other he then most grievously misrepresents. He attributes to all who reject his doctrine opinions which not one in a million of them ever entertained. As far as relates to the nature of the atone- ment, these misrepresentations have already been pointed out. He commences and continues his discussion concerning its extent on the same plan. He assumes that the question relates to the limitation in the very nature of the work of Christ. " If," he says, " the atonement is to be considered as a literal payment of a debt, or, in other words, if it consisted in suffering the exact penalty of the law in the room of those who will be saved, it is manifest that it must be limited in its extent. In this case it would be a provision which must be regulated according to the principles of commutative justice. If one soul were to be saved, " then Christ must suffer so much, if a thousand, then a thousand times as much/' &c.-— P. 145. The opposite doctrine, which he adopts, necessarily leads to the conclusion " that an atonement sufficient for one, is sufficient for all ;" of course those who reject his view, are made to hold an in- sufficient atonement. — P. 147. So Dr. Cox, in his introductory chapter, speaks of " the limitation of the nature" of the atone- ment, and represents those whom he opposes as holding that it is as " limited in its nature as in its application." — Pp. 16, 17. If these gentlemen would take the trouble to read a little on this subject they would find that this is all a mistake. They are merely beating the air. Those who deny that Christ died for Judas as much as for Paul, for the non-elect as much as for the elect, and who maintain that he died strictly and j)roperly only for his own people, do not hold that there is any limitation in the nature of the atonement. They teach as fully as any men, that "an atonement sufficient for one is sufficient for all." It is a simple question relating to the design, and not to the nature of Christ's work. That work, as far as we know or believe, would have been .the same had God purposed to save but one soul or the souls of all mankind. We hold that the atonement as to its value is infinite, and as to its nature as much adapted BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 17J to one man as to another, to all as to one. The whole question is, for what purpose did he die ? What was the design which God intended to accomplish by his mission and death ? That this is the true state of the question is obvious from the fact that the Keformed and Lutherans do not differ at all as to the nature of Christ's satisfaction, though they do differ as to its design. Lutherans, as they deny the doctrine of election, deny that the satisfaction of Christ had special reference to the elect, though they are even more strict than the Reformed in their views of the vicarious nature of the atonement, i. e., of the imputation of our sins to Christ, and of his obedience to us. Accordingly, in all the early defences of Calvinists, their arguments on the ne- cessity and on the truth or nature of the atonement are directed against Socinians, and not against either Eomanists or Lutherans. But when the question is discussed, "For whom did Christ die ?" they address their arguments against the latter. Turrettin, for example, in the statement of this question, says, " It is not a question concerning the value and sufficiency of Christ's death, whether it is not in itself sufficient for the salvation of all men. That is on both sides admitted. His death being of in- finite value, would have been most amply sufficient for the re- demption of all men, if God had seen fit to extend it to all. Hence the common distinction made by the fathers, and retained by many theologians, Christ died siifficiently for all, 'efficaciously for the elect, is perfectly true if understood of the worth of Christ's death, but not so accurate if understood of his purpose and design in dying. The question, therefore, properly relates to the purpose of the Father in giving his Son, and the intention of the Son in laying down his life. Did the Father destine his Son for all and every man, and did the Son deliver himself to death with the intention of substituting himself in the place of all and every one, in order to make satisfaction and procure sal- vation for them ? Or did Christ give himself for the elect alone, who were given to him by the Father, and whose head he was to be ? The heart of the question, therefore, comes to this, not what is the nature or efficacy of the death of Christ, but what was the design of the Father in giving him up, and the intention of Christ in dying." ^ The simple statement of our doctrine, therefore, answers two 1 Turrettin, vol. ii., p. 498. 172 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. tliirds of Dr. Beman's objections against it. This is not a state- ment got up for the occasion, but made a century and a half before he was born. There is one view in which the question concerning the extent of the atonement is indeed intimately con- nected with its nature. If any man holds the doctrine that the atonement was nothing more than a symbolical expression of a truth, and " merely opened the door of mercy," there is of course an end to all question as to its design. If that be its nature, it can have no more reference to the saved than to the lost. And it is probably in order to get rid of all difficulty as to the extent of the atonement, that many have been led to adopt the above,- mentioned most unscriptural and dangerous view of its nature. But if the true doctrine concerning the nature of the satisfaction is retained, as it was by the Lutherans, and even in a great measure by the early Remonstrants, at least by Grotius, the question as to its extent resolves itself into a question concern- ing the purposes of Grod. It might seem as if this were an en- tirely useless question. The purposes of Grod are not the rule of our duty, and whatever God may design to do, we are to act in accordance with his preceptive will. Still there is a right and a wrong in every question, and what is wrong in relation to one point, must tend to produce erroneous views with regard to others. Dr. Cox intimates, with some truth, that the difference of opinion on this point has its origin in, or at least implies a dif- ference of view as to the order of the divine purposes. — Page 18. As in fact, however, there is no order of succession in the pur- poses of God, but simply in our mode of conceiving them, all his decrees being comprehended in one eternal purpose, any question about the order of those decrees must be a question relating to our own thoughts. Those thoughts, however, may be confused, contradictory, or lead to conclusions in conflict with revealed facts. Even this question, therefore, is not without its import- ance. If the purposes of God are all one, any mode of conceiv- ing them which prevents their being reduced to unity ; which supposes either a change or uncertainty in the divine plan, must be erroneous. As it is involved in our idea of God as the intelli- gent ruler of the universe, that he had a design in the creation and redemption of man, all classes of theologians form some theory (if that word may be used) of the plan adopted for the BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 173 accomplishment of that design. According to one system God purposed to create man, to permit the fall, to provide salvation for all, to give all sufficient grace, to elect to life those who im- prove this grace. This is the scheme of the Kemonstrants, and of those generally who reject the doctrines of election and effica- cious grace. According to another system, God purposed to create man, to permit the fall, to provide for the salvation of all ; hut, foreseeing that none would accept of that salvation, he choice some to everlasting life, and determined, by his effectual grace, to give them faith and repentance. This is the scheme proposed by Amyi-aud, Testard, Camero, and other French theologians of the seventeenth century. According to others, God purposed to create man, to permit the fall, to choose from the mass of fallen men an innumerable multitude as vessels of mercy, to send his Son for their redemption, and with him to give them everything necessary for their salvation. This was the common doctrine of all the reformed churches, from which the two former systems were departures. The common New School system adopted in this countr}^, lies between the Arminian and the French scheme, containing more truth than the former, and less than the latter. The question, which of these views of the whole plan of God's dealings with men is the most correct, must be determined, 1. By ascertaining which is most consistent with itself ; which best admits of being reduced to one simple purpose. It would not be difficult to show that the two former include contradictions, and involve the ascription of conflicting purposes to God. 2. By as- certaining which is most in harmony with the admitted charac- ter of God, as infinite, independent, and self-sufficient, of whom, and through whom^ and to whom are all things. 3. By ascer- taining which is most consistent with revealed facts. The first, or Arminian scheme, breaks down entirely by coming in conflict with the clearly revealed truth of God's sovereignty in election, and of conversion by his mighty power, and not by an influence common to all men. Our present business, however, is with the two latter schemes, so far as they relate to the design of Christ's death. Was the Son of God sent into the world, as Dr. Beman says, merely to make the salvation of all men possible, or ac- tually to save all whom God had given him ? Before attempting to answer this question, it is proper to re- mark, that Dr. Beman and those who adopt his theory, seem 174 BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. constantly disposed to forget that salvation is by grace. If it is of grace, then it is a matter of grace that God provided salva- tion at all for guilty men. If this is not so, the gift of Christ, the influences of the Holy Spirit, and every other gift requisite for our salvation, are mere matters of justice, which it would have been unrighteous to withhold. No man can believe that, however, without contradicting every page of the Bible, and the testimony of every true Christian. 2. But if Grod was not bound to save any, he is at liberty to save whom he pleases. If he need not provide salvation for any, there could be no injustice in pro- viding it for some and not for others. If salvation is of grace, it is of grace that one and not another is saved. And to complain that the mission of Christ was not designed to save all, or even that it did not open the door of mercy for all, if such were ac- tually the case, would be to complain of the gratuitous nature of salvation. And, 3. If salvation is by grace, then those who are saved, are freely called, justified, and glorified. The ground of their acceptance is not to be found in them, but in the good pleasure of God. This is the plain doctrine of the Bible, to which we must submit ; and it is so clearly revealed, and so essential to the very nature of the Gospel, that those who are not willing to be saved by grace, cannot be saved at all. There is, therefore, no preliminary presumj)tion against the doctrine, that the death of Christ had not an equal reference to all men, but had a special relation to his own people. The pre- sumption is all the other way. As the whole plan of salvation is, according to the apostle, arranged with a view " to show the ex- ceeding riches of the grace of God, by his kindness towards us,'*' that view of the economy of redemption, which renders the grace of God the most conspicuous, is the most in harmony with its grand design. "What God's actual purpose was in the mission of his Son we can only learn from his own declarations. He reveals his designs to us partly by their execution, and partly by the an- nunciation of them in his word. What God does, is the clearest revelation of what he intended to do. Hence, if the satisfaction of Christ actually saves all men, it was certainly designed to save all men ; but if it saves only a part of the human race, it was certainly designed only for a part. It cannot be questioned that Christ came to save men from their sins, and if we ask, Who he intended to save ? we can get no better answer than by learning BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 175 whom he does in fact save. If the end of Christ's mission was salvation, it is not conceivable that he died equally for all, unless he purposed to save all. Dr. Beman, however, denies that the design of his mission was salvation, it was merely to make salva- tion possible. In assuming this ground, he is guilty of the same one-sided- ness, the same contracted view, which he exhibits in his doctrine concerning the nature of the atonement. It is conceded that the work of Christ does lay the foundation for the oifer of salva- tion to all men. Dr. Beman hence concludes that this was its only end ; that it merely opens the way for the general offer of pardon. His theory is designed to account for one fact, and leaves all the other revealed facts out of view, and unexplained. The Bible teaches, however, a great deal more in relation to this subject, than that one fact. It teaches, 1. That Christ came in execution of a purpose ; that he suffered, as Dr. Beman ex- presses it, by covenant, and ratified that covenant with his own blood. 2. That his mission was the result and expression of the highest conceivable love. 3. That it not merely removes ob- stacles out of the way, but actually secures the salvation of his people. 4. That it lays the foundation for a free, full, and un- restrained offer of salvation to all men. 5. That it renders just the condemnation of those who reject him as their Saviour ; that rejection being righteously the sj)ecial ground of their con- demnation. Dr. Beman's theory accords only with the last two facts just mentioned. It will account for the general offer of the gospel, and for the condemnation of those who reject it, but it is incon- sistent with all the other facts above stated, which are not less clearly revealed, and not less important. It overlooks, in the first place, the fact that Christ came into the world and accom- plished the work of redemption, in execution of the covenant of grace. The use of such words as covenant, is often convenient, and sometimes unavoidable, as a concise method of expressing several related truths. Wherever there is a promise by one per- son to another, suspended upon the performance of a condition, there is a covenant. As, therefore, the Scriptures expressly speak of a promise made to the Son, suspended upon the con- dition of his incarnation, obedience, and death, they teach that there was a covenant of grace. The promise made to the Re- 176^ BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. deemer was, that lie should see the travail of his soul ; that he should have the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession ; that those whom the Father had given him should come unto him ; that they should all be taught of God, receive the Spirit, and be raised up the last day ; that he should be the first-born among many brethren, and bo highly exalted as the head of his people, and far above all prin- cipalities and powers. It is further expressly taught that he secured all these inestimable blessings by his obedience unto death. Because he thus humbled himself, God has highly ex- alted him ; on account of the suffering of death, he was crowned with glory and honor ; because he made his soul an offering for sin, therefore God hath divided to him his portion. If these things are so, if Christ had the attainment of these blessings, which involve the salvation of his people, in view in coming into the world ; if the accomplishment of this work was the object of his mission, then it is a contradiction in terms, to say that, as far as the purpose of God and his own intention are concerned, he had not a special reference to his own people and to their sal- vation in his death. Their salvation was the reward promised, when it was said, " he shall see his seed," and it was for that recompense he died. Dr. Beman's theory denies all this. It assumes that his death, his whole work, had no reference to one class of men more than to another, to the saved more than to the lost. It simply made the pardon of all men possible. This is of course a denial of what Dr. Beman himself, in an unguarded hour, admitted, viz., that Christ suffered by covenant. What covenant ? The Scriptures make mention of no other covenant in connection with the Eedeemer^s death than that which in- cluded the promise of his people to him as a reward, and which was ratified in his blood. Here then is one plain, important, revealed fact, which Dr. Beman's theory overlooks and contra- dicts. If Christ in his death had regard to the recompense of reward, and if that reward included the holiness and salvation of his people, then beyond contradiction, his satisfaction had a special reference to them. In the second place his theory contradicts the plainly revealed fact, that the mission and death of Christ are the expressions of the highest conceivable love. According to Dr. Beman, they are the expression of mere general benevolence. It is admitted that BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 177 love was the motive which led to the gift of the Son of God. If that love was general benevolence to all men, then he died for all ; if it was special love to his own people, then he died for them. That there is such special love in God, is involved in the doctrine of election. According to that doctrine, God, of his mere good pleasure, before the foundation of the world, chose some to everlasting life, and, for infinitely wise and holy reasons, left others to perish in their sins. To say that the infinite love which led to the mission of Christ was a benevolence which had equal regard to these two classes, is to deny the doctrine of election. That doctrine, in its very nature, supposes a difference in the regard had for the vessels of mercy and the vessels of wrath ; for those in whom God purposed to display the riches of his grace, and those on whom he designed to show his wrath, and make his power known. In teaching this doctrine, therefore, the Scriptures teach, that besides the benevolence with which God regards all men, there is a higlier, special, mysterious, un- speakable love, which he has to his own children ; and to this love they refer the incarnation and death of the Son of God. The Scriptures are too explicit and too full on this latter point to allow of its being questioned. Greater love, said Christ him- self, hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Paul prays that the Ephesians may be strengthened by the Holy Spirit, to be able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us. In this we perceive the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only be- gotten Son into the world that we might live through him. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things ? In these and in various similar passages, it is distinctly asserted that the love which led to the gift of Christ was not general benev- olence, consistent with the eternal reprobation of its objects, but the highest conceivable love, that would spare nothing to secure the salvation of those on whom it rested. Again, it is with equal explicitness and frequency asserted, love to his people was the motive of the Son of God in laying down his life. '^ For their sakes," said the Redeemer, " I sanctify myself" " I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth 12 178 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. his life for his sheep/' " I lay down my life for my sheep." " Christ loved the churchy and gave himself for it." Do not these passages assert that love for his church, his friends, his sheep, was the motive of Christ in dying ? When the Scriptures divide men into classes, the sheep and the goats, the church and those who are not the church, and say that love to his sheep, love to his church, led the Saviour to lay down his life, they expressly assert that it was a peculiar love for them, and not a general henevolence including them and all others aUke, that was the motive of Christ in laying down his life. Let it be remembered that this whole question relates, not to the incidental effects of Christ's death, but to his intention in dying. The passages above quoted, and the Scriptures generally, do then teach that, besides his general benevolence for man, Grod has a special love for his own people, and that that special love, for his own, for his friends, for his sheep, led the Saviour to give himself up to death. If this is so, it overturns Dr. Beman's theory, which is in direct conflict with this plain and precious truth. It is not that benev- olence which consists with eternal reprobation, i. e., with the eternal purpose to leave men to suffer the just recompense of their sins, that led the Father to give up the Son, and the Son to assume our nature and die upon the cross. Those who admit this, admit all the limitation of the atonement for which we con- tend ; a limitation not as to its nature or value, but as to the purpose of God and intention of Christ. Besides, does it not in- volve a contradictian, to say that love to those whom God pur- posed, for wise reasons, not to save, was his motive in providing salvation ? Oar Saviour teaches that the knowledge of the gospel aggravates the guilt, and consequently the misery, of those who reject it ; then certainly, love to them was not the motive which led either to the adoption or the proclamation of the scheme of redemption. The fact is, this doctrine that Christ died as much for Judas as for Paul, is inconsistent with the doc- trine of election ; and the two have never for any length of time been held together. Those theologians in the church of Kome, who remained faithful to the doctrine of election, also held that the death of Christ had special reference to his own people. The Lutherans, when they rejected the one doctrine, rejected also the other. So did the Arminians. A few French divines endeavored, by reversing the natural order of the decrees, for a time to unite BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 179 the two ; but the attempt failed. Both doctrines were soon re- jected. The sovereignty of God, election, special love as the motive of redemption, and consequently a special reference to the elect, in the death of Christ, are joined together in the Scriptures, and they cannot long be separated in the faith of God's people. Another revealed fact which Dr. Beman's theory overlooks and contradicts, is, that Christ's death not only removes obstacles out of the way of the exercise of mercy, but actually secures the sal- vation of his people. It has been repeatedly shown that Dr. Beman constantly asserts that the only effect of the atonement is to bring the sinner within the reach of mercy, it merely makes pardon possible. This is the only effect claimed for it, and all that can be attributed to it on his theory. This, however, is in direct conflict with the Scriptures, because they teach that the death of Christ renders the salvation of his own people certain. This follows from what has already been said. If Christ suffered by covenant ; if that covenant promised to him his people as his reward and inheritance, on condition of his obedience and death, then assuredly, when he performed that condition, the salvation of all whom the Father had given to him was rendered absolutely certain. Hence, it is said, that he purchased his church, that is, acquired a right to it. He gave himself for his church, that he might purify and cleanse it. He came into the world to save his people from their sins. He gave himself for our sins, that he might redeem us from this present evil world ; or as elsewhere said, to purify a peculiar people unto liimself These and similar declarations teach that the design of Christ's death was actually to save his people. They are, therefore, so many direct contra- dictions of the doctrine, that he merely opened the door of mercy. To make salvation possible, is not to save ; to make holiness possible, is not to purify ; to open the door, is not to bring us near to God. The Scriptures also ascribe effects to the death of Christ, ir- reconcilable with the idea that it is a mere governmental display. We are justified by his blood, we thereby obtain remission of sins, we have peace with God, we are delivered from the wrath to come, and obtain eternal redemption. It is contrary to all scriptural usage to bring down all these and similar declarations to mean nothing more than that these blessings are rendered at- 180 BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. tainable by the work of Christ. This is not what the words mean. To say that we are justified, or reconciled, or cleansed, is not to say that the obstacles in the way of obtaining the bless- ings mentioned are merely removed. It is to say that his blood secures those blessings ; and secures them in the time and way that God has appointed. No instance can be produced in which a sacrifice, offered and accepted, is said to propitiate God and be the ground of pardon, when nothing more is meant than that the sacrifice renders pardon possible. The meaning uniformly is, that it secures and renders it certain. The very acceptance of it is the established way of promising forgiveness to those in whose behalf the sacrifice was oftered. Dr. Beman's theory, there- fore, in attributing so little to the death of Christ, contradicts the established meaning of Scriptural phrases ; and is inconsist- ent with the clearly revealed fact that his death makes salvation not only possible, but certain. It is further revealed that there is an intimate connection be- tween the death of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was promised to Christ, to be given to his people. The apostle Peter says, He having received the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath shed forth this, which ye both see and hear. Acts ii. 33. In Tit. iii. 5, 6, God is said to shed on us abundantly the Holy Ghost, through Jesus Christ our Lord. All spiritual blessings are said to be given to us in Christ Jesus, Eph. i. 3 ; that is, on account of our union with him, a union eternal in the pur- pose of God, and actual when we believe. This union existing in the divine purpose, this covenant union is represented as the ground of the gift of regeneration. In Eph. ii. 5, 6, we are said •to be quickened with Christ, to be raised up in him. This can only mean that there is a union between Christ and his people, which secures to them that influence by which they are raised from spiritual death. If so, then in the covenant to ratify which Christ died, it was promised that the Holy Spirit should be given to his people, and to secure that promise was one design of his death. And consequently, all for whom he died must receive that Spirit, whose influences were secured by his death. He is, therefore, said to have redeemed us from the curse of the law, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit, Gal. iii. 13, 14. It obviously contradicts this important truth, to teach that Christ's death had as much reference to one man as another, or BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. 181 that it merely renders mercy possible. If Christ suffered by cov- enant, and if that covenant included the promise of the Holy Spirit, to teach, renew, and sanctify his people, then it cannot be denied that those thus taught, renewed, and sanctified, are those for whom he died. Dr. Beman's theory, therefore, which denies that the death of Christ had a special reference to his own people, is incon- sistent with the plainly revealed facts : 1. That he died in ex- ecution of a covenant in which his people were promised to him as his reward, to secure which reward is declared to be his spe- cific and immediate design in laying down his life. 2. That the motive which led to the gift of the Son, and of the Son in dying, was not general benevolence, but the highest conceiv- able love, love for his sheep and for his friends. 3. That the design of his death was not simply to remove obstacles out of the way of mercy, but actually to secure the salvation of those given to him by the Father ;• and that it does in fact secure for them the gift of the Holy Ghost, and consequently justification and eternal life. In other words, God, having out of his mere good pleasure elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Re- deemer. The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, was made under the law, satisfied by his obedience and death all its de- mands, and thus fulfilled the conditions of that covenant on which the salvation of his people was suspended, and thereby acquired a right to them as his stipulated reward. Such was the specific design and certain efiect of his death. This is the plain doctrine of our standards, and, as we fully believe, of the word of God. It will, however, doubtless be asked, admitting that our doc- trine of the atonement does accord with the facts above-men- tioned, can it be reconciled with the no less certain facts that the gospel is to be freely offered to all men, and that those who re- ject it are justly condemned for their unbelief .^ If it cannot, it must be defective. On this score, however, we feel no difficulty. Our doctrine, is, that the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to secure the salvation of his people, and with a specific view to that end, fulfilled the. conditions of the law or covenant under which they and all mankind were placed. Those conditions were, perfect 182 BE MAN ON THE ATONEMENT. obedience and satisfaction to divine justice, by bearing the pen- alty threatened against sin. Christ's righteousness, therefore, con- sists in his obedience and death. That righteousness is precisely what the law demands of every sinner, in order to his justifica- tion before God It is, therefore, in its nature adapted to all sinners who are under that law. Its nature is not altered by the fact that it was wrought out for a portion only of such sinners, or ■that it is secured to them by the covenant between the Father and the Son. What is necessary for the salvation of one man is necessary for the salvation of another, and of all. The righteous- ness of Christ, therefore, consisting in the obedience and death demanded by the law under which all men are placed, is adapted to all men. It is also of infinite value, being the righteousness of the eternal Son of God, and therefore sufiicient for all. On these two grounds, its adaptation to all and its sufficiency for all, rests the offer made in the gospel to all. With this its design we have nothing to do ; who are to be saved by it we do not know. It is of such a nature and value, that whosoever accepts of it shall be saved. If one of the non-elect should believe (though the hypothesis is on various accounts unreasonable), to him that righteousness would be imputed to his salvation. And if one of the elect should not believe, or having believed should apostatize, he would certainly perish. These suppositions are made simply to show that, according to our doctrine, the reason why any man perishes is not that there is no righteousness provided suitable and adeq^uate to his case, or that it is not freely offered to all that hear the gospel, but simply because he wilfully rejects the prof- fered salvation. Our doctrine, therefore, provides for the univer- sal offer of the gospel, and for the righteous condemnation of unbelievers, as thoroughly as Dr. Beman's. It opens the door for mercy, as far as legal obstructions are concerned, as fully as his : while it meets all the other revealed facts of the case. It is not a theory for one fact. It includes them all ; the fact that Christ died by covenant for his own people, that love for his own sheep led him to lay down his life, that his death renders their salvation absolutely certain, that it opens the way for the ofter of salvation to all men, and shows the justice of the condemnation of unbelief No man perishes for the want of an atonement, is the doctrine of the Synod of Dort ; it is also our doctrine. Dr. Cox is pleased to call us '' restrictionists." A most inap- BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. ISB propriate designation. There is more saving truth in the parings of our doctrine than in his whole theory. Our doctrine contains all the modicum of truth there is in his, and it contains unspeak- ably more. His own theory is the most restricted, jejune, meagre, and lifeless, that has ever been propounded. It provides but for one fact ; it teaches a possible salvation, while it leaves out the very soul of the doctrine. It vitiates the essential nature of the atonement, makes it a mere governmental display, a symbolical method of instruction, in order to do what was better done with- out any such corruption. While we teach, that Christ, by really obeying the law, and really bearing its penalty in the place of his people, and according to the stipulations of the covenant of grace, secured the salvation of all whom the Father had given him, and at the same time throws open the door of mercy to aU who choose to enter it ; we retain the life-giving doctrine of Christ's union with his own people, his obeying and dying in their stead, of his bearing our sins, and of our becoming the righteousness of God in him ; of the necessity of entire self- renunciation and of simple reliance on his righteousness, on the indwelling of his Spirit, and on his strength for our salvation ; while we impose no restriction on the glorious gospel of the grace of God. Long as this discussion has become, we have touched only what appeared to us the most important points of the contro- versy, and must leave others unnoticed. We trust we have said enough to show that there is no necessity for surrendering the common faith of Christendom, as to the nature of the atone- ment, for the miserable theory propounded by Dr. Beman. We cannot close this article without a single remark concerning his book itself. It is a small volume, sold at a moderate price, and intended for general circulation. It is written in a calm and con- fident spirit, but without force, discrimination, or learning. It is the very book to do harm. It presents its readers the choice be- t^freen two doctrines ; the one no man can adopt, the other is hardly worth accepting. So far as this book is concerned, the atonement must be rejected either as incredible or as worthless. He represents the one doctrine, as teaching that Christ became personally and morally a sinner, that he suffered just what in kind and degree all his people throughout eternity would have endured, and that they by his righteousness became morally in- 184 BEMAN ON THE ATONEMENT. nocent. This view of the atonement no man can believe and be a Christian. His own doctrine makes the atonement a mere symbolical method of instruction/ and reduces the whole work of Christ in this matter to making pardon possible. This again is a doctrine which we see not how any man can practically believe and be a Christian. The book in itself is of httle consequence. But from its gross and yet confident misrepresentation of the truth, it has more of the power due to falsehood than any book of the kind we know. V. GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES/ In 1841, Mr. Thornwell published in the " Spirit of the Nine- teenth Century," an essay on the claims of the Apocrypha to divine inspiration. In reply to that essay the Kev. Dr. Lynch, a Komish clergyman of Charleston, S. C, addressed to him a series of letters, to which the present volume is an answer, and a very complete one. It is, as to its form and manner, as well as to thoroughness, a specimen gf the old-fashioned mode of contro- versy. The arguments of his opponent are given at length, and then submitted to the torture of remorseless logic, until the con- fession of unsoundness is extorted. In this way Dr. Lynch is tracked step by step Until he is hunted out of every hiding- place, and is seen by others, however he may regard himself, to be completely run down. As a refutation, this work of Mr. Thornwell, is complete. There is much in this book that re- minds us of Chilling worth. There is a good deal of the acumen, the perspicuity, and logic of that great master of sentences. There is the same untiring following up of an opponent, giving him the benefit first of one then of another hypothesis, until he has nothing left on which to hang "an argument. This mode of discussion, while it has many advantages, has some inconve- niences. It is difficult, in such cases, for the respondent to pre- vent his book assuming more the character of a refutation of a particular author, than of a discussion of a subject. His an- ^ Review of the Arguments of Romanists from the Infallibility of the Ghv/rch and Testimony of the Fathers in behalf of the Apocrypha, discussed and refuted. By James H. Thornwell, Professor of Sacred Literature and Evidences of Christianity, in the South Carolina College. New York : Leavitt, Trow & Company . Robert Carter. Boston: Charles Tappan, &c., &c^ &c., 1845. Pp.4lT. 186 GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. tagonist's arguments give form to his reply ; and the reader feels that he is listening to a debate between two disputants, rather than to a continuous exhibition of the point in controversy. This disadvantage every one must feel to be a very serious one, in the writings of Chillingworth. Their value would, to the present generation at least, be greatly enhanced, had he made it more his object to exhibit the whole truth on the subjects on which he wrote, than to pull to pieces the sophistries of his antagonists. Mr. Thornwell has not entirely avoided this inconvenience, though in his case it is not a very serious one, and is less felt in the latter than in the earlier portions of his work. The book exhibits distinguished ability and diligent research, and is not only a valuable accession to our theological literature, but welcome as a specimen of what the church may expect from its author. Among the blemishes of the work is the profusion of the mere technicalities of logic. The words, major, and minor proposition, middle term, and the like, are of too frequent occurrence. It adds nothing to the perspicuity of the argument, to say that one proposition is of that peculiar species, that the removal of the consequent is a removal of the antecedent ; or that another " is a destructive disjunctive conditional.'' We do not wish to see in a painting, the pencil marks protruding through the coloring ; nor is it desirable to have brought constantly to view in actual discussion, the formulas by which reasoning as an art is taught in the schools. When a man comes to fight, it is easy to see whether he has learned to fence, without his exclaiming at every thrust or feint, ^rme, tierce, quart; and Professor Thornwell's skill in logic would be quite as apparent, and more effective, if he could forget, as we doubt not he soon will do, its technical terms. The point in which the work before us is most open to criti- cism, is its want of unity. It is really the discussion of a single question : Are the Apocrypha a part of the inspired writings ? So much prominence, however, is given to the consideration of the infallibility of the church, as to exalt it into a separate ques- tion. As Komanists rely mainly on the authority of the church in their arguments in behalf of the Apocrypha, the competency of the church, in their sense of the term, authoritatively to de- cide the question, is unavoidably brought into the discussion GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. 187 But still it is a subordinate question, in the present instance, and should be made to appear so. We think the unity, and of course the force of Mr. Thornweirs argument, would be increased by treating the infallibility of the church, not so distinctly as he has done, but in strict subordination to his main purpose. We also regret that he has made so little use of the internal character of the Apocrypha, as an argument against their in- spiration. In his original essay this topic is adverted to ; we are surprised, therefore, not to see it brought forward in this larger work. It is after all one of the soundest, and of all others per- haps the most effective argument, in the minds of ordinary Christians, against the divine origin of these writings. Believers will find it impossible to transfer the reverence they feel for the true word of God, commending itself as it does to their reason, heart, and conscience, to writings replete with silly stories and gross contradictions. We advert the more readily to what we regard defects in this work, because we think it will become a standard book, likely to be often reprinted ; we therefore wish to see it as perfect as may be. The question whether the Apocrypha are inspired, suggests the wider question : How are we to tell whether any book is in- spired ; or on what ground does the Christian world admit that the authors of the Christian Scriptures spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ? This question is, in many respects, anal- ogous to the question, How do we know there is a God ? or that he is holy, just and good ? How do we know that we are bound to obey him, or that the moral law is an expression of his will ? If these questions were asked different persons, they would probably give very different answers, and those answers might all of them' be correct, though not all adequate. Various as these answers might be, they would all resolve themselves into a statement in some form, of the self-evidencing light of the truths affirmed. We believe there is a God, because the idea of such a being is so congruous to our moral nature ; so necessary as a solution of th^ facts of our own consciousness, that when once clearly presented, we can never rid ourselves of the conviction of its truth ; nor can we shake off our sense of allegiance to him or deny our de- pendence. This conviction exists in the minds of thousands who , have never analysed it, nor inquired into its origin or its legit- ; 1^ 188 GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. imacy. And wlien tliat inquiry is started, they refer tlieir belief to different sourceSj some appealing to the evidence afforded of the being of God in the works of nature ; others to the logical necessity of assuming the existence of an intelligent first cause, and others to their sense of dependence, or to other facts of their moral nature ; but after all, it is apparent that the conviction exists and is influential, before any such examination of the grounds on which it rests, and is really independent of the specific reasons that may be assigned to account for it. The same is true with regard to moral obligation. The fact that we are bound to conform to the moral law ; that we ought to love Grod, and do good to men, is admitted and cannot be de- nied. Why we are thus bound, few men take the trouble to in- quire, and if they did, might be puzzled to give an answer, and no answer they could devise or that any philosopher could sug- gest, would increase the sense of obligation. Some answers, and those among the most common, would really weaken it, and the best could only render it more enlightened, by bringing into the view of the understanding, facts and principles already existing and operating, undetected or unnamed, in our own conscious- ness. It Js much the same with regard to the Bible. That sacred volume passes among tens of thousands for the word of Grod, without their ever thinking of asking on what grounds they so regard it. And if called upon to give answer to such a question, unless accustomed to tlie work of self-inspection, they would hardly know what to say. This hesitation, however, would be no decisive evidence, either that they did not really believe, or that their faith was irrational, or merely hereditary. They would find the same difiiculty in answering either of the other questions to which we have referred. How do we know there is a God ? or How do we know that his law is binding ? It is very possible that the mind may see a thing to be true, without being able to prove its truth, or to make any satisfactory exhibition of the grounds of its belief. If a man who had never heard of the Bible, should meet with a copy of the sacred volume, and address him- self to its perusal, it cannot be denied that it w^ould address him in the same tone of authority, which it uses towards those born in the bosom of the Christian church. He would be called upon to believe its doctrines, to confide in its promises, to obey its GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. 189 precepts. He would be morally guilty in the sight of God, if he did not ; and he would he regarded as a wise and good man if he did. Beyond controversy then the book must contain its own evidence of being the word of God ; it must prove its own in- spiration, just as the moral law proves its ow^n authority, or the being of God reveals itself to every open heart. There is noth- ing mystical, enthusiastic, or even extraordinary in this. A mathematical work contains in itself the evidence of whatever truth belongs to its reasonings or conclusions. All that one man can do for another^ in producing conviction of its truth, is to aid him in understanding it, enabling him to see the evidence that is in the book itself. The same may be said of any work of art, or of any production of genius. Its truthfulness, its claims to ad- miration, its power to refine or please, are all inherent qualities, which must be perceived, in order to be really believed. So, too, of any work which treats of our moral obligations ; no matter who wrote it, if it contains truth, we assent to it, if it includes error, we reject it This is not a thing which, in the proper sense ot the word, admits of proof. The only possible proof of the correctness of a moral doctrine, is to make us see its truth ; its accordance with the law of God, the supreme standard, and with that law as written in our own hearts. Thus in the case, which we have supposed, of a man's reading the Bible without know- ing whence it came, he would, if properly and naturally affected, be convinced of all, and judged of all, and thus the secrets of his heart being made manifest, falling down on his face, he would worship God, and report that of a truth, that book is not the word of man, but the word of God. He would find, in reading the Scriptures, the existence of God as the creator and governor of all things, always presented ; his perfections, as infinitely wise, powerful, and good, held up for his adoration and confidence. All this, no matter, whence the book came, is so holy, so true, so consonant to right reason and right feehng, that he cannot doubt its truth. He finds, further, a law therein revealed as obligatory on man, which is holy, just, and good ; all whose requirements as soon as understood, assert an authority over his conscience, which he feels to be legitimate and supreme. In comparing himself with that standard of ex- cellence, he finds, that in all things he has come short, that not only in innumerable particular acts, but in the inward, habitual 190 GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. state of his heart, he is unholy. This conviction is unavoidably attended with a sense of guilt ; he feels that he deserves to be punished, nay, that a moral necessity exists for such punish- ment ; he would gladly punish himself, could he do it satisfac- torily, or so as to still his conscience. This sense of inward pollution and exposure to punishment, prompts to strenuous and continued efforts to change his heart, and to conform his life^^to the high standard of excellence presented in the wonderful book^ which has revealed him to himself, that has made him know what he is, and in what relation he stands to God. All his efforts however vigorous, or however long sustained, fail of success. The power of evil and the guilty conscience continue ; and he sinks down into a state of hopeless despondency. In reading further, he finds that this book tells him just what he has found in his own experience to be true ; that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ; that there is none righteous, no not one ; that no man can come unto God except the Father draw him ; that we must be made new creatures, born not of the will of man but of God ; that by the deeds of the law, by our own obedience to the rule of duty, no man can be just with God ; that without the shedding of blood, that is, without an atonement, there is no remission of sins. All these things are true, true in themselves, true independently of the as- sertion of them in the word of God. They are truths which have their foundation in our nature and in our relation to God. Here then, the existence and perfections of God ; the demands of the moral law ; the sinfulness and helplessness of men ; the necessity of holiness and of an atonement, are all taught in this book, and when so taught as to be understood, they so commend them- selves to the conscience that they cannot be denied. They are, therefore, received without any external testimony of any kind, to authenticate them as matters of divine revelation. Convinced of these truths, our supposed reader of the Bible finds that in every part of it, provision is made for these two great necessities of man, holiness and atonement ; they are everywhere repre- sented as necessary, and the way in which they are attained is more or less distinctly unfolded. The Son of God is revealed as coming in the flesh, dying for our sins, reconciling us to God, securing the gift of the Holy Ghost, and offering eternal life to all who come unto God by Him. There is in the character, the GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. 191 conduct, the doctrines, the claims, the promises, of the Ke- deemer, such majesty, such excellence, such authority over the heart and conscience, such a divine glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth, that every one who apprehends that glory, feels that he is bound to honor the Son even as he honors the Father ; that the same confidence, the same obedience, the same love are due to the Son as to Grod, for he is God manifested in the flesh. If it is absurd to say that no man believes in God, who has not comprehended some philo- sophical argument for his existence, it is no less absurd to say that no man can rationally believe in Christ, who has not been instructed in the historical arguments which confirm his mission, or who has not been told by others that he is the Son of God. We believe in Christ, for the same reason that we believe in God. His character and claims have been exhibited to us, and we assent to them ; we see his glory and we recognise it as the glory of God. This exhibition is made in the gospel ; it is made to every reader of the word. And when such a reader, though he had never before heard of the Bible, finds this glorious per- sonage, ratifying all those truths which were latent in his own consciousness, and needed only to be stated to be recognised as truths ; and when he hears him say that he came to give his life a ransom for many, that whosoever believeth on him shall never perish, but have eternal life ; he confides in him with humble and entire confidence. And when he further hears him speak of a future state of blessedness, for which, by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, men are prepared, he understands some of the deepest mysteries of his nature, the obscure apprehension of im- mortality, the strange mixture of longing and dread in reference to a future state, of which he was conscious but could not under- stand. Such a man believes the gospel on the highest possible evidence ; the testimony of God himself with and by the truth to his own heart ; making him see and feel that it is truth. The more the Bible is thus studied, the more it is understood ; the more the relation of its several parts, the excellence of its precepts, the suitableness of its doctrines and promises, the correspondence of the experience, which it details or demands, with the exercises of our own hearts, are appreciated, the more firm and enlightened does the conviction become that it is indeed the word of God. Of this evidence to the inspiration of the Scriptures, which is 192 GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. contained in the Scriptures themselves, and which by the Spirit of God is revealed and applied to the hearts of the devout readers of the Bible, it may be remarked, in the first place, that it is of itself perfectly adequate as the foundation of a rational and sav- ing faith, and that it applies to all parts of the sacred volume ; partly because it is found in all parts, and partly because the different portions of the Bible, the historical, doctrinal, devo- tional, and j)erceptive, are so connected, that they mutually imply each other, so that one cannot be rejected without doing violence more or less, to the whole. In the second place, this evidence is in fact the ground of the faith of all the true people of God, whether learned or unlearned. Whatever other evidence they may have, and which in argument they may properly adduce, they still are believers, in the true sense of that term, only so far as their faith rests on this inward testimony of God with the truth, revealing and applying it as truth to the heart. In the third place, this is the evidence on which the Scriptures challenge universal faith and obedience. It is the ground \on which they rest their claim, and on which they pronounce a sentence of con- demnation on all who do not believe, as not of God, for if they were of God, they would know of the doctrine whether it was his or not. In the fourth place, it is obvious that this evidence, in all its fulness and force, may be exhibited to a man, who knew nothing from others of the origin of the Scriptures, even to one who should read them for the first time in a desert island. Such a man being convinced by this evidence that the Scriptures were the word of God ; or finding that the writers who pro- pounded these truths, and who exhibited such moral excellence as to secure his entire confidence, declared themselves to be in- spired, constantly disclaimed being the discoverers or authors of the doctrines which they taught ; when he hears them always speaking in the name and by the authority of God, as his mes- sengers, he receives their declaration with fall credence. How indeed could it be otherwise .^ How could they know of them- selves all they teach, and how could men who were so obviously sincere and holy, be false witnesses and imposters ? Without going, therefore, beyond the Bible itself, the conviction may be rationally arrived at, and is in fact in multitudes of cases, with- out doubt entertained, that its authors spake as they were moved i by the Holy Ghost. GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. 193 Let US suppose that a man thus convinced, should have the opportunity of learning the history of the Bible ; of tracing it up with certainty to the times of the apostles ; of proving with his- toric accuracy, that the books composing the New Testament, were written by the apostles of Christ ; that to these men their divine master expressly promised the gift of inspiration ; that they uniformly claimed that gift, saying, He that is of Grod lieareth us, and he that is not of Grod, heareth not us ; that this claim was authenticated by God himself bearing them witness with signs, and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost ; that effects followed their ministry which admit of no rational solution but their being the messengers of God ; that all they did, all the facts they announced, all the effects they produced, or which attended the introduction of Christian- ity, had been predicted centuries before, in books which can be proved to have existed at that antecedent period ; nay that the predictions in those books, and in the New Testament itself, are in some cases, in the course of fulfilment before our own eyes ; and finally, that the claim of these messengers to inspiration, was recognized by all who received their doctrines, and who by their faith were made new creatures in Christ Jesus ; suppose all this to be proved historically, as it has been proved a thou- sand times, it may be that the faith of a supposed believer might not be really thereby strengthened ; he would however be fur- nished with an answer to all gainsayers, and would be able to say, in the spirit of our Lord's own remonstrance. If ye believe not the gospel for its own sake, at least believe it for these works' sake With regard to the Old Testament, much the same course of remark might be pursued. The writers of its several books claimed to be the messengers of God ; they authenticated that claim (with few, if any, exceptions), by miracles or prophecy ; they taught the truth — truth as far above that contained in any uuinspired writings, as the heavens are above the earth ; the predictions which they contain, scattered over the whole volume, given in detached parts, and at long intervals, yet all concen- trating in one great system, have been fulfilled and are still ful- filling. And besides all this, every part of the Jewish Scriptures, were in every form recognised as the word of God, as infallible, incapable of being broken, more certain of accomplishment than 13 194 GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTUEES. heaven and earth of continuance, hy our Lord and his apostles, of whose divine authority, or divine inspiration, we have such abundant evidence. Such is a very cursory view of the grounds on which Protest- ants are accustomed to rest their faith in the inspiration of the hooks which they recognise as the word of God. If we apply these principles to the Apocrypha, what is the result ? In the first place their authors do not claim to be inspired ; they do not come before the people as the messengers of God, claiming faith and obedience, on pain of the divine displeasure, and con- firming that claim by personal holiness or by mighty works. On the contrary, they disclaim any such authority, or speak in terms utterly incompatible with it. Then, in the second place, there is nothing in the contents of these writings, which leads to the assumption of their being inspired. Some of them are historical, some of them are moral essays of a more or less philosophical cast ; some of them are fables. They differ very much in value in all respects, but there is nothing in any of them which might not be expected from Jews living either in Palestine or Egypt, whose opinions had been more or less modified by a knowledge of the Oriental or Grecian systems of philosophy. They are just such books as uninspired men under their circumstances might be expected to write. Then, on the other hand, they often con- tradict the universally recognised books of the Old Testament, or are at variance with themselves ; they contain false doctrines or false principles of morals ; or, in many cases, absurd stories. How can such books be received as the word of God ? In the third place, there is not the slightest evidence of their having been received as inspired by the contemporaries of their authors, but abundant evidence that they were not so received. This is admitted by the Romanists themselves, who concede that they formed no part of the Jewish canon. In the fourth place, they were not recognised by Christ and his apostles as part of the word of God. They are never quoted as of authority, never re- ferred to as " Scripture,'' or as the words of the Spirit, in the New Testament. To this point the tenth letter in Professor Thornweirs book is devoted, where it is most satisfactorily dem- onstrated that there are no passages in the New Testament which need be assumed to refer to any corresponding passage in the Apocrypha ; and that if there were, it would no more prove GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. 195 their inspiration, than the inspiration of the heathen poets can be proved from Paul's use of their language, or the inspiration of Philo from the coincidences between his writings and the lan- guage of the apostle John. In the fifth place, the Apocrypha were not recognised as inspired by the Christians of the first four centuries. To the proof of this point Mr. Thornwell has devoted five letters, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth both included. In these letters the reader will find a laborious and accurate ex- amination of all the passages quoted from the early Fathers in support of the authority of the Apocrypha ; wherein it is clearly shown that nothing can be adduced from that source, which would not prove the inspiration of books which the church of Kome rejects. It need hardly be remarked that even if some, or even all the early Fathers, regarded the writings in controversy as part of the sacred canon, it would be no sufficient proof of their inspiration. That they received the books of the New Testament as of divine authority, is a valid argument in their behalf, because it affords satisfactory evidence that those books were written by the men whose names they bear, of whose in- spiration we have abundant proof, and their testimony that the Apocrypha were written by their reputed authors would have a certain historic value ; but could not prove the inspiration of those writings, unless we knew from other sources that those authors were inspired. Bat the Fathers' thinking the Apocrypha to be inspired is no proof that the apostles so regarded them. The apostles are not to be responsible for all the doctrines the Fathers entertained. This testimony in behalf of the Apocrypha, unsatisfactory as it would be, cannot be adduced, for the real testi- mony of the early church is strongly against the inspiration of the writings in question. In proof of this point, we refer our readers to Mr. Thorn well's concluding letter, in which it is proved that these books " are not included in the catalogues given by Melito, bishop of Sardis, who flourished in the second century, of Origen, Athanasius, Hilary, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ephiphanius, Gregory Nazianzen, Euffin, and others ; neither are they mentioned among the canonical books recognised by the council of Laodicea." We hardly know how a stronger case could be made out, than Professor Thornwell has thus made. Nothing seems to favor the assumption of the Apocrypha being inspired ; while all the e\ddence, both internal and external, is against it. But have 196 GKOUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTUEES. the Komanists nothing to say in their behalf ? Nothing that is of the least weight with a Protestant. They do indeed refer to what they regard as allusions to those writings in the New Tes- tament, which, if admitted, would only prove their existence at that period, which no one denies. They further refer to the fact that several of the Fathers quote them, and quote them too as " holy Scripture ;" but this expression the Fathers often use in the general sense of religious, as opposed to profane writings, and apply it to books for whose inspiration no one contends. The main dependence of the Komanists is the authority of their own church. The council of Trent has decreed that the Apocry- pha were written by the inspiration of God, and of course those, and those only, who believe that council to have been infallible, bow to their decision. This brings up the question of the infallibility of the church ; much too wide a subject to be here entered upon. It must suf- fice to show in a few words, that the authority of the council of Trent, is no sufficient ground of faith in the inspiration of the Apocrypha. The whole doctrine of the Romanists, as to the authority of that council, rests on a series of gratuitous and un- scriptural assumptions. The fundamental error of Popery and Puseyism, is transferring to the body of external professors of Christianity, that is, to what is commonly called the visible church, what the Scriptures say of the church of Grod. The body to which the promises and prerogatives of the church belong, according to Scripture, antiquity, and the best men even of the Roman communion itself, consists of true believers, of those who are the members of Christ's body and partakers of his Spirit. Christ has indeed promised to preserve his church, that is, his own people, from all fatal error ; to lead them into the knowl- edge of the truth, and to keep them through faith unto eternal life. But how is this promise to preserve and guide his people, a promise to guide those who are not his people ? How are promises made to the children of God, promises to the children of the world.? How are assurances given to those who are born of the Spirit, who are led by the Spirit, who are the temples of the Holy Ghost, to be applied to the unrenewed, and to those who pertain to the church only in name, or by office ? It is only by denying that there is any such thing as regeneration, or spiritual religion, or by merging all that the Bible says of the new birth, of union GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. 197 with Christ, and of a holy life, into descriptions of church-rites and church-ceremonies, that the least plausibility can be given to the Romish theory. The word " church" is always a collective term for the called, the chosen, the true people of God ; and what is said of the church and of its prerogatives, belongs only to those who are thus called and sanctified. The promises, therefore, which secure the church from apostacy, and which guaranty her perpetuity, have no reference to those who are not the true children of Grod, any more than the promises to Israel, secured the gift of the Holy Spirit to the natural descendants of Abraham. The first and most fruitful fallacy of Rome, therefore, is founded on the ambiguity of the word church, which, as the recipient of the promises, means the true people of God, though in ordmary language, it is often applied to all who profess to be his people, or call themselves Christians. They err moreover in extending far beyond its scriptural Umits, the promise of guid- ance as made to the church. Christ has promised to purify his churcli ; but that does not secure perfect holiness for all its members, in this life. He has also promised to guide them into the knowledge of the trutli ; but that does not preserve them from all ignorance or error ; it only secures them from failing of that knowledge which is essential to eternal life. The only sense in which even the true church is infallible is, that its members are kept from the rejection of any doctrine essential to their sal- vation. Rome not satisfied with attributing this infallibility to a body which has no claim to it, extends it to all matters of faith and even (according to one school), of fact. A twofold unscrip- tural and baseless assumption. But should we admit that the external or visible church has been invested with the prerogative of infallibility, how would that prove the Romish doctrine on this subject ? According to the ultramontane doctrine, the pope is the seat and centre of this prerogative ; according to the Galilean doctrine, it resides in the prelates. But for either of these assumptions there is not a shadow of claim from Scripture. The prelates are not the church, and the pope is not the church. The promise of the Holy Spirit to be with his disciples, to guide them into the knowledge of the truth, was neither made nor fulfilled to the chief officers of the church alone. It was addressed to all the disciples ; and it was 198 GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. fulfilled in the apostolic and every subsequent age, to all true believers. Here again is another gratuitous assumption, neces- sary to make out the arguments of Romanists, in support of the infallibility of the council of Trent. But supposing we should grant that the prelates are the church, that to them in their collective capacity, the gift of in- fallibility belongs, still, how does it follow that the council of Trent was infallible ? All the prelates were not assembled there ; all did not concur in the designation of the members of the council as their representatives ; all have not concurred in the decisions of that body. On the contrary, the council was composed of a mere handful of bishops, a small minority of the prelates of Christendom concurred either in their appointment or in their decisions. Admitting then that infallibility resides in the bishops of the universal church, in their collective capacity, which is the most rational form of the Romish doctrine, we must believe that all the Greek, all the Armenian, all the Syrian, all the British, all the Swedish prelates are out of the church, before we can believe that the council of Trent represented the church, and was the organ of its infallibility. Can this be proved from Scripture or from any other source ? Can any show of argument be adduced to prove that recognition of the authority of the bishop of Rome over all other bishops and churches, is necessary to union with the church of Grod ? Until this is proved, granting aU their principles, the infallibility of the council of Trent cannot be established. We can afford, however, to be still more generous. We may grant not only that the external church is infallible ; that the prelates are the church ; and that the church must be in com- munion with the pope and under his direction, and yet deny that the decisions of that body can possibly be the ground on which we are bound to believe the gospel, or to admit the authority of the word of Grod. There are two fatal objections to making the authority even of an infallible church, the ground of faith. The first is, that faith founded on that ground cannot be anything more than mere intellectual assent to the truth of a proposition. But such a faith may and does exist in the minds of wicked men, and therefore cannot be that faith which is connected with salva- tion. If a man comes to me with a sealed book, and assures me that it is inspired, and then produces such credentials, by GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. 199 miracles or otherwise, as command my confidence in his integrity and competency as a witness, I may assent to the proposition that the book is the word of God, but I am not thereby a better man. Unless I know the truth the book contains, perceive it to be true, and receive it in love, I am just the man I was before ; may be just as destitute of love to God, and just as unfit for heaven. All that an infallible church could do, would be to act the part of the supposed witness. Even should we admit her authority, and assent to her decisions, such assent having no better foundation than external testimony, can have no moral character, and produce no moral efiect. Such a faith the most wicked men that ever lived may have, and in thousands of cases, have had, and therefore it cannot be that faith to which the Scriptures promise eternal life. The second objection to making the authority of the church the ground of faith, is that it is entirely inadequate. The gospel is addressed to all men ; all who hear it, are bound to receive it as soon as it is presented ; but how are all men to know that the church is infallible .? No man can be required to beHeve, before the evidence on which his faith is to rest, is presented to his mind. If the infallibility of the church is the ground on which he is to receive certain writings as the word of God, that infallibility must be established before he can be required to be- lieve. But how is this to be done, with regard to the great mass of mankind ? How are the unlettered, the young, the heathen, to be rationally convinced that the church is infallible ? How are they to know what the church is, or which of the many bodies so called is the true church ? The peasants of Sweden, Eussia, or England, never heard of any church, other than their own, and yet those bodies, according to Rome, are no part of the church. How are these poor peasants to find that out ? Or even take a peasant of Italy or Spain, how does he know that the church is infallible ? His priest says so. How is he to know what the church teaches ? what his priest tells him. But his priest is not, even according to the Roman theory, inspired ; and it is admitted he may be a bad man. Thus this boasted infalli- bility of the church, which looks so imposing, is, as it is brought in actual contact with the minds of the people, nothing more than the " say so" of a parish priest. The only foundation of faith that Rome will admit, for the great mass of her children, 200 GROUND OF FAITH IN THE SCRIPTURES. is the testimony of a man who is admitted to be fallible, who is, in a majority of cases, ignorant, and often wicked ! This is the resting-place of the precious faith of God's elect ! To such a miserable conclusion does this mighty figment of an infallible church come at last. This is popery. For bread it gives a stone ; and for an egg, a scorpion. To teach that we cannot know the Scriptures to be the work of God, except on the testimony of the church, is to teach we cannot see the sun without the help of a candle. VI. THEORIES OF THE CHURCH.' This is one of the ablest productions of the Oxford school. The theory of the church which that school has embraced, is here presented historically, in the first instance, and then sus- tained by arguments drawn from the design of the church, as a divine institute, and the common conclusion is arrived at and urged, that the one church as described by the author, is the only revealed way of salvation. Archdeacon Manning's work has excited no little attention in England ; and its republication in this country, has been warmly welcomed by the Oxford party in America. We do not propose to make the book before us the subject of particular examination ; but simply to exhibit the theory of the church which it advocates, in connection and contrast with that which necessarily arises out of the evangelical system of doctrine. The church as an outward organization is the result and expres- sion of an inward spiritual life ; and consequently must take its form from the nature of the life whence it springs. This is only saying, in other words, that our theory of the church depends on our theory of doctrine. If we hold a particular system of doc- trine, we must hold a corresponding theory of the church. The two are so intimately connected that they cannot be separated ; and it is doubtful whether, as a matter of experience, the system of doctrine most frequently leads to the adoption of a particular view of the church, or whether the view men take of the church more generally determines their system of doctrines. In the order * The Unity of the Church. By Henry Edward Maniong, M. A., Archdeacon of Chichester, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1844. pp. 305. — Prinoeton Review, January, 1846. 202 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. of nature, and perhaps also most frequently in experience, the doctrine precedes the theory. History teaches us that Christianity appears under three characteristic forms ; which for the sake of distinction may be called the Evangelical, the Kitual, and the Eationalistic. These forms always co-exist in the church, and are constantly striving for the mastery. At one period, the one, and at another, another gains the ascendency, and gives character to that period. Dur- ing the apostolic age, the evangelical system prevailed, though in constant conflict with Kitualism in the form of Judaism. During the next age of the church we find Kationalism strug- gling for the ascendency, under the form of Gnosticism and the philosophy of the Platonizing fathers. Kitualism, however, soon gained the mastery, which it maintained almost without a struggle until the time of the Eeformation. At that period evangelical truth gained the ascendency which it maintained for more than a hundred years, and was succeeded on the continent by Kationalism, and in England, under Archbishop Laud, by Kitualism. This latter system, however, was there pressed beyond endurance, and the measures adopted for promoting it led to a violent reaction. The restoration of Charles II. com- menced the reign of the Kationalistic form of doctrine in Eng- land, manifesting itself in low Arminian or Pelagian views, and in general indifference. This continued to characterize the church in Great Britain, until the appearance of Wesley and Whitfield, about a century ago, since which time there has been a constant advance in the prevalence and power of evangelical truth both in England and Scotland. Within the last ten or fifteen years, however, a new movement has taken place, which has attracted the attention of the whole Christian world. After the fall of Archbishop Laud, the banishment of James II. and the gradual disappearance of the non-jurors, the principles which they represented, though they found here and there an advocate in the Church of England, lay nearly dormant, until the publication of the Oxford Tracts. Since that time their prog- ress has been rapid, and connected with the contemporaneous revival of Popery, constitutes the characteristic ecclesiastical features of the present generation. The church universal is so united, that no great movement in one portion of it, can be des- titute of interest for all the rest. The church in this country, THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. 203 especially, is so connected with the church in Great Britain, there are so many channels of reciprocal influence between the two, that nothing of importance can happen there, which is not felt here. The church in the one country has generally risen and declined with the church in the other. The spiritual death which gradually overspread England and Scotland from the revo- lution of 1688 to the rise of Wesley, in no small measure spread its influence over America ; and the great revival of religion in England and Scotland before the middle of the last century, was contemporaneous with the revival which extended in this country from Maine to Georgia. The recent progress of Kitualisra in England, is accompanied by a spread of the same principles in America. We are not, therefore, uninterested spectators of the struggle now in progress between the two conflicting systems of doctrines and theories of the church, the Evangelical and the Kitual. The spiritual welfare of our children and of the country is deeply concerned in the issue. The difterent forms of religion to which reference has been made, have each its peculiar basis, bt)th objective and subjective. The evangelical form rests on the Scriptures as its objective g^round ; and its inward or subjective ground is an enlightened conviction of sin. The ritual system rests outwardly on the authority of the church, or tradition ; inwardly on a vague religious sentiment. The rationalistic rests on the human understanding, and internally on indifference. These are general remarks, and true only in the general. Perhaps few persons are under the influence of any one of these forms, to the exclusion of the others ; in very few, is the ground of belief exclusively the Bible, tradition, or reason. Yet as general remarks they appear to us correct, and may serve to characterize the comprehensive forms which the Christian religion has been found to assume. The evangelical system of doctrine starts with the assumption that all men are under the condemnation and power of sin. This is assumed by the sacred writers as a fact of consciousness, and is made the ground of the whole doctrine of redemption. From the guilt of sin there is no method of deliverance but through the righteousness of Christ, and no way in which free- dom from its power can be obtained, but through the indwelling of his Spirit. No man who is not united to Christ by a living faith is a partaker either of his righteousness or Spirit, and every 204 THEOEIES OF THE CHURCH. / man who does truly believe, is a partaker of both, so as to be both justified and sanctified. This union with Christ by the indwell- ing of his Spirit is always manifested by the fruits of righteous- ness ; by love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Where these fruits of the Spirit are, there, and not elsewhere, is the Spirit ; and where the Spirit is, there is union with Christ ; and where union with Christ is, there is membership in his body, which is the church. True believers, therefore, according to the Scriptures, are the kXtjtol, the EKXeKToiy the EKKXr]aia. This is the fundamental principle of the evangelical theory respecting the church. It is tha only view at all consistent with the evangelical system of doctrine ; and as a historical fact, it is the view to which those doctrines have uniformly led. If a man holds that the church is the body of Christ ; that the body of Christ consists of those in whom he dwells by his Spirit ; that it is by faith we receive the promise of the Spirit ; and that the presence of the Spirit is always mani- fested by his fruits ; then he must hold that no man who does not possess that faith which works by love, is united to Christ or a member of his church ; and that all, no matter how else they may differ, or where they may dwell, who have that faith, are members of that body, which is his church. Such is the unavoid- able conclusion to which the evangelical system leads as to the nature of the church. The body to whom the attributes, the promises, the prerogatives of the church belong, consists of all true believers. This also is the turning-point between the evan- gelical and ritual theories, on which all other questions concern- ing the church depend. To the question, What is the church ? or, Who constitute the church ? the Evangelicals answer, and must answer. True believers. The answer of the Eitualists is. The organized professors of the true religion subject to lawful pastors. And according as the one or the other of these answers is adopted, the one or the other theory with its consequences of necessity foUows. The church, in that sense in which it is the heir of the promises and prerogatives granted in the word of God, consists of true believers, is in one aspect a visible, in another an invisible body. First, believers as men, are visible beings, and by their confession and fruits are visible as believers. " By their fruits ye shall know them." In their character also of believers^ they associate for THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. 205 the purposes of worship and discipline, and have their proper officers for instruction and government, and thus appear before the world as a visible body. And secondly, as God has not giveiT to men the power to search the heart, the terms of admission into this body, or in other words, the terms of Christian communion, are not any infallible evidence of regeneration and true faith, but a credible profession. And as many make that profession who are either self-deceived or deceivers, it necessarily follows that many are of the church, who are not in the church. Hence arises the distinction between the real and the nominal, or as it is commonly expressed, the invisible and the visible church. A distinction which is unavoidable, and which is made in all analogous cases, and which is substantially and of necessity admitted in this case even by those whose whole theory rests on the denial of it. The Bible promises great blessings to Chris- tians ; but there are real Christians and nominal Christians ; and no one hesitates to make the distinction and to confine the application of these promises to those who are Christians at heart, and not merely in name. The Scriptures promise eternal life to believers. But there is a dead as well as living faith ; there are true believers and those who profess faith with- out possessing it. No one here again refuses to acknowledge the propriety of the distinction, or hesitates to say that the promise of eternal life belongs only to those who truly believe. In like manner there is a real and a nominal, a visible and an invisible church, a body consisting of those who are truly united in Christ, and a body consisting of all who profess such union. Why should not this distinction be allowed ? How can what is said in Scripture of the church, be applied to the body of professors, any more than what is said of believers, can be applied to the body of professed believers ? There is the same necessity for the distinction in the one case, as in the other. And accordingly it is in fact made by those who in terms deny it. Thus Mr. Palmer, an Oxford writer, says, the church, as composed of its vital and essential members, means '' the elect and sanctified children of God ;" and adds, " it is generally allowed that the wicked belong only externally to the, church.'' — Vol. I., pp. 28, 58. Even Komanists are forced to make the same admission, when they distinguish between the living and dead members of the church. As neither they nor Mr. Palmer will contend that the promises 206^ THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. pertain to the " dead" members, or those who are only exter- nally united to the church, but must admit them to belong to the " essential" or " living" members, they concede the fundamental principle of the evangelical theory as to the nature of the church, viz.: that it consists of true believers, and is visible as they are visible as believers by their profession and fruits, and that those associated with them in external union, are the church only out- wardly, and not as constituent members of the body of Christ and temple of God. In this concession is involved an admission of the distinction for which the evangelical contend between the church invisible and visible, between nominal and leal Chris- tians, between true and professing believers. Such being the view of the nature of the church and of its visi- bility, to which the evangelical system of doctrine necessarily leads, it is easy to see wherein the church is one. If the church con- sists of those who are united to Christ and are the members of his body, it is evident that the bond which unites them to him, unites them to each other. They are one body in Christ Jesus, and every one members of one another. The vital bond between Christ and his body is the Holy Spirit ; which he gives to dwell in all who are united to him by faith. The indwelling of the Spirit is therefore the essential or vital bond of unity in the church. By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, for we are partakers of that one Spirit. The human body is one, be- cause animated by one soul ; and the church is one because actuated by one Spirit. As the Spirit wherever he dwells manifests himself as the Spirit of truth, of love, and of holiness, it follows that those in whom he dwells must be one in faith, in love, and holy obedi- ence. Those whom he guides, he guides into the knowledge of the truth, and as he cannot contradict himself, those under his guidance must in all essential matters believe the same truths. And as the Spirit of love, he leads all under his influence to love the same objects, the same Grod and Father of all, the same Lord Jesus Christ ; and to love each other as brethren. This inward, spiritual union must express itself outwardly, in the profession of the same faith, in the cheerful recognition of all Christians as Christians, that is, in the communion of saints, and in mutual subjection. Every individual Christian recog- nizes the right of his fellow Christians to exercise over him a THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. 207 watch and care, and feels his obligation to submit to them in the Lord. Since, however, the church is too widely diffused for the whole to exercise their watch and care over each particular part, there is a necessity for more restricted organizations. Believers there- fore of the same neighborhood, of the same province, of the same nation, may and must unite by some closer bond than that which externally binds the church as a whole together. The church of England is one, in virtue of its subjection to a com- mon head, and the adoption of common formularies of worship and discipline. This more intimate union of its several parts with each other, does not in any measure violate its unity with the Episcopal body in this country. And the Presbyterian church in the United States, though subject to its own peculiar judicatories, is still one with the church of Scotland. It is evi- dent, and generally conceded, that there is nothing, in indepen- dent organization, in itself considered, inconsistent with unity, so long as a common faith is professed, and mutual recognition is preserved. And if independent organization on account of difference of locality or of civil relations, is compatible with unity, so also is independent organization on the ground of di- versity of language. The former has its foundation in expe- diency and convenience, so has the latter. It is not true, there- fore, as Ritualists teach, that there cannot be two independent churches, in the same place. Englishmen in Germany and Ger- mans in England may organize churches not in organic con- nection with those around them, with as much propriety as Episcopalians in England and Episcopalians in Scotland may have independent organizations. Still further, as independent or separate organization is ad- mitted to be consistent with true unity, by all but Romanists, it follows that any reason not destructive of the principle of unity, may be made the ground of such separate organization ; not merely difference as to location, or diversity of language, but diversity of opinion. It is on all hands conceded that there may be difference of opinion, within certain limits, without violating unity of faith ; and it is also admitted that there may be inde- pendent organization, for considerations of convenience, with- out violating the unity of communion. It therefore foUows, that where such a diversity of opinion exists, as to render such 208 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. separate organization convenient, the unity of the cliurcli is not violated by such separation. Diversity of opinion is indeed an evidence of imperfection, and therefore such separations are evil, so far as they are evidence of want of perfect union in faith. But they are a less evil, than either hypocrisy or contention ; and therefore, the diversity of sects, which exists in the Christian world, is to be regarded as incident to imperfect knowledge and imperfect sanctification. They are to be deplored, as every other evidence of such imperfection is to be regretted, yet the evil is not to be magnified above its just dimensions. So long as unity of faith, of love, and of obedience is preserved, the unity of the church is as to its essential principle safe. It need hardly be re- marked, that it is admitted that all separate organization on in- adequate grounds, and all diversity of opinion affecting import- ant doctrines, and all want of Christian love, and especially a sectarian, unchurching spirit, are opposed to the unity of the church, and either mar or destroy it according to their nature. The sense in which the church is catholic depends on the sense in which it is one. It is catholic only as it is one. If its unity, therefore, depends on subjection to one visible head, to one supreme governing tribunal, to the adoption of the same form of organization, then of course its extent or catholicity is limited by these conditions. If such be the nature of its oneness, then all not subject to such visible head, or governing tribunal, or who do not adopt the form of government assumed to be necessary, are excluded from the church. But if the unity of the church arises from union with Christ and the indwelling of his Spirit, then all who are thus united to him, are members of his churcli, no matter what their external ecclesiastical connections may be, or whether they sustain any such relations at all. And as all really united to Christ are the true church, so all who profess such union by professing to receive his doctrines and obey his laws, constitute the professing or visible church. It is plain, therefore, that the evangelical are the most truly catholic, be- cause, embracing in their definition of the church all who profess the true religion, they include a far wider range in the church catholic, than those who confine their fellowship to those who adopt the same form of government, or are subject to the same visible head. It is easy to see how, according to the evangelical system, tho THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. 209 question, What is a true church ? is to be answered. Starting with the principle that all men are sinners, that the only method of salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ, and that all who believe in him, and show the fruits of faith in a holy life, are the chil- dren of God, the called according to his purpose, that is, in the language of the New Testament, the kXtitoIj the eKfckrjala, that system must teach that all true believers are members of the true church, and all professors of the true faith are members of the visible church. This is the only conclusion to which that sys- tem can lead. And therefore the only essential mark of a true church which it can admit, is the profession of the true religion. Any individual man who makes a credible profession of religion we are bound to regard as a Christian ; any society of such men, united for the purpose of worship and discipline, we are bound to regard as a church. As there is endless diversity as to the de- gree of exactness with which individual Christians conform, in their doctrines, spirit, and deportment, to the word of God, so there is great diversity as to the degree in which the different churches conform to the same standard. But as in the case of the individual professor we can reject none who does not reject Christ, so in regard to churches, we can disown none who holds the fundamental doctrines of the gospel. Against this simple and decisive test of a true church it is ob- jected on the one hand, that it is too latitudinarian. The force of this objection depends upon the standard of liberality adopted. It is of course too latitudinarian for Komanists and High Church- men, as well as for rigid sectarians. But is it more liberal than the Bible, or than our own Confession of Faith ? Let any man decide this question by ascertaining what the Bible teaches as the true answer to the question. What is a Christian ? And what is a church ? You cannot possibly make your notion of a church narrower than your notion of a Christian. If a true Christian is a true believer, and a professed believer is a profess- ing Christian, then of course a true church is a body of true Chris- tians, a professing or visible church is a body of professing Chris- tians. This is the precise doctrine of our standards, which teach that the church consists of all those who profess the true religion. On the other hand, however, it is objected that it cannot be ex- pected of ordinary Christians, that they should decide between the conflicting creeds of rival churches, and therefore the profession of 14 210 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. the truth cannot be the mark of a true church. To this objection it may be answered first, that it is only the plain fundamental doc- trines of the gospel which are necessary to salvation, and therefore it is the possession of those doctrines alone which is necessary to establish the claim of any society to be regarded as a portion of the true church. Secondl}^, that the objection proceeds on the assump- tion that such doctrines cannot by the people be gathered from the word of God. If, however, the Scriptures are the rule of faith, so plain that all men may learn from them what they must believe and do in order to be saved, then do they furnish an available standard by which they may judge of the faith both of individuals and of churches. Fourthly, this right to judge, and the promise of divine guidance in judging, are given in the Scrip- Inires to all the people of Grod, and the duty to exercise the right is enjoined upon them as a condition of salvation. They are pro- nounced accursed if they do not try the spirits, or if they receive any other gospel than that taught in the Scriptures. And fifthly, this doctrinal test is beyond comparison more easy of application than any other. How are the unlearned to know that the church with which they are connected has been derived, without schism or excommunication, from the churches founded by the apostles ? What can they tell of the apostolical succession of pastors ? These are mere historical questions, the decision of which re- quires great learning, and involves no test of character, and yet the salvation of men is made to depend on that decision. All the marks of the church laid down by Komanists and High Churchmen, are liable to two fatal objections. They can be veri- fied, if at all, only by the learned. And secondly, when verified, they decide nothing. A church may have been originally founded by the apostles, and possess an uninterrupted succession of pas- tors, and yet be now a synagogue of Satan. The theory of the church, then, which of necessity follows from the evangelical system of doctrine is, that all who really believe the gospel constitute the true church, and all who pro- fess such faith constitute the visible church ; that in virtue of the profession of this common faith, and of allegiance to the same Lord, they are one body, and in this one body there may rightly be subordinate and more intimate unions of certain parts, for the purposes of combined action, and of mutual oversight and consolation. When it is said, in our Confession of Faith, that 1 THEORIESOF THE CHURCH. 211 out of this visible churchj there is no ordinary possibility of sal- vation, it is only saying that there is no salvation without ihe knowledge and profession of the gospel ; that there is no other name by which we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ. The proposition that "out of the church there is no salvation'' is true or false, liberal or illiberal, according to the latitude given to the word church. There was not long since, and probably there is still, in New York a little society of Sandemanian Bap- tists, consisting of seven persons, two men and five women, who hold that they constitute the whole church in America. In their mouths the proposition above stated would indeed be restrictive. In the mouth of a Romanist, it means there is no salvation to any who do not belong to that body which acknowledges the Pope as its head. In the mouths of High Churchmen, it means that there is no salvation to those who are not in sub- jection to some prelate who is in communion with the church catholic. While in the mouths of Protestants, it means there is no salvation without faith in Jesus Christ. The system, which for the sake of distinction has been called the Ritual, agrees of course with the Evangelical as to many points of doctrine. It includes the doctrine of the Trinity, of the incarnation of the Son of God, of original sin, of the sacrifice of Christ as a satisfaction to satisfy divine justice, of the super- natural influence of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctifi- cation, of the resurrection of the body and of an eternal judgment. The great distinction lies in the answer which it gives the quegr tion, What must I do to be saved ? or by what means does the soul become interested in the redemption of Christ ? According to the Evangelical system, it is faith. Every sinner who hears the gospel has unimpeded access to the Son of God, and can, in the exercise of faith and repentance, go immediately to him, and obtain eternal life at his hands. According to the Ritual system, he must go to the priest ; the sacraments are the channels of grace and salvation, and the sacraments can only be lawfully or efiectively administered by men prelatically ordained. The doc- trine of the priestly character of the Christian ministry, therefore, is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Ritual system. A priest is a man ordained for men, in things pertaining to God, to ofier gifts and sacrifices. The very nature of the office sup- poses that those for whom he acts, have not in themselves 'i 212 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. liberty of access to Grod ; and therefore the Eitual system is founded on the assumption that we have not this liberty of drawing nigh to God. It is only by the ministerial intervention of the Christian priesthood, that the sinner can be reconciled and made a partaker of salvation. Here then is a broad line of distinction between the two systems of doctrines. This was one of the three great doctrines rejected by Protestants, at the time of the Keformation. They affirmed the priesthood of all believ- ers, asserting that all have access to Grod through the High Priest of their profession, Jesus, the Son of God ; and they denied the official priesthood of the clergy. The second great distinction between the two systems of doc- trine, is the place they assign the sacraments. The Evangelical admit them to be efficacious signs of grace, but they ascribe their efficacy not to any virtue in them or in him by whom they are administered, but to the influence of the Spirit in them that do by faith receive them. Kitualists attribute to them an inherent virtue, an opus operatum efficacy, independent of the moral state of the recipient. According to the one system, the sacraments are necessary only as matters of precept ; according to the other, they have the necessity of means. According to the one we are required to receive baptism, just as we are under obligation to keep the Sabbath, or as the Jews were required to be circum- cised, and yet we are taught that if any man kept the law, his uncircumcision should be counted for circumcision. And thus also, if any one truly repents and believes, his want of baptism cannot make the promise of God of none effect. The neglect of such instituted rites may involve more or less sin, or none at all, according to the circumstances. It is necessaiy only as obedience to any other positive institution is necessary; that is as a mat- ter of duty, the non-performance of which ignorance or disability may palliate or excuse. According to the latter system, how- ever, we are required to receive baptism because it is the only appointed means of conveying to us the benefits of redemption. It is of the same necessity as faith. It is a sine qua non. This alters the whole nature of the case, and changes in a great meas- ure the plan of redemption. The theory of the church connected with the Kitual system of doctrine, that system which makes ministers priests, and the sacraments the only appointed channels of communicating to THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. 213 men the benefits of redemption, is implied in the nature of the doctrines themselves. It makes the church so prominent that Christ and the truth are eclipsed. This made Dr. Parr call the whole system Churchianity, in distinction from Christianity. If our Lord, when he ascended to heaven, clothed his apostles with all the power which he himself possessed in his human nature, so that they were to the church what he himself had been, its infallible teachers and the dispensers of pardon and grace ; and if in accordance with that assumption, the apostles communicated this power to their successors, the prelates, then it follows that these prelates, and those whom they may authorize to act in their name, are the dispensers of truth and salvation, and communion with them, or subjection to their authority, is essential to union with the church and to eternal life. The church is thus represented as a store-house of divine grace; whose treasures are in the custody of its officers, to be dealt out by them, and at their discretion. It is like one of the rich con- vents of the middle ages, to whose gates the people repaired at stated times for food. The convent was the store-house. Those who wanted food must come to its gates. Food was given at the discretion of its officers, to what persons and on what conditions they saw fit. To obtain supplies, it was of course necessary to recognize the convent as the depository, and its officers as the distributers ; and none who refused such recognition, could be fed from, its stores. The analogy fails indeed as to an essential point. Food could be obtained elsewhere than at the convent gates ; and none need apply, who did not choose to submit to the prescribed conditions. Whereas, according to Kitualists, the food of the soul can be obtained nowhere but at the door of the church ; and those who refuse to receive it there, and at the hands of authorized ministers, and on the terms they prescribe, cannot receive it at all. Unless in communion of the church we cannot be saved ; and unless in subjection to prelates deriving the gift of the Spirit by regular succession from the apostles, we cannot be in communion of the church. The subjection to the bishop, therefore, is an indispensable condition of salvation. He is the centre, of unity ; the bond of union between the believer and the church and thus with Christ. The unity of the church, according to this theory, is no longer a spiritual union ; not a unity of faith and love, but a union 214 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. of association, a union of connection with the authorized dis- pensers of saving grace. It is not enough for any society of men to show that they are united in faith with the apostles, and in heart with all the people of God, and with Christ by the indwell- ing of his Spirit, as manifested by his fruits, they cannot be rec- ognized as any portion of the true church, unless they can prove historically their descent as a society from the apostles through a line of bishops. They must prove themselves a church, just as a man proves his title to an estate. No church, says Mr. Palmer, not founded by the apostles, or regularly descended from such a church without separation or excommunication, can be considered a true church ; and every society that can make out such a de- scent, is a true church, for a church can only cease to be united to Christ by its own act of separation, or by the lawful judgment of others. Yol. I., p. 84. This also is what is meant by apostolicity as an attribute and mark of the church. A church is not apostolical because it holds the doctrines, and conforms to the institutions of the apostles, but because it is historically derived from them by an uninter- rupted descent. "Any society which is in fact derived from the apostles, must be so by spiritual propagation, or derivation, or union, not by separation from the apostles or the churches actually derived from their preaching, under pretence of estab- lishing a new system of supposed apostolic perfection. Deriva- tion from the apostles is, in the former case, a reality, just as much as the descent of an illustrious family from its original founder. In the latter case it is merely an assumption in which the most essential links of the genealogy are wanting/' Palmer, Vol. I., p. 160. This descent must be through pre- lates, who are the bonds of connection between the apostles and the different portions of the one catholic and apostolic church. Without regular consecration there can be no bishop ; and without a bishop no church, and out of the church no sal- vation. The application of these principles as made by their advocates, reveals their nature and importance, more distinctly than any mere verbal statement of them. The Methodists, for example, though they adopt the doctrinal standards of the church of Eng- land, and have the same form of government, are not, and never can become, according to this theory, a part of the church, be- THEORIES OF THE CHUROH. 215 cause the line of descent was broken by Wesley. He was but a presbyter, and could not continue the succession of the ministry. A fatal flaw thus exists in their ecclesiastical ped- igree, and they are hopelessly cut off from the church and from salvation. The Roman and Eastern churches, on the contrary, are de- clared to be true churches, because descended from the com- munions founded by the apostles, and because they have never been separated from the church catholic either by voluntary secession or by excommunication. The Nestorians, on the other hand, are declared to be no part of the true church ; for though they may now have the orthodox faith, and though they have preserved the succession of bishops, they were excom- municated in the fifth century, and that sentence has never been revoked. The church of England is declared to be a true church, be- cause it has preserved the succession, and because, although excommunicated by the church of Rome, that sentence has not been ratified by the church universal. All other ecclesiastical societies in Great Britain and Ireland, whether Romanist or Protestant, are pronounced to be cut off from the church and out of the way of salvation. This position is openly avowed, and is the necessary consequence of the theory. As to the Roman- ists in those countries, though they have the succession, yet they voluntarily separate themselves from the church of Eng- land, which as that is a true church, is to separate them- selves from the church of Christ, a sin which is declared to be of the same turpitude as adultery and murder, and as certainly excludes from heaven. As to all other Protestant bodies, the case is still plainer. They have not only separated from the church, but lost the succession, and are therefore out of the reach of the benefits of redemption, which flow only in the line of that succession. The church of Scotland is declared to be in the same deplorable condition. Though under the Stuarts episcopacy was established in that country, yet it was strenuously resisted by the people ; and under William III. it was, by a joint act of the Assembly and Parliament formally rejected ; they thereby separated them- selves from the successors of the apostles, " and all the temporal enactments and powers of the whole world could not cure this 216 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. faultj nor render them a portion of the church of Christ/' Palm- er, Vol. I., p. 529. The same judgment is pronounced on all the churches in this country except the church of England. The Komanists here are excluded, because they are derived from the schismatic Papists in Grreat Britain and Ireland, or have intruded into sees where bishops deriving authority from the Anglican church already presided. How this can be historically made out as regards Maryland, and Louisiana, it is not for us to say. The theory forbids the existence of two separate churches in the same place. If the church of England in Maryland is a true church, the church of Rome is not. Bishop Whittingham, therefore, with perfect consistency, always speaks of the Romanists in the United States as schismatics, and schismatics of course are out of the church. As to non-episcopal communions in this country, they are not only declared to be in a state of schism, but to be destitute of the essential elements of the church. They are all, therefore, of necessity excluded from the pale of the church. The advocates of this theory, when pressed with the obvious ob- jection that multitudes thus excluded from the church, and con- sequently from salvation, give every evidence of piety, meet the objection by quoting Augustine, ^ Let us hold it as a thing un- shaken and firm, that no good men can divide themselves from the church." " It is not indeed to be supposed or believed for a moment," adds Mr. Palmer, " that divine grace would permit the really holy and justified members of Christ to fall from the way of life. He would only permit the unsanctified, the enemies of Christ to sever themselves from that fountain, where his Spirit is freely given.'' Voluntary separation therefore from the church, h^ concludes, is "a sin which, unless repented of, is eternally destructive of the soul. The heinous nature of this offence is incapable of exaggeration, because no human imagina- tion, and no human tongue can adequately describe its enormity." Vol. I., p. 68. The only church in Great Britain, according to Mr. Palmer, be it remembered, is the church of England, and the only church in this country according to the same theory and its advocates, is the Episcopal church. Thus the knot is fairly cut. It is apparently a formidable difficulty, that there should be more piety out of the church, than in it. But the difficulty vanishes at once, when we know that " no good man can divide himself from the church." THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. 217 If this theory were new, if it were now presented for the first time, it would be rejected with indignation and derision ; indig- nation at its monstrous and unscriptural claims, and derision at the weakness of the arguments by which it is supported. But age renders even imbecility venerable. It must also be conceded that a theory which has for centuries prevailed in the church, must have something to recommend it. It is not difficult to discover in the present case, what that something is. The Eitual theory of the church is perfectly simple and consistent. It has the first and most important element of success in being intelli- gible. That Christ should found a church, or external society, giving to his apostles the Holy Spirit to render them infallible in teaching and judging, and authorize them to communicate the like gift to their successors to the end of time ; and make it a condition of salvation that all should recognize their spiritual authority, receive their doctrines and submit to their decisions, declaring that what they bound on earth should be bound in heaven, and what they loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven, is precisely the plan which the wise men of this world have devised. It is in fact that which they have constructed. We must not forget, however, that the wisdom of men is foolish- ness with God. Again, this theory admits of being propounded in the forms of truth. All its fundamental principles may be stated in a form to command universal assent. It is true that the church is one, that it is catholic and apostolical ; that it has the power of authoritative teaching and judging, that out of its pale there is no salvation. But this system perverts all these principles. It places the bond of unity in the wrong place. Instead of saying with Jerome, Ecclesia ibi est, ubi vera fides est, or with Irenaeus, ubi Spiritus Dei, illic ecclesia, they assume that the church is nowhere, where prelates are not. The true apostolicity of the church, does not consist in an external descent to be historically traced from the early churches, but in sameness of faith and Spirit with the apostles. Separation from the church is indeed a great sin ; but there is no separation from the church involved in withdrawing from an external body whose terms of communion hurt the enlightened conscience ; provided this be done without excommunicating or denouncing those who are really the people of God. 218 THEOKIES OF THE CHURCH. The great advantage of this theory, however, is to be found in its adaptation to the human heart. Most men who live where the gospel is known, desire some better foundation for confidence towards God, than their own works. To such men the church, according to this theory, presents itself as an Institute of Salva- tion ; venerable for its antiquity, attractive from the number and rank of its disciples, and from the easy terms on which it proffers pardon and eternal life. There are three very comprehensive classes of men to whom this system must commend itself The first consists of those who are at once ignorant and wicked. The degraded inhabitants of Italy and Portugal have no doubt of their salvation, no matter how wicked they may be, so long as they are in the church and submissive to ofiicers and rites. The second includes those who are devout and at the same time ignorant of the Scriptures. Such men feel the need of religion, of communion with God, and of preparation for heaven. But knowing nothing of the gospel, or disliking what they know, a form of religion which is laborious, mystical, and ritual, meets all their necessities, and commands their homage. The third class consists of worldly men, who wish to enjoy this life and get to heaven with as little trouble as possible. Such men, the world over, are High Churchmen. To them a church which claims the secure and exclusive custody of the blessings of redemption, and which she professes to grant on the condition of unresisting sub- mission to her authority and rites, is exactly the church they desire. We need not wonder, therefore, at the long-continued and extensive prevalence of this system. It is too much in accordance with the human heart, to fail of its support, or to be effectually resisted by any power short of that by which the heart is changed. It is obvious that the question concerning the nature and pre- rogatives of the church, is not one which relates to the externals of religion. It concerns the very nature of Christianity and the conditions of salvation. If the soul convinced of sin and desirous of reconciliation with God, is allowed to hear the Saviour's voice, and permitted to go to him by faith for pardon and for the gift of the Spirit, then the way of life is unobstructed. But if a human priest must intervene, and bar our access to Christ, assuming the exclusive power to dispense the blessings Christ has purchased, and to grant or withhold them at discretion, then the whole plan THEOEIES OF THE CHURCH. 219 of salvation is effectually changed. No sprinkling priest, nc sacrificial or sacramental rite can be substituted for the im- mediate access of the soul to Christ, without imminent peril of salvation. It is not, however, merely the first tipproach to God, or the commencement of a religious life, that is perverted by the ritual system ; all the inward and permanent exercises of religion must be modified and injured by it. It produces a different kind of religion from that which we find portrayed in the Bible, and ex- emplified in the lives of the apostles and early Christians. There everything is spiritual. God and Christ are the immediate objects of reverence and love ; communion with the Father of Spirits through Jesus Christ his Son, and by the Holy Ghost, is the life which is there exhibited. In the ritual system, rites, ceremonies, altars, buildings, priests, saints, the blessed virgin, intervene and divide or absorb the reverence and homage due to God alone. If external rites and creature agents are made necessary to our access to God, then those rites and agents wilL more or less take the place of God, and men will come to worship the creature rather than the creator. This tendency constantly gathers strength, until actual idolatry is the consequence, or until all religion, is made to consist in the performance of external services. Hence this system is not only destructive of true religion, but leads to security in the indulgence of sin and commission of crimes. Though it includes among its advocates many devout and exemplary men, its legitimate fruits are reck- lessness and profligacy, combined with superstition and bigotry. It is impossible, also, under this system, to avoid transferring the subjection of the understanding and conscience due to God and his word, to the church and the priesthood. The judgments of the church, considered as an external visible society, are pro- nounced even by the Protestant advocates of this theory, to be unerring and irrefragable, to which every believer must bow on pain of perdition. See Palmer, Vol. ii., p. 46. The bishops are declared to stand in Christ's place ; to be clothed with all the authority which he as man possessed ; to be invested with the power to communicate the Holy Ghost, to forgive sins, to make the body and blood of Christ, and to offer sacrifices available for the living and the dead. Such a system must exalt the priest- hood into the place of God. 220 THEORIES OF THE CHURCH. A theory, however, which has so long prevailed, need not be judged by its apparent tendencies. Let it be judged by its fruits. It has always and everywhere, just in propoi-tion to its prevalence, produced the effects above referred to. It has changed the plan of salvation ; it has rendered obsolete the answer given by Paul to the question, What must I do to be saved ? It has perverted religion. It has introduced idolatry. It has rendered men secure in the habitual commission of crime. It has subjected the faith, the conscience, and the conduct of the people to the dictation of the priesthood. It has exalted the hierarchy, saints, angels, and the Virgin Mary, into the place of God, so as to give a polytheistic character to the religion of a large part of Christendom. Such are the actual fruits of that system which has of late renewed its strength, and which every- where asserts its claims to be received as genuine Christianity. It wiU not be necessary to dwell on that theory of the church which is connected with Rationalism. Its characteristic feature is, that the church is not a divine institution, with prerogatives and attributes authoritatively determined by its author, but rather a form of Christian soci^y, to be controlled according to the wisdom of its members. It may be identified with the state, or made dependent on it ; or erected into a co-ordinate body with its pecuhar officers and ends. It is obvious that a system which sets aside, more or less completely, the authority both of Scripture and tradition, must leave its advocates at liberty to make of the church just what " the exigency of the times'' in their judgment requires. The philosophical or mystic school of Rationalists, have of course a mystical doctrine of the church, which can be understood only by those who understand the philosophy on which it rests. With these views we have in this country little concern, nor do we believe they are destined to ex- cite any general interest, or to exert any permanent influence. The two theories of the church which are now in obvious conflict, are the Evangelical and Ritual. The controversy between Pro- testants and Romanists, has, in appearance, shifted its ground from matters of doctrine to the question concerning the church. This is, however, only a change in form. The essential question remains the same. It is still a contention about the very nature of religion, and the method of salvation. VII. IS THE CHURCH OF ROME A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH ?i It is very plain that our remarks, in our number of July last, in favor of the validity of Romish baptism, have not met the ap- probation of a large portion of our brethren. This, though a matter of regret, is not a matter of surprise. The large majority of the last Assembly by which the resolution pronouncing such baptism null and void was carried, as well as other indications of the public mind in the church, made it plain from the begin- ning that we should be for the present, at least, and probably for some years, in a small minority on this question. Our confidence, however, in the correctness of our position, has not been shaken. That confidence rests partly on the conviction we cannot help feeling of the soundness of the arguments on which our conclu- sion rests ; and partly on the fact that those arguments have satisfied the minds of the vast majority of the people of God from the Reformation to the present time. We have, however, waited, with minds we hope open to conviction, to hear what was to be said on the opposite side. The religious papers early announced that full replies to our arguments would speedily appear. Providential circumstances, it seems, have prevented, until recently, the accomphshment of their purpose thus early an- nounced. All that we have seen in the shape of argument on the subject, are two numbers of a series of articles now in the course of publication in the Watchman and Observer, of Richmond, and the essays of Theophilus, in the Presbyterian. Our respect for the writer in the Watchman, and for the thoroughness and abil- ity which distinguish his opening numbers, imposes on us the ' Essays in the Presbyterian by Theophilus on (he question : Is Baptism in the Church of Rome valid ? Nos. XI. XII.— Princeton Review, April, 1846. 222 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME duty of silence as to tlie main point in dispute, until the series of articles is completed. It will then be time enough to decide whether the discussion can with profit be further continued in our pages. We are also as yet without any light from Theophi- lus. After writing ten weeks he is but approaching the subject. He closes his tenth number with saying : " We are now pre- pared to begin the argument." All that precedes, therefore, is not properly, in his judgment, of the nature of argument ; though doubtless regarded as pertinent to the discussion. Under these circumstances it is obvious that the way is not open for us to at- tempt to justify our position. We gave the definition of Bap- tism contained in our standards — and then endeavored to show that Romish baptism falls within that definition. Neither of these points has, as yet, been seriously assailed. This is what the writer in the Watchman and Observer proposes to do, and we respectfully wait to hear what he has to say. In the meantime the topic discussed by Theophilus in his eleventh and twelfth numbers, is so important in itself and so intimately connected with this whole subject, that we have determined to devote a few pages to the consideration of the question, Whether the church of Rome is still a portion of the visible church of Christ ? Those taking the negative of this question, have every advan- tage of an adventitious kind in their favor. They have no need of definitions, or distinctions, or of affirming in one sense and de- nying in another. The round, plump, intelligible no, answers all their purposes. They make no demand upon the discrimina- tion, or the candor of the public. They deal in what is called plain common sense, repudiating all metaphysical niceties. They have in this respect the same advantages that the ultra temper- ance man and the abolitionist possess. The former disembarasses himself of aU need of distinctions and qualifications by affirming that the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is sinful ; not sometimes right and sometimes wrong, according to circum- stances, which implies the necessity of determining what those circumstances are which give character to the act. He takes the common sense view of the case ; and asserts that a practice which produces all the drunkenness that is in the world, and all the vice and misery which flow from drunkenness, is a sinful practice. He therefore hoots at those who beg him to discriminate between what is wrong in itself and universally, and what is wrong only A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 223 in certain circumstances ; and cries them down as the friends of publicans and sinners. The abolitionist is still more summary. Slavery is a heinous crime ; it degrades human beings into things ; it forbids marriages ; it destroys the domestic relations ; it separates parents and children, husbands and wives ; it legal- izes what Grod forbids, and forbids what God enjoins ; it keeps its victims in ignorance even of the gospel ; it denies to labor its wages^ subjects the persons, the virtue, and the happiness of many to the caprice of one ; it involves the violation of all social rights and duties,- and therefore is the greatest of social crimes. It is as much as any man^s character for sense, honesty or religion is worth, to insist that a distinction must here be made ; that we must discriminate between slavery and its separable adjuncts ; between the relation itself and the abuse of it ; between the possession of power and the unjust exercise of it. Let any man in some portions of our country, in England, in Scotland, or Ire- land, attempt to make such distinctions, and see with what an outburst of indignation he will be overwhelmed. It is just so in the present case. Kome is antichrist, the mystical Babylon, the scarlet woman, the mother of harlots, drunk with the blood of the saints. What room, asks Theophilus, is there for argument here ? Is Babylon Zion ? Is the synagogue of Satan the church of Christ, the scarlet woman the bride of the Lamb ? Woe to the man who ventures to ask for definitions, and discrimination ; or to suggest that possibly these antagonistic designations are not applied to the same subject, or to the same subject under the same aspect ; that as of old the prophets denounced the Hebrew community under the figure of an adulterous woman, and almost in the same breath addresses them as the beloved of God, his chosen people, compared to the wife of one's youth ; so it may be here. The case is pronounced too plain for argu- ment ; the appeal is made at once to the feelings of the reader, and those who do not join in the cry are represented as advocates of popery, or at best very doubtful Protestants. We do not mean to complain of anything of this kind we may have ourselves experienced. We gratefully acknowledge the^ general courtesy of Theophilus and the Christian spirit and gentlemanly bearing of the writer in the Watchman. Our object in these remarks is to call attention to the fact that there is very great danger of our being carried away by the mere sound and 224 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME appearance of argument in all such cases, and that while an easy triumph may be gained for the moment by taking things in the gross, and refusing the trouble of determining accurately the meaning of the terms we use, yet that the evils which flow from this course are often serious and lasting. We have seen churches rent asunder by the anti-slavery agitation, when it is probable, if the different parties had calmly sat down to compare their views and define their terms, it would have been found they were substantially of the same mind. It is neither by research nor argument the question whether Romanists are members of the visible church is to be answered. It is a simple matter of definition and statement. All that can be done is first to determine what is meant by the word church ; and secondly what is meant by Rome, church of Rome, Roman- ists, or whatever term is used, and then see whether the two agree, whether Rome falls within or without the definition of the church. By a definition, we do not mean a description including a specification of all the attributes which properly pertain to the thing defined ; but an enumeration of its essential attributes and of none other. We may say that a Christian is a man who believes all that Christ taught, who obeys all that he commanded, and trusts all his promises. This, however, is a description of an ideal or perfect Christian. It is not a definition which is to guide our judgment, whether a particular individual is to be re- garded and treated as a Christian. We may say that a church is a society in which the pure word of Grod is preached, the sacra- ments duly administered, and discipline properly exercised by legitimate officers. This, however, is a description of a pure and orderly church, and not an enumeration of the essential attributes of such a body. If we use that description as a definition, we must exclude all but orthodox Presbyterians from the pale of the church. The eastern churches, the church of England, the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists would without exception be cut off. Every one of these classes of Christians fails, accord- ing to our standard, in some one or more of the above specifica- tions. They are all defective either as to doctrine, or as to the sacraments, or as to the proper exercise of discipline, or as to the organs through which such discipline is exercised. This distinc- tion between a description and definition, between an enumera* A PA.BT OF THE VISIBLE CHUBCH? 225 tion of what belongs to a pure church, and what is necessary to the being of a church, is often disregarded. We think Theophi- lus overlooks it. He quotes largely from Turrettin as sustaining his views on this subject ; whereas Turrettin is on precisely the opposite ground ; affirming what Theophilus denies, and deny- ing what Theophilus affirms. Turrettin expressly makes the distinction between " a true church," i. e., a church which con- forms to the true standard of what a church ought to be, and a heretical, corrupt, and apostate church. True, in his use of the term, corresponds with orthodox or pure ; not with real. A body, therefore, according to him may be a church, and yet not a true church. We adverted to this fact in our former article, and referred so distinctly to the statement of Turrettin that we are surprised to find Theophilus quoting him as he does. " Since the church of Eome," says Turrettin, " may be viewed under a twofold aspect, either in reference to the profession of Christian- ity and of the evangelical truths which she retains, or in refer- ence to her subjection to the pope, and to her corruptions both in matters of faith and morals, we can speak of her in two differ- ent ways. Under one aspect, we do not deny she retains some truth ; under the other we deny that she is Christian and apos- tolical, and affirm her to be anti-christian and apostate. In one sense, we admit she may be still called a Christian church. 1st. In reference to the people of God, or the elect, who are called to come out of her even at the time of her destruction, Kev. xviii. 4. 2d. In reference to external form, or certain ele- ments of a dispersed church, the vestiges of which are still con- spicuous, as well as regards the word of God and the preaching thereof, which she still retains, although corrupted, as the ad- ministration of the sacraments, especially baptism, which as to its substance is there retained in its integrity. 3d. In reference to the evangelical truths, as concerning the Trinity, Christ the mediator, God and man, by which she is distinguished from a congregation of pagans or infidels. But we deny that she can properly and simply ({. e., without qualification) be called a true church, much less the only and the catholic church, as they would wish to have her called." In the next paragraph but one, he explains what he means by verity as affirmed of a church, when we say she is vera ecclesia. It includes " verity in faith," or freedom from heresy ; purity, or 15 226 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME freedom from all superstition and idolatry ; liberty in govern- ment, freedom from servitude and tyranny ; sanctity of morals, as opposed to corruption of manners ; and certainty and consola- tion, or freedom from doubt or diffidence. Again, in answer to the objection that if Komanists have true baptism they must be a true church, he says : " True baptism does indeed suppose a true church, as far as Christianity in the general is concerned, as opposed to a congregation of infidels ; but not as it relates to pure Christianity, free from heretical errors ; since true baptism may be found among heretics, who are not a tnie church." — P. 151. It is very evident, therefore, that Kome, according to Turret- tin, is to be viewed under two aspects ; under the one she is a church, i. e., a body in which the people of God still are ; which retains the word of God and the preaching of it, though cor- rupted, and the sacraments, especially baptism. Under the other aspect, i. e., as a papal body, she is not a church ; i. e., her popery and all her corruptions are anti-christian and apostate. She is not therefore a true church, for a true church is free from heresy, from superstition, from oppressive regimen, from corrup- tion of manners, and from doubt or diffidence. Whether Theophi- lus approves of these distinctions or not ; whether he thinks that the English word true can be used in the latitude which Turrettin gives the Latin word verus, or not ; still he ought to give the Geneva professor the benefit of his own statements and definitions ; and not represent him as denying that the church of Kome is a church, when he denies that she is a true, i. e., a pure church. Turrettin says Eomish baptism is valid. Theophilus says it is not. Both however agree that if Kome is in no sense a church, her baptism is in no case valid. It is obvious, therefore, that Turrettin admits her to be a church in the sense in which Theophilus denies it. Professor Thornwell veiy correctly remarked, in his efioctive speech before the General Assembly, that it is very plain that though the Reformers denied Kome to be the true church, they admitted her to be in some sense a church. The fact is, they used the word true as Turrettin does, as implying conformity with the true model or standard. They made a distinction between a description of a church including all the excellencies -such a body ought to possess ; and a definition including nothing A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 227 but what is essential to the being of a church. It is to the dan- ger of confounding these two things, that the foregoing remarks are directed. The real difficulty in the case, is that it is impossible to give any one definition of a church, except in the most general terms, which includes all the established uses of the word. Among Congregationalists a church is a number of persons giving credi- ble evidence of regeneration, united by a covenant for the pur- poses of Christian worship and mutual watch and care. It is not to be denied that such a body is a church ; it falls within the legitimate sense and wider definition of the term. This narrow sense has gradually diffused itself through our common modes of speech. We talk of a man's being admitted to the church, or excluded from it, meaning by the church the body of communi- cants, to the exclusion of the great body of the baptized. To those accustomed to this use of the term, no body larger than a single congregation can be a church, and none composed in great part of those who give no evidence and make no profession of regeneration. Men possessed with this idea of the church, and unable to get a wider conception of it, ask with confidence. Can a corrupt, wicked, persecuting body be a church ? Are its members the called of God, believers, saints, the temples of the Holy Ghost, and members of Christ ? Of course not. No such body falls within their definition of the church ; and if they can prove that that definition is the only proper one, there can be no further dispute about the matter. But the usus loquendi neither of the Bible nor of the English language is determined by Con- gregationalists. It is an undeniable fact that we speak and speak correctly of the Reformed Dutch church ; of the Episcopal church, and of the Presbyterian church, without intending to affirm that the several bodies thus designated are composed of persons giving credible evidence of regeneration, and united by covenant for worship and discipline. It will not do therefore to conclude that the church of England or that of Scotland is no church, because it does not fall within the New England defini- tion of a church. When we turn to the Scriptures and to the common language of Christians, we do not find the word church used in senses which admit of being embraced under one definition. In other wordSj the essential attributes of the church, in one established 228 ISTHECHURCHOFROME sense of the term, are not its essential attributes in another equally authorized sense. Thus we are told that the church con- sists of the whole number of the elect who ever have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof. In this sense of the word, it is essential to the church that it consist of the elect only, and that it should include them all. That this definition is sustained by scriptural usage cannot be disputed. It is in this sense the church is the body of Christ, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. It is by the church, thus understood, God is to manifest to principalities and powers his manifold wis- dom. This is the church which Christ loved, and for which he gave himself that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to him- self a glorious church. It would of course be absurd to contend that no society is a church which does not come under that definition. Again the word is often used as equivalent with saints, believ- ers, the true people of God, existing at any one time on earth, or in any one place. The word is used in this sense when Paul exhorts us to give no offence to the church, i. e,, the people of God ; and when he says he persecuted the church. In like manner, when we pray for the church, either in the whole world, or in a particular country, or city, we surely do not mean the Presbyterian, or Episcopal, or Methodist church, or any one organized body. We have in our mind the true people of God, scattered abroad it may be, existing in every Christian denomina- tion. In this sense of the word it is essential to the church that it consist of true believers. A third sense of the word is that in which it is used when we say the church consists of all those throughout the world who profess the true religion, together with their children. This is a legitimate established meaning of the term. In this view of the church, nothing is essential to it but the profession of the tnie religion ; and in this sense every individual making that profes- sion is a member, and every society composed of such individuals is a portion of the church, or is included in it. Theophilus expresses great surprise that we should venture the assertion that organization is not essential to the church. He ridicules the statement, and appeals to the language of the Psalmist when he bids us walk about Zion and tell the towers A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 229 thereof, as a sufficient refutation of it. By organization we meant, and it is very evident he means, external ordered union. We presume Theophilus himself will not maintain that in either of the three established senses of the word above stated, organ- ization is among its essential attributes. It is not enumerated in the definitions as given from our standards and from Scrip- ture ; nor is it necessarily included in the complex conception to which we give the name church. When we conceive of the whole body of the elect, which have been or are to be gathered into one under Christ, it is not as an external organized body furnished with ministers and sacraments, but simply as the great body of the redeemed united to Christ and to each other by the indwelling of the Spirit. So too when we speak of the church as consisting of true believers, we do not conceive of them as an external organized body. We pray for no such body when we pray for the church of God throughout the world. The word is but a collective term for the saints, or children of God. It is equivalent to the true Israel; Israel nara Tzvev^a as distinguished from the Israel Kara odpaa. In like manner, when the word is used for all those throughout the world who profess the true religion ; the idea of organization is of necessity excluded from that of the church. The visible church catholic is not an organ- ized body on any but Komish principles. We are therefore sur- prised that Theophilus should be thrown off his balance, by a remark so obviously true, and of such constant recurrence in the writings of Protestants. There is a fourth established meaning of the word church, which has more direct reference to the question before us. It often means an organized society professing the true religion, united for the purpose of worship and discipline, and subject to the same form of government and to some common tribunal. A multitude of controversies turn upon the correctness of this defini- tion. It includes the following particulars. 1. A church is an organized society. It is thus distinguished from the casual or temporary assemblies of Christians, for the purpose of divine worship. 2, It must profess the true religion. By the true religion cannot be meant all the doctrines of the true religion,' and nothing more or less. For then no human society would be a church unless perfect both in knowledge and faith. Nor can it mean all the clearly revealed and important doctrines of the 230 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME Bible. For then no man could be a Christian and no body of men a church, which rejects or is ignorant of any of those doc- trines. But it must mean the essential doctrines of the gospel, those doctrines without the knowledge and possession of which, no man can be saved. This is plain, because nothing can be essential, as far as truth is concerned, to a church, which is not essential to union with Christ. We are prohibited by our allegi- ance to the word of God from recognizing as a true Christian, any man who rejects any doctrine which the Scriptures declare to be essential to salvation ; and we are bound by that allegiance not to refuse such recognition, on account of ignorance or error, to any man who professes what the Bible teaches is saving truth. It is absurd that we should make more truth essential to a visi- ble church, than Christ has made essential to the church invisible and to salvation. This distinction between essential and unes- sential doctrines Protestants have always insisted upon, and Komanists and AngHcans as strenuously rejected. It is, however, so plainly recognized in Scripture, and so obviously necessary in practice, that those who reject it in terms in opposition to Prot- estants, are forced to admit it in reality. They make substan- tially the same distinction when they distinguish between matters of faith and matters of opinion, and between those truths which must be received with explicit faith {i. e., known as well as believed) and those which may be received with implicit faith ; i. e., received without knowlege, as a man who believes the Bible to be the word of God may be said to believe all it teaches, though it may contain many things of which he is ignorant. Eomanists say that every doctrine on which the church has pronounced judgment as part of the revelation of God, is a matter of faith, and essential to the salvation of those to whom it is duly proposed. Anglicans say the same thing of those doctrines which are sustained by tradition. Here is virtu- ally the same distinction between fundamental and other doc- trines, which Protestants make. The only difference is as to the criterion by which the one class is to be distinguished from the other. Romanists and Anglicans say that criterion is the judg- ment of the church; Protestants say it is the word of God. What the Bible declares to be essential to salvation, is essential : what it does not make absolutely necessary to be believed and professed, no man can rightfully declare to be absolutely neces- A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 231 sary. And what is not essential to the true church, the spiritual body of Christ, or to salvation, cannot be essential to the visible church. This is really only saying that those whom Christ" declares to be his people, we have no right to say are not his people. If any man thinks he has such a right, it would be well for him to take heed how he exercises it. By the true religion, therefore, which a society must profess in • order to its being recognized as a church, must be meant those doctrines which are essential to salvation. 3. Such society must not only profess the true religion, but its object must be the worship of Grod and the exercise of discipline. A church is thus distinguished from a Bible, missionary, or any similar society of Christians. 4. To constitute it a church, {. e., externally one body, it must have the same form of government and be subject to some com- mon tribunal. The different classes of Presbyterians in this country, though professing the same doctrines and adopting the same form of government, are not all members of the same ex- ternal church, because subject to different tribunals. Now the question is, Is this a correct definition of a church ? Does it omit anything that is essential, or include anything that is unessential ? The only things which we can think of as likely to be urged as omissions, are the ministry and the sacra- ments. Few things in our July number seem to have given Theophilus more pain than our saying that the ministry is not essential to the church. With regard to this point, we would re- mark. 1. That we believe the ministry to be a divine institu- tion. 2. That it was designed to be perpetual. 3. That it has been perpetuated. 4. That it is necessary to the edification and extension of the church. But we are very far from believing the popish doctrine that the ministry is essential to the being of a church, and that there is no church where there is no ministry. Officers are necessary to the well-being of a nation, and no na- tion can long exist without them. But a nation does not cease to exist when the king or president dies. The nation would con- tinue though every civil ofiicer was cut off in a night ; and blessed be Grod, the church would still live, though all ministers should die or apostatize at once. We believe with Professor ThornweU, and with the real living church of God in all ages, that if the ministry fails, the church can make a ministry ; or 232 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME rather that Christ, who is in his church by the Spirit, would then, as he does now, by his divine call constitute men ministers. It strikes us as most extraordinary for a Presbyterian to say that the ministry is essential to the church, and that it must enter into the definition ; when our own book makes provision, first, for the organization of a church, and tlien for the election of its officers. A number of believers are constituted a church, and then, and not until they are a church, they elect their elders and call a pastor. Every vacant church is a practical proof that the ministry does not enter into the definition of the church. The- ophilus amuses himself at our expense for our venturing to say, '^ Bellarmine has the credit of being the first writer who thus corrupted the definition of the church," that is, by introducing subjection to lawful pastors as part of that definition. We were well aware of the danger of asserting a negative. We knew that we had not read every writer before the time of Bellarmine, and that we could remember very little of the little we had read. We were, therefore, wise enough not to say that no man before the popish cardinal had perpetrated a like interpolation into the definition of the church, but contented ourselves with the safe remark that he has the credit of being the first who was guilty of that piece of priestcraft. That he has that credit among Prot- estants can hardly be disputed. Dean Sherlock says : "I know indeed of late the clergy have in a great measure monopolized the name of the church, whereas, in propriety of speech, they do not belong to the definition of a church," any more than a shep- herd to the definition of a flock, w^hich is his illustration. '^ The learned Launoy," he adds, " has produced texts of Scripture for this definition of the church, viz.: that it is the company of the faithful ; and has proved by the testimony of the fathers in all ages, even down to the Council of Trent itself, that this was the received notion of the church, till it was altered by Canisius and Bellarmine," the former ^' putting Christ's vicar into the defini- tion," the latter, subjection " to lawful pastors." " Whereas," continues the Dean, "before these men, neither pastors nor bishops, much less the Pope of Rome, were ever put into the general definition of a church."' Very much the same complaint is uttered by Dr. Thomas Jackson, against " Bellarmine, Valen- tia, Stapleton, and some others," for troubling the stream of ^ See Preservative against Popery, vol. i., tit. iii,, ch. i., p. 36. A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 233 God's word as to the nature and definition of tlie church.* It surely does not become Presbyterians to exalt the clergy beyond the place assigned them by these strong Episcopalians, and make them essential to the being of the church, and of course an ele- ment in the definition of the term. Very much the same remarks may be made in reference to the sacraments. We of course believe, 1 That the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper are of divine appointment. 2. That they are of perpetual obligation. 3. That they are signs and seals of the covenant, and means of grace. 4. That the ob- servance of them is a high duty and privilege, and consequently the neglect or want of them, a great sin or defect ; but to make them essential to the church is to make them essential to salva- tion, which is contrary to Scripture. If baptism made a man a Christian, if it communicated a new nature which could be re- ceived in no other way, then indeed there could be no Christians and no church without baptism. But such is not the Protestant or scriptural doctrine of the sacraments. The Hebrew nation would not cease to be Hebrews, if they ceased to practice cir- cumcision. They did not in fact cease to be the church, though they neglected that rite for the forty years they wandered in the wilderness, until there was not a circumcised man among them, save Caleb and Joshua. Yet far more is said of the duty and necessity of circumcision in the Old Testament than is said of baptism in the New. It is the doctrine of our church that baptism recognizes, but does not constitute membership in the church. Plain and important, therefore, as is the duty of ad- ministering and observing these ordinances, they are not to be exalted into a higher place than that assigned them in the word of God. Though the due celebration of the sacraments may very properly be enumerated, in one sense, among the signs of the church, we do not feel authorized or permitted by the authority of Scripture, to make such celebration essential to salvation or to the existence of the church. If any of our brethren should differ from us as to this point, it would not follow that they must re- ject the definition above given. For as the sacraments are a means and a mode of divine worship, the due celebration of them may be considered as included in that clause of the definition, which declares that a church is a society for the worship of God. ' See treatise on the church, page 50, Goode's edition. 234 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME We revert therefore to tlie question, Is the definition given above correct ? Is a church an organized society professing the true rehgion, united for the worship of God and tiie exercise of discipline, and subject to the same form of government and to some common tribunal ? It certainly has in its favor the com- mon usus loquendi. When we speak of the church of England, of Scotland, the Free church, the Secession church, the Protest- ant Episcopal church ; or when we speak of a single congregation as a church, as the church at Easton, or the first, second, or third Presbyterian church in Philadelphia ; or if we take the term in the New England sense, as distinguished from parish or congre- gation, still all these cases fall under the definition. By the word church, in all such cases, we mean an organized society, professing the true religion, united for the worship of God and the exercise of discipline, under the same form of government and under some common tribunal. That common tribunal in a Congregational church, is the brotherhood ; in a Presbyterian church, the session ; in the Presbyterian church in the United States, our General Assembly ; in the Episcopal church, the gen- eral convention ; in the Church of England, the reigning sover- eign ; in the Evangelical church of Prussia, the king. In all these cases it is subjection to some independent tribunal that gives unity to a church, in the light in which it is here contem- plated. 2. This definition is substantially the one given in our stand- ards. " A particular church consists of a number of professing Christians with their offspring, voluntarily associated together for divine worship and godly hving agreeably to the Holy Scriptures ; and submitting to a certain form of government.^ " Professing Christians" is here used as equivalent to '■' those professing the true religion," the form of expression adopted in the Confession of Faith and Larger Catechism. It is obvious that the defini- tion suits all the cases mentioned above, applying equally well to a single congregation, and to a whole denomination united in one body. 3. This definition suits the use of the term as it occurs in many passages of Scripture. When we read of the church of Corinth, of Antioch, of Kome, the word is universally admitted to designate a number of persons professing the true religion, ^ Form of Goverament, ch. 2, sec. 4. I A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 235 united for religious worship and discipline, under some common tribunal. 4. This definition is one to which the principles laid down on- ^his subject in Scripture necessarily lead. The Scriptures teach that the faith in Christ makes a man a Christian ; the profession of that faith makes him a professing Christian. The true, or in- visible church consists of true believers ; the visible church cath- olic, of all professed believers ; a particular visible church, of a society of such professors, united for church purposes and separ- ated from other societies by subjection to some one tribunal. These seem to be plain scriptural principles. If any thing else or more than faith in Christ is absolutely necessary to union with him, and therefore to salvatien ; then something more than faith is necessary to make a man a Christian, and something more than the profession of that faith to make him a professing Chris- tian, and consequently some other sign of a visible church must be necessary than the profession of the true rehgion. But we do not see how consistently with the evangelical system of doc- trine, and especially with the great doctrine that salvation is by faith, we can avoid the conclusion that all true believers are in the true church, and all professing believers are in the visible church. 5. Did time permit, or were it necessary, it could easily be proved that in all ages of the church, this idea of the church has been the prevailing one. We have already quoted the testimony of Sherlock against the Eomanists in proof of this point, and it would be easy to fill volumes with quotations from ancient and modern writers, to the same effect. " Church," says Hooker in his Eccles. Polity, vol. ii., 17, " is a word which art hath devised, thereby to sever and distinguish that society of men which profes- aeth the true religion from the rest, which profess it not, * -•' * whereupon, because the only object which separateth ours from other religions, is Jesus Christ, in whom none but the church doth believe, and whom none but the church doth worship ; we find that accordingly the apostles do everywhere distinguish hereby the church from infidels and Jews, accounting them which call upon the name of the Lord Jesus to be his church." And again, B. 3, § 1, " The visible church of Jesus Christ is one by outward profession of those things which supernaturally apper- tain to the essence of Christianity, and are necessarily required 236 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME in every particular Christian man/' Barrow, in his Discourse on the Unity of the Church says, '^ It is evident that the church is one by consent in faith and opinion concerning all principal matters of opinion." Bishop Taylor, in his Dissuasive against* Popery, says, " The church (visible) is a company of men and women professing the saving doctrines of Jesus Christ." This is but saying what TertuUian, Augustin, Jerome, Hilary, Chry- sostom and the whole line of God's people have said from the beginning. 6. Finally, we appeal in support of the essential element of the definition of a church given above, to the constant testimony of the Spirit. The Scriptures teach that the Spirit operates through the truth ; that we have no right to expect his influence (as far as adults are concerned) where the truth is not known, and that where it is known, he never fails to give it more or less effect ; that wherever the Spirit is, there is the church, since it is by receiving the Spirit, men become members of the true church ; and wherever the true or invisible church is, there is the church visible, because profession of the faith is a sure conse- quence of the possession of faith ; and, therefore, where these true believers are united in the profession of that truth by which they are saved, with a society or community — then such society is within the limits of the visible church, i, e., is a constituent portion of that body which embraces all those who profess the true religion. All we contend for is that the church is the body of Christ, that those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells are mem- bers of that body ; and consequently that whenever we have evidence of the presence of the Spirit, there we have evidence of the presence of the church. And if these evidences occur in a society professing certain doctrines by which men are thus born unto God, it is God's own testimony that such society is still a part of the visible church. It strikes us as one of the greatest absurdities of Ritualism, whether among Romanists or Angli- cans, that it sets up a definition of the church, not at all com- mensurate with its actual and obvious extent. What more glaring absurdity can be uttered than that the Episcopal church in this country is here the only church, when nine tenths of the true religion of the country exists without its pale. It may be man's church, but God's church is much wider. Wherever, therefore, there is a society professing truth, by which men are A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 237 actually born unto God, that society is within the definition of the church given in our standards, and if as a society, it is united under one tribunal for church purposes, it is itself a- church. The next step in the argument is, of course, the consideration of the question, whether the church of Rome comes within the definition, the correctness of which we have endeavored to estab- lish ? It was very common with the reformers and their success- ors to distinguish between the papacy, and the body of people professing Christianity under its dominion. When, by the church of Rome they meant the papacy, they denounced it as the mystical Babylon, and synagogue of Satan ; when they meant by it the people, considered as a community professing the essential doctrines of the gospel, they admitted it to be a church. This distinction is natural and just, though it imposes the necessity of affirming and denying the same proposition. If by the church of Rome, you mean one thing, it is not a church ; if you mean another, it is a church. People will not trouble themselves, however, with such distinctions, though they often unconsciously make them, and are forced to act upon them. Thus by the word England, we sometimes mean the country, sometimes the government, and sometimes the people. If we mean by it the government, we may say (in reference to some periods of its history), that it is unjust, cruel, persecuting, rapa- cious, opposed to Christ and his kingdom : when these things could not be said with truth of the people.^ * "The church of Rome," says Bishop Sanderson, "may be considered, 1. Material- iter, as it is a church professing the faith of Christ, as we also do in the common points of agreement. 2. Formaliter, and in regard to what we call Popery, viz., the point of difference, whether concerning the doctrine or worship, wherein we charge hor with having added to the substance of faith her own inventions. 3. Oonjunctim pro toto aggregate, taking both together. As in an unsound body, we may consider the body by itself ; the disease by itself; and the body and the disease both together, as they make a diseased body." Considered in the first sense, he says, it is a church ; considered in the second sense or "formally, in regard of those points which are properly of popery, it has become a false and corrupt church; and is indeed an anti-Christian synagogue, and not a true Christian church taking truth in the second sense." He had previously said: "The word truth applied to any subject is taken either absolute or respective. Absolutely a thing is true, when it hath verita- tern entis et essentice, with all those essential things which are requisite to the being and existence of it. Respectively, when over and above these essentials, it hath also such accidental conditions and qualities, as should make it perfect and commendably 238 ISTHECHURCHOFROME Though we regard the above distinction as sound, and though we can see no more real contradiction in saying Kome is a church, and is not a church, than in saying man is mortal and yet immor- tal, spiritual yet carnal, a child of God yet sold under sin ; yet as the distinction is not necessary for the sake either of truth or perspicuity, we do not intend to avail ourselves of it. All that we have to beg is, that brethren would not quote against us the sweeping declarations and denunciations of our Protestant fore- fathers against popery as the man of sin, antichrist, the mystical Babylon, and synagogue of Satan, as proof of our departure from the Protestant faith. In all those denunciations we could con- sistently join ; just as our fathers, as Professor Thornwell ac- knowledges, while uttering those denunciations, still admitted Kome, in one sense, to be a church. Our present object is to enquire whether the church of Rome, taking the term as Bishop Sanderson says, Conjunctim pro toto aggregato, just as we take the term, church of England, falls within the definition of a church given above. That it is an organized society, is of course plain ; that it is united for the purpose of worship and discipline is no less so. That is, it is the professed ostensible objebt of the society, to teach and promote the Christian religion, to convert men to the faith, to edify believers, to celebrate the worship of God, and to exercise the power of the keys, i. e., the peculiar prerogatives of a church in matters of doctrine and discipline. This is the osten- sible professed object of the society. That its rulers have left its true end out of view, and perverted it into an engine of govern- ment and self-aggrandizement is true, and very wicked ; but the same thing is true of almost all established churches. It has been palpably true of the church of England, and scarcely less obviously true of the church of Prussia, as ^vell as the Greek church in Russia. When a church is perverted by its rulers into an engine of state, it does not cease to be a church, because it is by the church as such, i. e., as a society designed for the worship of God and the edification of his people, such rulers endeavor to secure their own secular ends. The only point really open to debate is, whether the Romish good. A thing may be true in the first sense, and yet not true in the second, but false. As a man may be a true man {animal rationale) and yet a false knave." Treatise on the Church, pp. 214 and 219. A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 239 church as a society professes the true religion. In reference to this point we would remark, 1st. That by true religion in this connection, has ever been understood, and from the nature of the- case must be understood, the essential doctrines of the gospel. Men may enlarge or contract their list of such doctrines ; but it involves a contradiction to say, that those who hold the essen- tials of the gospel, do not hold the gospel. This would be saying that the essence of a thing, is not the thing itself, but something else. By the essential doctrines of the gospel we mean, and Protestants have been accustomed to mean, those doctrines which, in the language of Hooker, " are necessarily required in every particular Christian man." The question, therefore, as cor- rectly stated by Professor Thornwell, really is. Whether Rome as a society still teaches truth enough to save the soul .^ 2. Our second preliminary remark is, that in determining what are the essential doctrines of the gospel, we cannot consent to bow to any other authority than the word of God. We cannot with Romanists and Anglicans, on the one hand, consent to make the judgment of the church the criterion of decision on this subject; nor on the other, can we submit to the judgment of individuals or sects, some of which would close not the church only, but heaven itself, against all Presbyterians, others against all Calvinists, others against all Arminians, others against all who sing hymns. 3d. A third remark is, that we must distinguish between what is essential to the gospel, and what is essential for a particular in- dividual to believe. The former is a fixed, the other is a variable quantity. The gospel in its essential principles is now what it always was and. always must be. But what is essential for a man to believe depends upon that man's opportunities of knowl- edge. A poor Hottentot may get to heaven though he knows nothing about, or should unintelKgently reject many doctrines which it would argue an unsanctified heart in a man nurtured in the bosom of a pure church, even to question. 4. We must interpret language according to the usus loquendi of those who use it, and not according to our own usage. If a man defines justification so as to include sanctification, and says that justification is by works as well as by faith, we must understand him accordingly. We may say a man is sanctified by love, hope, and other Christian graces and works ; meaning that all these tend to promote his conformity to God ; when we could 240 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME not say, that he is justified, in our sense of the term, by those things. It is then impossible to give any list of essential doctrines of the gospel, if so doing were to imply that all doctrines not in- cluded in such list might be safely rejected by men, no matter what their opportunities for knowledge may be. By essential doctrines we mean, as already stated, those which no man can be saved without believing. We shall not undertake the delicate task of giving a list of such doctrines, but content ourselves with remarking that the Scriptures adopt a twofold mode of state- ment on this subject. First, they give certain doctrines which, they declare, if any man believes, he shall be saved. And, second- ly, they state certain doctrines which, if a man rejects, he shall be lost. These two modes of statement must be consistent, i. e., they cannot lead logically to contradictory conclusions, even though the Bible arranges under the one head some doctrines which it does not place under the other. One reason why more particulars are found under tbe latter head than the former, no doubt is, that the rejection of a doctrine implies the knowledge of it. And the rejection of a doctrine when known may be fatal, when the knowledge of it, as a distinct proposition, may not be essential to salvation. These essential doctrines therefore may be learned both from the affirmative and negative statements of the Bible. For example, it is said, whosoever believes in Christ shall be saved ; whosoever believes that Jesus is the Son of God, is born of God ; whosoever believes and confesses that Christ is Lord, does it by the Holy Ghost ; on the other hand, it is fatal to deny God, for he that cometh unto God must believe that he is ; so is also the denial of God's mercy, for we must believe that he is the re warder of those who dihgently seek him. He who denies the Son, the same hath not the Father ; he who denies sin, or that he is a sinner, the truth is not in him ; he who rejects the sacrifice of Christ, has only a fearful looking for of judgment ; he who seeks justification from the law, has fallen from grace, and Christ shall profit him nothing ; he who denies the resurrec- tion of Christ, makes our preaching and our faith vain ; he who denies holiness, and the obligation of holiness, has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel; so he who says that the resurrection is past already, has made shipwreck of the faith. The denial of these doctrines is said to forfeit salvation ; but it A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 241 does not follow that they must all be clearly known and intelli- gently received in order to salvation. It is a historical fact, as far as such a fact can be historically known, that men have been saved who knew nothing of the gospel but that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. The Scriptures do not warrant us in fixing the minimum of divine truth by which the Spirit may save the soul. We do know, however, that if any man be- lieves that Jesus is the Son of God, he is born of God ; that no true worshipper of Christ ever perishes. Paul sends his Christian salutations to all in every place, theirs and ours, who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, their Lord and ours. That Romanists as a society profess the true religion, meaning thereby the essential doctrines of the gospel, those doctrines which if truly believed will save the soul, is, as we think, plain. 1. Because they believe the Scriptures to be the word of God. 2. They direct that the Scriptures should be understood and received as they were understood by the Christian Fathers. 3. They receive the three general creeds of the church, the Apostle's, the Nicene, and the Athanasian, or as these are summed up in the creed of Pius Y. 4. They believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. In one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried. And the third day rose again, accord- ing to the Scripture ; and ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. And they believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeded from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. And they believe in one catholic apostolic church. They acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. If this cr6ed were submitted to any intelligent Christianj with- 16 242 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME out his knowing whence it came, could he hesitate to say that it was the creed of a Christian church ? Could he deny that these are the veiy terms in which for ages the general faith of Christendom has heen expressed ? Could he, without renounc- ing the Bible, say that the sincere belief of these doctrines would not secure eternal life ? Can any man take it upon himself in the sight of God, to assert there is not truth enough in the above summary to save the soul ? If not, then a society profess- ing that creed professes the true religion in the sense stated above. 5. We argue from the acknowledged fact that God has always had, still has, and is to have a people in that church until its final destruction ; just as he had in the midst of corrupt and apostate Israel. We admit that Rome has grievously apostatized from the faith, the order and the worship of the church ; that she has introduced a multitude of false doctrines, a corrupt and superstitious and even idolatrous worship, and a most oppressive and cruel government ; but since as a society she still retains the profession of saving doctrines, and as in point of fact, by those doctrines men are born unto God and nurtured for heaven, we dare not deny that she is still a part of the visible church. We consider such a denial a direct contradiction of the Bible, and of the facts of God's providence. It was within the limits of the church the great anti-christian power was to arise ; it was in the church the man of sin was to exalt himself ; and it was over the church he was to exercise his baneful and cruel power. The most common and plausible objections to the admission that the church of Eome is still a part of. the visible church are the following. First, it is said that she does not profess the true religion, because though she retains the forms or propositions in which the truth is stated, she vitiates them by her explanations. To which we answer, 1. That in her general creeds, adopted and professed by the people, no explanations are given. The doc- trines are asserted in the general terms, just as they were presented and professed before the Romish apostacy. 2. That the explana- tions, as given by the Council of Trent, are as stated by Theophilus, designedly two-sided and ambiguous ; so that while one class of Romanists take them in a sense consistent with their saving efficacy, others take them in a sense which destroys their value. It is notorious that the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England are taken in a Calvinistic sense by one -class of her A PART OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH? 243 theologians ; in a semi-Pelagian sense by another class ; and in a Komish sense by a third. 3. While we admit the truth of the objection as a fact, viz., that the dominant class of theologians do explain away most of the saving doctrines of her ancient creeds, yet we deny that this destroys the argument from the profession of those creeds, in proof that as a society she retains saving truth. Because it is the creeds and not the explanations, that constitute the profession of the people. Secondly, it is objected that Kome professes fundamental errors. To this we answer, 1. That we acknowledge that the teaching of many of her most authoritative authors is fatally erroneous. 2. That the decisions of the Council of Trent, as understood by one class of the Romish theologians, are not less at variance with the truth ; but not as they are in fact explained by another class of her doctors. 3. That these decisions and explanations are not incorporated in the creed professed by the people. 4. That the profession of fundamental error by a socie- ty, does not necessarily destroy its character as a church, provided it retains with such error the essential truths of religion. The Jewish church at the time of Christ, by her officers, in the syn- agogues and in the sanhedrim, and by all her great parties, pro- fessed fundamental error justification by the law, for example ; and yet retained its being as a church, in the bosom of which the elect of God still lived. Thirdly, Rome is idolatrous, and therefore in no sense a church. To this we answer, 1. That the practice of the great body of the church of Rome is beyond doubt idolatrous. 2. That the avowed principles of the majority of her teachers are also justly liable to the same charge. 3. That the principles of another class of her doctors, who say they worship neither the images themselves, nor through them, but simply in the presence of them, are not idolatrous in the ordinary meaning of that term. 4. That it is not necessary that every man should be, in the fatal sense of that word, an idolater in order to remain in that church ; otherwise there could be no true children of God within its pale. But the contrary is, as a fact, on all hands conceded. 5. We know that the Jewish church, though often overrun with idolatry, never ceased to exist. Fourthly, it is objected that the people of God are commanded to come out of the church of Rome, which would not be the case 244 IS THE CHURCH OF ROME were she still a part of the visible church. To this we answer, that the people of God are commanded to come out of every church which either professes error, or which imposes any terms of communion which hurt an enlightened conscience. The non- conformists in the time of Charles II., were bound to leave the church of England, and yet did not thereby assert that it was no longer a church. Fifthly, it is said we give up too much to the papists if we admit Komanists to be in the church. To this we answer, Every false position is a weak position. The cause of truth suffers in no way more than from identifying it with error, which is always done when its friends advocate it on false principles. When one says, we favor intemperance, unless we say that the use of intox- icating liquors is sinful ; another, that we favor slavery, unless we say slaveholding is a sin ; and a third, that we favor popery unless we say the church of Kome is no church, they all, as it seems to us, make the same mistake, and greatly injure the cause in which they are engaged. They give the adversary an advan- tage over them, and they fail to enhst the strength of their own side. Men who are anxious to promote temperance, cannot join societies which avow principles which they believe to be untrue ; and men who believe popery to be the greatest modern enemy of the gospel, cannot co-operate in measures of opposition to that growing evil, which are founded on the denial of what appear to them important scriptural principles. It is a great mistake to suppose popery is aided by admitting what truth it does include. What gives it its power, what constitutes its peculiarly danger- ous character, is that it is not pure infidelity ; it is not the en- tire rejection of the gospel, but truth surrounded with enticing and destructive error. Poison by itself is not so seductive, and therefore not so dangerous, as when mixed with food. We do not believe that those of our brethren from whom we are so un- fortunate as to differ on this subject, have a deeper impression than we have either of the destructive character of the errors of popery, or of the danger to which religion and liberty are exposed from its progress. We believe it to be by far the most danger- ous form of delusion and error that has ever arisen in the Chris- tian world, and all the more dangerous from its having arisen and established itself in the church, or temple of God. VIII. FINNEY'S LECTURES ON THEOLOGY.' This is in more senses than one a remarkable book. It is to a degree very unusual an original work ; it is the product of the author's own mind. The principles which he holds, have indeed been held by others ; and the conclusions at which he arrives had been reached before ; but still it is abundantly evident that all the principles here advanced are adopted by the writer, not on authority, but on conviction, and that the conclusions presented have all been wrought out by himself and for himself The work is therefore in a high degree logical. It is as hard to read as Euclid. Nothing can be omitted ; nothing passed over slightly. The unhappy reader once committed to a perusal is obliged to go on, sentence by sentence, through the long concatenation. There is not one resting-place ; not one lapse into amplification, or de- clamation, from beginning to the close. It is like one of those spiral staircases, which lead to the top of some high tower, with- out a landing from the base to the summit ; which if a man has once ascended, he resolves never to do the like again. The author begins with certain postulates, or what he calls first truths of reason, and these he traces out with singular clearness and strength to their legitimate conclusions. We do not see that there is a break or a defective link in the whole chain. If you grant his principles, you have already granted his conclusions. Such a work must of course be reckless. Having committed himself to the guidance of the discursive understanding, which ^ Lectures on Systematic Theology, embracing Lectures on Moral Government, together with Atonement, Moral and Physical Depravity, Philosophical Theories, and Evidences of Regeneration. By Rev. Charles J. Finney, Professor of Theology in the Oberlin Collegiate Institute. Oberlin : James M. Fitch. Boston : Crocker & Brewster. New •York: Saxton & Miles. 1846. pp. 687. — Princeton Review, AprO, 184T. 246 finney's lectures on theology. he sometimes calls the intelligence, and sometimes the reason, and to which he alone acknowledges any real allegiance, he pur- sues his renaorseless course, regardless of any protest from other sources. The Scriptures are throughout recognized as a mere subordinate authority. They are allowed to come in and hear confirmatory testimony, but their place is altogether secondary. Even God himself is subordinate to " the intelligence ;" his will can impose no obligation ; it only discloses what is obligatory in its own nature and by the law of reason. There can be no posi- tive laws, for nothing binds the conscience but the moral law, nothing is obligatory but what tends to the highest good, and as a means to that end, which must be chosen not out of regard for God, not for the sake of the moral excellence implied in it, but for its own sake as what alone has any intrinsic value. All virtue consists " in obedience to the moral law as revealed in the reason." 301. "Benevolence (i. e., virtue) is yielding the will up unreservedly to the demands of the intelligence." 275. Moral law " is the soul's idea or conception of that state of heart or life which is exactly suited to its nature and relations. It cannot be too distinctly understood, that moral law is nothing more or less than the law of nature, that is, it is the rule imposed on us, not by the arbitrary will of any being, but by our own intelli- gence." P. 6. It is obligatory also upon every moral agent, entirely independent of the will of God. Their nature and rela- tions being given and their intelligence being developed, moral law must be obligatory upon them, and it lies not in the option of any being to make it otherwise. " To pursue a course of con- duct suited to their nature and relations, is necessarily and self- evidently obligatory, the willing or nilling of any being to the contrary notwithstanding." P. 5. As man's allegiance is to the universe — to being in general, and the rule of his obedience his own intelligence, God is reduced to the same category. He is " under moral law,'' he is bound to seek the highest good of being, and as the highest well-being of the universe demands moral government, and as God is best qualified, " it is his duty to govern." P. 19. " His conscience must demand it." P. 20. Our obligation, however, to obey him rests neither on our de- pendence, nor on his infinite superiority, but simply on " the intrinsic value of the interests to be secured by government, and conditionated upon the fact, that government is the necessary ON THEOLOGY. 247 means or condition of securing that end." P. 24. God's right is therefore limited by its foundation, " by the fact, that thus far, and no further, government is necessary to the highest good of the universe. No legislation in heaven or earth — no enact- ment can impose obligation, except upon condition that such legislation is demanded by the highest good of the governor and the governed. Unnecessar}' legislation is invalid legislation. Un- necessary government is tyranny. It can in no case be founded in right." P. 24. The question is not, what form of truth may be conveyed under these expressions ; we quote them as exhibit- ing the animus of the book ; we bring them forward as exhibiting what we have called the recklessness of the writer ; his tracing out his principles to conclusions which shock the ordinary sensi- bilities of Christians ; which assume, to say the least, principles inconsistent with the nature of religion as presented in the Bible and as avowed by the vast body of the people of God. The Scriptures assume that our allegiance is to God, and not to being in general : that the foundation of our obligation to obey him, is his infinite excellence, and not the necessity of obedience to the highest happiness of moral agents ; and that the rule of our obedience is his will, and not '^ the soul's conception" of what is suited to our nature and relations. According to the doctrine of this book, there is no such thing as religion, or the service of God as God. The universe has usurped his place, as the supreme ob- ject of love ; and reason, or " the intelligence," has fallen heir to his authority. A very slight modification in the form of state- ment, would bring the doctrine of Mr. Finney, into exact con- formity to the doctrine of the modern German school, which makes God but a name for the moral law or order of the uni- verse, or reason in the abstract. It is in vain, however, to tell Mr. Finney that his conclusions shock the moral and religious consciousness ; what right, he asks, has " the empirical conscious- ness" to be heard in the pre;nises. " If the intelhgence affirms it, it must be true or reason deceives us. But if the intelligence deceives in-this, it may also in other things. If it fail us here, it fails us on the most important of all questions. If reason gives us false testimony, we can never know truth from error upon any moral subject ; we certainly can never know what religion is, if the testimony of reason can be set aside. If the intelligence can- not be safely appealed to, how are we to know what the Bible 248 Finney's lectures on theology. means ? for it is the only faculty by which we get at the truth of the oracles of God." P. 171/ Our object at present, however, is not to discuss principles, but to state the general character of this work. It is eminently log- ical, rationalistic, reckless and confident. Conclusions at war with the common faith of Christians, are not only avowed with- out hesitation, but '^ sheer nonsense,'' " stark nonsense," " emi- nently nonsensical," are the terms applied to doctrines which have eve; ' . .^dr place in the faith of God's people, and which will maintain their position undisturbed, long after this work is buried in oblivion.'' Men have other sources of knowledge than the understanding, the feeble flickering light burning in the midst of misty darkness. If deaf to the remonstrance of our moral nature, to the protests even of the emotional part of our constitution, we follow that light, it belongs to history and not to prophecy to record the issue. It really seems strange when the first sentence of his preface informs the reader that " the truths of the blessed gospel have been hidden under a false phi- losophy," that the author, instead of presenting those truths free from that false ingredient, should write a book which hardly pre- ^ tends to be anything else than philosophy. The attempt to cure j philosophy by philosophy is a homoeopathic mode of treatment / in which we have very little confidence. The gospel was intended for plain people. Its doctrines admit of being plainly stated. They imply indeed a certain psychology, and a certain moral system. The true and Christian method is to begin with the doctrines, and let them determine our philosophy, and not to begin with philosophy and allow it to give law to the doctrines. The title page of this book is. not plainer than the fact that the doctrines which it inculcates are held, not on the authority of God speaking in his word, but on the authority of reason. They are * The remarks quoted in the text are made in immediate reference to the author's doctrine that "moral character is always wholly right or wholly wrong," or, that every moral agent is always either perfectly free from sin or totally depraved ; or, tliat " they are at all times as sinful or holy as with their knowledge they can be." P. 554. / ' On p. 499, after referring to Dr. GriflBn's assertion that until the heart is changed by the Holy Spirit, the gospel excites its enmity to God, Mr. Finney exclaims, "0 orthodoxy, falsely so called, how absurd and false thou art 1 what an enemy thou art to God ; what a stumbling-block to man ; what a leaven of unrighteousness and hell is such a dogma as this 1" LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 249 almost without exception first proved, demonstrated as true, as the necessary sequences of admitted or assumed principles, before the Bible is so much as named. It is by profession a philosophy, or a philosophical demonstration of certain doctrines of morals and religion, and which might be admitted, and adopted as true by a man who did not believe one word of the Scriptures, or who had never heard of their existence. The only doctrines which are assumed as facts, and not deduced from assumed premises, are the atonement as a fact, and the influence of the Holy Spirit on the mind, and as to the former its nature, design, and effect are all proved d priori ; and as to the latter, the writer professes " to understand the philosophy of the Spirit's influence." P. 28. It is altogether a misnomer to call such a book " Lectures on Systematic Theology." It would give a far more definite idea of its character, to call it, " Lectures on Moral Law and Philoso- phy." Under the former title, we are authorized to expect a systematic exhibition of the doctrines of the Bible, as resting on the authority of a divine revelation ; under the latter we should expect to find, what is here presented, a regular evolution from certain radical principles of a code of moral laws. We wish it to be distinctly understood, that we neither deny nor lightly esti- mate works of the kind just described. There can be no higher or more worthy subject of study, apart from the word of God, than the human soul, and the laws which regulate its action and determine its obligations. Nor do we suppose that these subjects can ever be divorced from theology. They occupy so much ground in common, that they never have been and never can be kept distinct. But still, it is very important that things should be called by their right names, and not presented to the public for what they are not. Let moral philosophy be called moral philosophy and not Systematic Theology. While we admit that the philosophical and theological element, in any system of Christian doctrine, cannot be kept distinct, it is of the last importance that they should be kept, as already remarked, in their proper relative position. There is a view of free agency and of the grounds and extent of moral obligation, which is perfectly compatible with the doctrines of original sin, efficacious grace, and divine sovereignty ; and there is another view of those subjects, as obviously incompatible with these doc- trines. There are two courses which a theologian may adopt 250 Finney's lectuees on theology. He may either turn to the Scriptures and ascertain whether those doctrines are really taught therein. If satisfied on that point, and especially if he experience through the teachings of the Holy Spirit their power on his own heart, if they become to him mat- ters not merely of speculative belief but of experimental knowl- edge, he will be constrained to make his philosophy agree with his theology. He cannot consciously hold contradictory proposi- tions, and must therefore make his convictions harmonize as far as he can ; and those founded on the testimony of the Spirit, will modify and control the conclusions to which his own understand- ing would lead him. Or, he may begin with his philosophy and determine what is true with regard to the nature of man and his responsibilities, and then turn to the Scriptures and force them into agreement with foregone conclusions. Every one in the slightest degree acquainted with the history of theology, knows that this latter course has been adopted by errorists from the earliest ages to the present day. Our own age has witnessed what must be regarded as, on the whole, a very beneficial change in this respect. Eationalists, instead of coercing Scripture into agreement with their philosophy, have agreed to let each stand on its own foundation. The modern systems of theology proceed- ing from that school, give first the doctrines as they are presented in the Bible, and then examine how far those doctrines agree with, and how far they contradict the teachings of philosophy, or — as they are commonly regarded — the deductions of reason. As soon as public sentiment allows of this course being pursued in this country, it will be a great relief to all concerned. We do not, however, mean to intimate that those who among ourselves pursue the opposite course, and who draw out that system of moral and religious truth, as they sometimes express it, which every man has in the constitution of his own nature, before they go to the Bible for instruction, and whose system is therefore es- sentially rationalistic, are insincere in their professions of faith in the Bible. It is too familiar a fact to be doubted, that if a man is previously convinced the Scriptures cannot teach certain doc- trines, it is no difficult task to persuade himself that they do not in fact teach them. Still there is a right and a wrong method of studying and teaching theology ; there is a healthful and un- healthful posture of mind to be preserved towards the word of God. And we confess, that when we see a system of theology 4 LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 251 beginning with moral government, we take it for granted that the Bible is to be allowed only a very humble part in its construction.' There is one other general remark we would make on the work before us. We object not only to the method adopted, to the assumption that from a few postulates the whole science of re- ligion can be deduced by a logical process, but to the mode in which the method has been carried out. As all truth is consist- ent ; as some moral and religious truths are self-evident, and as all correct deductions from correct premises, must themselves be correct, it is of course conceivable that an a priori system of mor- als and religion might be constructed, which, as far as it went, would agree exactly with the infallible teachings of the Bible. But apart from the almost insurmountable difficulties in the way of the successful execution of such a task, and the comparatively slight authority that could be claimed for any such production, everything depends upon the manner in which the plan is ex- ecuted. Now we object to Mr. Finney's mode of procedure that he adopts as first principles, the very points in dispute. He pos- tulates what none but a limited class of his readers are prepared to concede. His whole groundwork, therefore, is defective. He has built his tower on contested ground. As a single example of this fundamental logical error, we refer to his confounding liberty and- ability. In postulating the one, he postulates also the other. It is a conceded point that man is a free agent. The author therefore is authorized to lay down as one of his axioms that liberty is essential to moral agency ; but he is not authorized to assume as an axiom that liberty and ability are identical. He defines free will to be " the power to choose in every instance, in accordance with moral obligation, or to refuse so to choose. This much,'' he adds, " must be included in free will, and I am not • We were struck with au amusing illustration of Mr. Finney's reigning passion, in the last number of the Oherlin Quarterly Review. It seems a physician, Dr. Jen- nings has written a medical work, which he submitted to Mr. Finney for his inspection. Tho latter gentleman tells the Doctor that he has long .been convinced that there must be some a priori method in medicine ; some self-evident principle, from which the whole science of disease and cure may be logically deduced, and he encourages his friend in his attempts to discover and establish that principle. All patients have reason to rejoice that Mr. Finney is not a physician. To be doctored on a priori principles, would be aa bad for the body, as it is for the soul to be dosed with d priori theology. 252 concerned to affirm anything more." P. 32. " To talk of inability to obey moral law^ is to talk sheer nonsense.'* P. 4. Mr. Finney knows very well that he has thus taken for granted what has been denied by nine tenths of all good men since the world be- gan, and is still denied by no small portion of them as we verily hope and believe. This is a point that cannot be settled by a definition ex cathedra. He is guilty of a petitio principii when he lays it down as an axiom that liberty implies ability to obey moral law, and consequently that responsibility is limited by ability. This is one of the assumptions on which his whole sys- tem depends ; it is one of the hooks from which is strung his long concatenation of sequences. We deny the right of Mr. Finney to assume this definition of liberty as a " first truth of reason," because it lacks both the essential characteristics of such truths ; it neither forces assent as soon as intelligibly stated, nor does it constitute a part of the instinctive (even if latent) faith of all mankind. On the contrary, it is intelligently denied, not only by theorists and philosophers, but by the great mass of ordinary men. It is one of the most familiar facts of consciousness, that a sense of obligation is perfectly consistent with a conviction of entire inability. The evidence of this is impressed on the de- votional language of all churches and ages, the hymns and prayers of all people recognize at once their guilt and helpless- ness, a conviction that they ought and that they cannot, and a consequent calling upon God for help. It is a dictum of phi- losophers, not of common people, *' I ought, therefore, I can." To which every unsophisticated human heart, and especially every heart burdened with a sense of sin, replies, " I ought to be able, but I am not." ' Mr. Finney would doubtless say to such people, this is "sheer nonsense," it is all a false philosophy ; no man is bound to do or to be what is not completely, and at all times, in his own power. This does not alter the case. Men still feel at once their obligation and their helplessness, and call- ing them fools for so doing, will not destroy their painful convic- tion of their real condition. As the doctrine, the very opposite of Mr. Finney's assumed axiom, is thus deeply and indelibly im- pressed on the heart of man, so it is constantly asserted or as- * Kant's favorite maxim, Ich soil, also, kann ich, for which Julius Mueller would substitute, Ich soUte freilich konnen, aber ich kann nicht Muller's Lehre von der Siinde, vol ii., p. 116. Finney's lectures on theology. 253 sumed in Scripture. The Bible nowhere asserts the ability of fallen man to make himself holy ; it in a multitude of places as- serts just the reverse, and all the provisions and promises of grace, and all the prayers and thanksgivings for holiness, recorded in the Scriptures, take for granted that men cannot make them- selves holy. This therefore has been and is the doctrine of every Christian church, under the sun, unless that of Oberlin be an exception. There is no confession of the Greek, Komish, Lu- theran, or Reformed churches, in which this truth is not openly avowed. It was, says Neander, the radical principle of Pelagius's system that he assumed moral liberty to consist in the ability, at any moment, to choose between good and evil,' or, as Mr. Finney expresses it, " in the power to choose, in every instance, in ac- cordance with moral law." It is an undisputed historical fact that this view of liberty has not been adopted in the confession of any one denominational church in Christendom, but is ex- pressly repudiated by them all. We are not concerned, at pres- ent, to prove or disprove the correctness of this definition. Our only object is to show that Mr. Finney had no right to assume as an axiom or a first truth of reason, a doctrine which nine- tenths of all Christians intelligently and constantly reject. He himself tells us that "a first truth" is one " universally and neces- sarily assumed by all moral agents, their speculations to the con- trary notwithstanding." Now it has rather too much the ap- pearance of efl:rontery, for any man to assert (in reference to any thing which relates to the common consciousness of men), that to be a truth universally and necessarily believed by all moral agents, which the vast majority of such agents, as intelligent and as capable of interpreting their own consciousness, as himself, openly and constantly deny. This is only one illustration of the objection to Mr. Finney's method, that he gratuitously assumes controverted points as first truths or axioms. A second objection to his mode of executing his task is, that he gives himself up to the exclusive guidance of the understand- ing. We do not mean that he neglects the Scriptures or makes them subordiate to reason. On that characteristic of his work we have already remarked. We now refer to the fact that it is not the informed and informing soul of man, which he studies, and whence he deduces his principles and conclusions. He will * Kirchengeschichte, B. ii., p. 1259. 254 Finney's lectures on theology. listen to nothing but the understanding. He spurns what he calls the " empirical consciousness," and denies its right to bear any testimony in relation to what is truth. It is not easy in- deed to determine by his definitions, what he means by the in- telligence to which he so constantly appeals and to which he ascribes such supremacy. He tells us at times, that it includes Reason, Consciencej and; Self-consciousness. Of Reason, he says, it is the intuitive faculty or function of the intellect ; that which gives us the knowledge of the absolute, the infinite, the perfect, the necessarily true. It postulates all the d priori truths of science. " Conscience is the faculty or function of the Intel- h'gence that recognizes the conformity or disconformity of the heart or life to the moral law, as it lies revealed in the reason, and also awards praise to conformity, and blame to disconformity to that law." '^ Consciousness is the faculty or function of self- knowledge. It is the faculty that recognizes our own existence, mental actions and states, together with the attributes of liberty or necessity, belonging to those actions and states." To com- plete the view of his psychology, we must repeat his definition of the two other constituent faculties of our nature, viz. : the sensibility and wlII. The former " is the faculty or susceptibility of feeling. AU sensation, desire, emotion, passion, pain, pleasure, and in short every kind and degree of feeling, as the term is com- monly used, is a phenomenon of this faculty." The Will, as before stated, is defined to be the power to choose, in every in- stance, in accordance with the moral obligation, or to refuse so to choose. " The will is the voluntary power. In it resides the power of causality. As consciousness gives the affirmation that necessity is an attribute of the phenomena of the intellect and the sensibility, so it just as unequivocally gives the affirma- tion that liberty is an attribute of the phenomena of the will." " I am as conscious of being free in willing, as I am of not being free or voluntary in my feelings and intuitions." — Pp. 30, 32. Here is an analysis of the faculties of the soul in which the un- derstanding finds no place. It is not included in the Intellect, for that is said to embrace only Reason, Conscience, and Con- sciousness ; and Reason so defined as to distinguish it from the understanding. Here is Vernunft, but where is the Yerstand ? The fact is that Mr. Finney has for this once, and for once only^ lapsed into transcendentalism. He has taken the definition of Finney's lectures on theology. 255 the Reason from Cousin, or some other expounder of the modern philosphy, without remembering that according to that philoso- phy, reason is something very different from the understanding. This latter faculty has thus been dropped out of his catalogue. This, however, is only a momentary weakness. Mr. Finney is the last man in the world to be reproached with the sin of tak- ing his doctrines at second hand from any school or individual. We do not find in this analysis, however, what we are searching for. The reader of this book perceives, on perusing the first page, that he is about to enter on a long and intricate path. He naturally wishes to know who is to be his guide. It is not Rea- son, as here defined ; for that only gives him the point of de- parture, and tells him the bearing. Of course it is neither the susceptibility nor the will. What then is it ?' Why, under the new name of the Intelligence, it is the old faculty, familiar to all Englishmen and Americans, as the understanding. Nothing more nor less. Not reason, in its transcendental sense, as the faculty for the absolute, but the discursive understanding. The ordinary New England faculty, which calculates, perceives, com- pares, infers and judges. No man can read a dozen pages in any part of the book, without perceiving that it is the product of the speculative understanding, to the exclusion, to a most wonderful degree, of every other faculty. This is its presiding genius. This is the organ which is " phrenologically" developed most disproportionately in the head of the writer, and which gives character to his philosophy and theology. Now we earnestly protest against the competency of this guide. It does not belong to the understanding, as described above, and as it domineers in this book, to speak with authority on questions of religion and morals. It is not the informing faculty ; nor can it be trusted as a guide. Let a man attempt to write a work on aesthetics, putting as Mr. Finney does, his mailed foot on the susceptibilities, not allowing them any voice in determining the principles of f aste, and he will produce a work which no cultivated man could recognize as treating on the subject. Every such man would say, the writer had purposely put out the light in order to see by the sparks struck by his iron-bound feet. In like manner if any man undertakes the task of writing on morals and religion, unchecked and unguided by the emotional part of our nature, by the susceptibilities, the " empirical consciousness," he will most 256 Finney's lectures on theology. assuredly find the heart, conscience, and consciousness of all sane and good men against him. This task has been attempted long before Mr. Finney was born, and with much the same results. The understanding, which has neither heart nor conscience, can speak on these subjects only as informed, and guided by the moral and religious susceptibilities, which are themselves the instinctive impulses of our higher nature. They belong to a far higher sphere than the speculative understanding, to the nvevfia as distinguished from the vovg ; and are masters and not slaves. The understanding, if divorced from the other faculties, may demonstrate, just as it demonstrates that there is no external world, that there is no such thing as sin, or virtue, or good, or justice ; what is that to the conscience ? What becomes of all its syllogisms, when the sceptic comes to die ? Are they un- ravelled, and answered by the understanding ? Or do they drop from its palsied hand, the moment conscience affirms the truth ? We consider it as the radical, fatal error of the " method" of this book, that it is a mere work of the understanding ; the heart, the susceptibilities, the conscience, are allowed no authority in deciding moral questions ; which is as preposterous as it would be to write a mathematical treatise on poetry. The whole his- tory of the church teems with illustrations of the fact, that when men write on morals without being guided by the moral emotions ; or on religion, uncontrolled by right religious feeling, they are capable of any extravagance of error. But such men say, as Mr. Finney does in a passage, already quoted, if they do not follow the intelligence they have nothing else to follow ; if reason gives false testimony, or deceives them, they can never know truth from error. This is all a mistake. It is not reason deceiving them, but the understanding making fools of them, as the apostle says, (pdofcovreg elvai aocpol EfiGypdvOrjcjav. This is no disparagement of the understanding. It is only saying that it is of no authority out of its legitimate sphere. It receives and gives light. It guides and is guided. It cannot be divorced from the other faculties, and act alone, and give the law to them, as a separate power. Conscience is intelligent, feeling is intelligent, the soul is an intelHgent and feeling agent, and not like a three- fold cord, whose strands can be untwisted and taken apart. It is one indivisible substance, whose activity is manifested under various forms, but not through faculties as distinct from each LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 257 other as the organ of sight is from that of hearing. Hence in- telligence may be predicated of the susceptibilities, and moral character of the acts of the intelligence. No emotion, or mental passion, or feeling, is a mere phenomenon of the susceptibiKty. Is there no difference betwen feeling in a brute, and feeling in a man .? Nothing but error can result from this absolute divorce of one faculty of the soul from the others ; and especially from setting the intelligence in a state of perfect isolation, and then making it, in that state, the law-giver of man. If Mr. Finney will take the trouble to look into the books of casuistry common among Romanists, or into works on what they call Moral Theology, he will be convinced that the most demor- alizing of all studies is the study of morals, under the exclusive guidance of the understanding. The Eomish practice of confes- sion has created a demand for the consideration of all possible cases of conscience ; and has led to the subjection of the soul to the scalpel of the moral anatomist, laying open to the cold eye of the "Intelligence" all the curious net-work of the feelings and emotions, to be judged not by their nature, but their relations. The body, when dead, may stand this ; the living soul cannot. And hence no set of men have the moral sense so perverted as these same casuists. Jesuitism, theoretical and practical, is the product of this method of making the soul a mere anatomical subject for the understanding ; and therefore stands as a lesson and a warning. Apart then from the radical error of making theology a science- to be deduced from certain primary principles, or first truths, we object to Mr. Finney's work that it assumes as axioms contested points of doctrine ; and that it makes the mere understanding, as divorced from the other faculties, the law-giver and judge on aU questions of moral and religious truth. The result is that he has produced a work, which though it exhibits singular ability for analysis and deduction, is false as to its principles and at variance with Scripture, experience, and the common conscious- ness of men. We feel on reading it just as a man feels who re- signs himself to the arguments of an idealist who leads him step by step to the conclusion that there is no external world, that all things are nothing. Such a reader sees no flaw in the argument but feels no force in the conclusion. He knows it to be false, just as much after it has been proved to be true, as he did be- IV '/ pur ^^ OF TH?. -^ 258 finney's lectures on theology. fore. There is this difference between the cases however. We are disposed to smile at the world of phantasms to which ideal- ism leads us ; but where the conclusions arrived at are such as are urged in this book, we feel that all true religion, the very es- sence and nature of piety, are at stake. It is not a question, whether the world is real or phenomenal ; but whether God or being is to be worshipped ; whether sin is sin, and holiness is a good ; whether religion consists in loving God for his divine ex- cellence, or in purposing the happiness of moral agents ; whether men are responsible for their feeling or only for their intentions ; whether there is any other regeneration than a change of pur- pose, or any possibiKty of salvation for the imperfectly sanctified. These and similar questions obviously concern the very vitals of Christianity, and if Mr. Finney is right, it is high time the church knew that religion is something essentially different from what has been commonly supposed. As it would be impossible to discuss the various questions pre- sented in such a work as this, within the compass of a review, we propose to do little more than to state the principles which Mr. Finney assumes, and show that they legitimately lead to his con- clusions. In other words, wq wish to show that his conclusions are the best refutation of his premises. Our task would be much easier than it is, if there were any one radical principle to which his several axioms could be reduced, and from which the whole system could be evolved, but this is not the case. No one prin- ciple includes all the others, nor leads to all the conclusions here deduced ; nor do the conclusions admit of being classed, and some referred to one principle and some to another, because the same conclusions often follow with equal certainty from different premises. We despair, therefore, of giving anything like unity to our exhibition of Mr. Finney's system, but we shall try not to do him injustice. We regard him as a most important laborer in the cause of truth. Principles which have been long current in this country, and which multitudes hold without seeing half their consequences, he has had the strength of intellect and will, to trace out to their legitimate conclusions, and has thus shown the borderers that there is no neutral ground ; that they must either go forward to Oberlin or back to the common faith of Protestants. We are not sure that aU Mr. Finney's doctrines may not be traced to two fundamental principles, viz.: that obligation is limited by ability ; and that satisfaction, happiness, blessedness, is the only ultimate good, the only thing intrinsically valuable. As to the former of these principles, his doctrine is that free will is one of the essential conditions of moral agency, and of course of moral obligation. By free will is meant " the power of choosing or refusing to choose in compliance with moral obligation in every instance. Free-will implies the power of originating and deciding our own choices and of exercising our own sovereignty in every instance of choice upon moral questions ; of deciding or choosing in conformity with duty or otherwise in all cases of moral obligation. That man cannot be under a moral obligation to perform an absolute impossibility is a first truth of reason. But man's causality, his whole power to perform or do anything lies in^his will. If he cannot will, he can do nothing. His whole liberty or freedom must consist in his power to will. His out- ward actions and his mental states are connected with the actions of his will by a law of necessity. If I will to move my muscles, they must move, unless there be a paraly&is of the nerves of vol- untary motion, or unless some resistance be opposed which over- comes the power of my volitions. The sequences of choice or volition are always under the law of necessity, and unless the will is free, man has no freedom. And if he has no freedom, he is not a moral agent, that is, he is incapable of moral action and also of moral character. Free-will then, in the above defined sense, must be a condition of moral agency and of course of moral obligation.'' P. 26. ^' It should be observed that all acts of the will consist in choices or wiUings. These actions are generally regarded as con- sisting in choice and volition. By choice is intended the selec- tion or choice of an end. By volition is intended the executive efibrts of the will to secure the end intended. * * * All intelligent choices or actions of the will, must consist either in the choice of an end or of means to secure that end. To deny this is the same as to deny that there is any object of choice. . If the will acts at all, it wills, chooses If it chooses, it chooses something — there is an object of choice. In other words, it chooses something for some reason, and that reason is truly the object of choice. Or at least, the fundamental reason for choos- ing a thing, is the object chosen." P. 44. 260 FINNEY S LECTUKES ON THEOLOGY. " Consciousness of affirming the freedom of the will, that is, of power to will in accordance with moral ohligation, or to refuse thus to will is a necessary condition of the affirmation of moral obligation. For example : no man affirms, or can affirm his moral obligation to undo the acts of his past life, and to live his life over again. He cannot affirm himself to be under this obli- gation, simply because he cannot but affirm the impossibility of it. He can affirm, and indeed cannot but affirm his obligation to repent and obey God for the future, because he is conscious of affirming his ability to do this. Consciousness of the ability to comply with any requisition, is a necessary condition of the af- firmation of obligation to comply with that requisition. Then no moral agent can affirm himself to be under obligation to per- form an impossibility.'' P. 33. Practicability is therefore an attribute of moral law. ^^^ That which the precept demands, must be possible to the subject. i> i> i.'? 'Pq loi^ of inability to obey moral law is to talk sheer nonsense." P. 4. "By what authority do you affirm, that God requires any more of any moral agent, and of man in his present condition, than he is able to perform." P. 8. In the commands to love God with all our strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, it is said, God " completely levels his claims, by the very wording of these commandments to the present capacity of every human being, however young or old, however maimed, debilitated, or idiotic." P. 8. "If a man has willingly remained in ignorance of God, is his ignorance a moral or natural inability ? If it is a moral inability, he can instantly overcome it, by the right ex- ercise of his own will. And nothing can be a moral inability that cannot be instantaneously removed by our own volition." P. 9. " The will is always free to choose in opposition to desire. This every moral agent is as conscious of as of his own existence. The desire is not free, but the choice to gratify it is and must be free;" " Desire is constitutional. It is a phenomenon of the sensibility. It is a purely involuntary state of the mind, and can in itself produce no action, and can in itself have no moral char- acter." Pp. 300, 301. These extracts present with sufficient clearness Mr. Finney's doctrine on this point. With him it is a " first truth" or axiom Finney's lectures on theology. 261 that freedom of the will is essential to moral agency, moral obli- gation, and moral character ; that free-will consists in the power to choose, in every instance, in conformity with moral obligation, and consequently that no man can be responsible for any thing but the acts of his will, or what is under the immediate control of the will. Before proceeding to the second general principle on which his system rests, it may be proper to remark, in reference to the extracts given above and the doctrine they inculcate. 1. That Mr. Finney obviously uses the word will, in its strict and limited sense. Every one is aware that the word is often used for everything in the mind not included under the category of the understanding. In this sense all mental affections, such as being pleased or displeased, liking and disliking, preferring, and so on, are acts of the will. In its strict and proper sense, it is the power of self-determination, the faculty by which we de- cide our own acts. This is the sense in which the word is uni- formly and correctly used in the work before us. 2. Mr. Finney is further correct in confining causality to the will, i, e., in saying that our ability extends no farther than to voluntary acts. We have no direct control over our mental states beyond the sphere of the will. We can decide on our bodily acts and on the course of our thoughts, but we cannot govern our emotions and aft'ec- tions by direct acts of volitions. We cannot feel as we will. 3. In confounding liberty and ability, or in asserting their identity, Mr. Finney, as remarked on the preceding page, passes beyond the limits of first truths, and asserts that to be an axiom which the common consciousness of men denies to be a truth. 4. The fallacy of which he is guilty is very obvious. He transfers a maxim which is an axiom in one department, to another in which it has no legitimate force. It is a first truth that a man without eyes cannot be under an obligation to see, or a man without ears to hear. No blind man ever felt remorse for not seeing, nor any deaf man for not hearing. Within the sphere therefore of phys- ical impossibilities, the maxim that obligation is limited by abili- ity, is undoubtedly true. But it is no less obviously true that an inability which has its origin in sin, which consists in what is sinful, and relates to moral action, is perfectly consistent with continued obligation. Such is the instinctive judgment of men, such is the testimony of conscience, such the plain doctrine of the Bible^ which no vehemence or frequency of contradiction or 262 Finney's lectitres on theology. denial, has ever been able to convince sinful men is not true. They would often give the world to be assured they were not bound to be better than an act of the will would make them. The second radical principle of Mr. Finney's system is, That enjoyment, happiness, blessedness is the only intrinsic good, which is to be chosen for its own sake. This is the only absolute ultimate good : other things are only relatively good as means to this end. Hence " the highest good of being as such" is the ulti- mate end to be chosen. As this doctrine is asserted or implied on every page of the book, we hardly know what particular as- sertion to quote. The following passages must suffice as a state- ment of the author's doctrine. " The well-being of God and the universe is the absolute and ultimate good, and therefore it should be chosen by every moral agent." " It is a first truth of reason, that whatever is intrinsically valuable should be chosen for that reason or as an end. It is and must be a first truth of reason, that whatever is intrinsically and infinitely valuable ought to be chosen as the ultimate end of existence by every moral agent." " The moral law then must require moral agents to will good, or that which is intrinsically valuable to God and the universe of sentient existences for its own sake or as an ulti- mate end." P. 43. " Good may be natural or moral. Natural good is synonymous with valuable. Moral good is synonymous with virtue." P. 45. " The law proposes to secure moral worth, not as an ultimate end, not as the ultimate and absolute good of the subject, but as the condition of his being rewarded with ab- solute good. The law-giver and the law propose ultimate and perfect satisfaction and blessedness as a result of virtue and of moral worth. This result must be the ultimate and absolute good." May it not with just as much reason be said : a teacher proposes a good medal as the reward of proficiency in scholar- ship, therefore, the attainment of a good medal is the ultimate end of education ? Our author, however, proceeds : '' The reason why virtue and moral excellence or worth has been supposed to be a good in themselves, and intrinsically and absolutely valuable, is, that the mind necessarily regards them with satisfaction." P. 47. " If neither the subject of moral excellence or worth nor any one else experienced any satisfaction in contemplating it — if it did not meet a demand of our being or of any being so as to afibrd the least satisfaction to any sentient existence, to whom FINNEY'S LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 263 or to what would it be a good ? * * * We are apt to say it is an ultimate good ; but it is only a relative good. It meets a demand of our being and thus produces satisfaction. This sat- isfaction is the ultimate good of being." P. 48. " This satisfac- tion is a good in itself But that which produces this satisfaction, is in no proper sense a good in itself" "It is absurd to make that an ultimate good [viz. : virtue] and to affirm that to be in- trinsically and ultimately valuable, whose whole value consists in its relations to an ultimate good " P. 49. " In what sense of the term good, can it be ultimate ? Not in the sense of moral good or virtue. This has been so often shown that it needs not be repeated here. * * * Good can be ultimate, only in the sense of natural and absolute, that is, that only can be an ulti- mate good, which is naturally and intrinsically valuable to being. «f » * I come now to state the point upon which issue is taken, to wit : That enjoyment, blessedness, or mental satisfac- tion is the only ultimate good." P. 120. " Of what value is the true, the right, the just, &c., aside from the pleasure or mental satisfaction resulting from them to sentient existences .?" P. 122. " The Bible knows but one ultimate good. This, as has been said, the moral law has forever settled. The highest well-being of God, and the universe is the only end required by the law. * i& * The law and the gospel propose the good of being only as the end of virtuous intention. ^ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbor as thyself !' Here is the whole duty of man. But here is nothing of choosing, willing, loving, truth, justice, right, utility, or beauty, as an ultimate end for their own sakes. The fact is, there are innumerable relative goods, or conditions, or means of enjoyment, but only an ulti- mate good. Disinterested benevolence to God and man is the whole of virtue, and every modification of love resolves itself in the last analysis into this. If this is so, well-being in the sense of enjoyment must be the only ultimate good." P. 123. " The \ idea of good, or of the valuable, must exist before virtue can ex- ist. It is and must be the development of the idea of the valua- ble, that develops the idea of moral obligation, of right and wrong, and consequently, that makes virtue possible. The mind must perceive an object of choice, that is, regard it as intrin- sically valuable, before it can have the idea of moral obligation to choose it as an end. That object of choice cannot be virtue 264 FINNEY S LECTUKES ON THEOLOGY. or moral beauty, for this would be to have the idea of virtue or moral beauty before the idea of moral obligation, or right or wrong. This were a contradiction." P. 125. That is, virtue con- sists in the choice of what is intrinsically valuable ; hence the idea of the valuable must exist before virtue ; hence virtue can- not be the thing chosen, but the intrinsically valuable, which it is virtue to choose. Therefore enjojmaent and not virtue must be the ultimate object of choice. The theory, which maintains that there are several distinct grounds of moral obligation, that not only the good of being in general, but truth, justice, moral excellence, are each to be chosen for its own sake, he says, ^'Virtually flatly contradicts the law of God and the repeated declaration that love to God and our neighbor is the whole of virtue. What, does God say that all law is fulfilled in one word. Love, that is, love to God and our neighbor ; and shall a Christian philosopher overlook this, and insist that we ought to love not only God and our neighbor, but to will the right and the true, and the just and the beautiful, and multitudes of such like things for their own sakes ? The law of God makes and knows only one ultimate end, and shall this philosophy be allowed to confuse us by teaching that there are many ultimate ends, that we ought to will each for its own sake ? Nay verily." P. 147. " I might here insist upon the intrinsic absurdity of regarding right, justice, virtue, the beautiful as the ultimate good, instead of mental satisfaction or enjoyment ; but I waive this point at present, and observe that either this theory resolves itself into the true one, namely, that the valuable to be- ing, in whatsoever that value be found, is the sole foundation of moral obligation, or it is pernicious error. If it be not the true theory, it does not and cannot teach aught but error on the sub- ject of moral law, moral obligation, and of course of morals and religion. It is either then, confusion and nonsense, or it resolves itself into the true theory just stated." P. 148. From all this it is abundantly evident that the writer teaches, 1. That enjoyment, satisfaction, happiness, is the only intrinsic good to be chosen for its own sake. 2. That moral excellence is only a relative good having no value but as the means or condi- tion of enjoyment. On this doctrine we remark, 1. That it is readily admitted that happiness is a good. 2. That it is consequently obligatory ON THEOLOGY. 265 on all moral agents to endeavor to promote it. 3. That the highest happiness of the universe, being an unspeakably exalted, and important end, to make its attainment the object of life is a noble principle of action. 4. Consequently this theory of moral obligation is inconceivably more elevated than that which makes self-love the ultimate principle of action, and our own happiness the highest object of pursuit. 5. That the error of the theory is making enjoyment the highest and the only intrinsic or real good. 6. That this error derives no countenance from the fact that the Bible represents love to God and love to our neighbor as the fulfilling of the law. To derive any argument from this source Mr. Finney must first take the truth of his theory for granted. To prove that all love is benevolence, it must be as- sumed that happiness is the only good. If love is vastly more than benevolence, if a disposition to promote happiness is only one and that one of the lowest forms of that comprehensive ex- cellence which the Scriptures call love, his argument is worth nothing. In accordance with that meaning of the term, which universal usage has given it, any out-going of the soul, whether under the form of desire, affection, complacency, reverence, de- light towards an appropriate object, is in the Bible called love. To squeeze all this down, and wire-draw it through one pin-hole, is as impossible as to change the nature of the human soul. Every man, not a slave to some barren theory of the under- standing, knows that love to God is not benevolence ; that it is approbation, complacency, delight in his moral excellence, rever- ence, gratitude, devotion. The reason then why the Scriptures represent love as the fulfilling of the law, is twofold. First, be- cause love to an infinitely perfect Being, involves in it approba- tion of all conceivable forms of moral excellence, and consequent congeniality of soul with it under all those forms. He who really loves a God of truth, justige, purity, mercy, and benevolence, is himself truthful, just, holy, merciful, and kind. Secondly, be- cause love to God and man will secure all obedience to the pre- cepts of the law. We may admit, therefore, that love is the fulfilling of the law, without being sophisticated into believing or rather saying, that faith is love, justice is love, patience love, humihty love. Nothing is more foreign to the whole character of the Bible, than to make it speak the language of a theory. It speaks the language of the common consciousness of men, expect- 266 Finney's lectures on theology. ing to be understood as men would understand each other. Who can believe that any man undisciplined by metaphysics would believe that faith or humility is benevolence, the love of being as such, willing happiness for its own sake ? We promised, how- ever, not to discuss Mr. Finney's principles. We propose to rely on the reductio ad absurdum, and make his doctrines the refutation of his principles. The two principles to which all the important doctrines con- tained in this work, may be traced, are, First, that obligation is limited by ability ; and secondly, that enjoyment, satisfaction, or happiness is the only ultimate good, which is to be chosen for its own sake. If these principles are correct, then it follows. First, that moral obligation, or the demands of the moral law can relate to nothing but intention, or the choice of an ultimate end. If that is right, all is right. The law can demand nothing more. That this is a fair sequence from the above principles is plain, as ap- pears from the following statement of the case. The law can de- mand nothing but what is within the power of a moral agent. The power of such an agent extends no further than to the acts of the wiU. All the acts of the will are either choices of an end, or volitions designed to attain that end ; the latter of course having no moral character except as they derive it from the na- ture of the end in view of the mind. Therefore all moral charac- ter attaches properly to the intention or ultimate choice which the agent forms. This is one of the conclusions which Mr. Finney draws from the principles above stated, and which is perhaps more frequently and confidently asserted than any other in his book. " It is gen- erally agreed that moral obligation respects strictly only the ultimate intention or choice of an end for its own sake." P. 26. " I have said that moral obligation respects the ultimate inten- tion only. I am now prepared to say still further that this is a first truth of reason.'' P. 36. " All the law is fulfilled in one word, love. Now this cannot be true if the spirit of the law does not respect intentions only. If it extends directly to thoughts, emotions, and outward actions, it cannot be truly said that love is the fulfilHng of the law. This love must be good will, for how could involuntary love be obhgatory.?" P. 31. " Let it be remembered that moral obligation respects the choice of an ulti- Finney's lectures on theology. 267 mate end." P. 90. " Eight and wrong respect ultimate inten- tion only and are always the same. Right can be predicated only of good will, and wrong only of selfishness. ''••* * * It is right for him to intend the highest good of being as an end. If he honestly does this, he cannot, doing this, mistake his duty, for in doing this he really performs his whole duty."" P. 149. " Moral character belongs solely to the ultimate intention of the mind, or to choice, as distinguished from volitions." P. 157. " Let it be BORNE IN MIND THAT IF MORAL OBLIGATION RESPECTS STRICTLY THE ULTIMATE INTENTION ONLY, IT FOLLOWS THAT ULTIMATE IN- TENTION ALONE IS RIGHT OR WRONG IN ITSELF, AND ALL OTHER THINGS ARE RIGHT OR WRONG AS THEY PROCEED FROM A RIGHT OR WRONG ULTIMATE INTENTION." P. 134. How strangely does this sound" like the doctrine, the end sanctifies the means ! Every thing depends on the intention ; if that is right, all is right. We fear Mr. Finney has not recently read Pascal's Provincial Let- ters : a better book for distribution at Oberlin, we should be at a loss to select. When Pascal innocently begs his instructor in the mysteries of the new morality to explain to him how it was possible to reconcile with the gospel, many things which the Jesuits allowed, the venerable father answered : " ^ Understand then that this wonderful principle consists in dh^ecting the inten- tion, the importance of which in our system of morality, is such that I should almost venture to compare it with the doctrine of probability. You have already in passing seen some features of it, in a few of the maxims already mentioned ; for when I showed you how servants might, with a safe conscience, manage certain troublesome messages, did you not observe that it was simply taking ofp the intention from the sin itself, and fixing it on the advantage to be gained ? This is what we term directing the intention. You saw, at the same time, that those who gave money to obtain benefices, would be really guilty of simony, without giving some such turn to the transaction. But, that you may judge of other cases, let me now exhibit this grand expedient in all its glory, in reference to the subject of murder which it justifies in a thousand cases.' 'I already perceive,' replied Pascal, ^ that in this way, one may do anything without exception.' ' You always go from one extreme to another,' re- turned the father, ^pray stop your impetuosity. To convince you that we do not permit everything, take this as a proof, that 268 Finney's lectures on theology. we never suffer tlie formal intention of sinning for the sake of sinning, and whoever persists in having no other design in his wickedness than wickedness itself, we instantly discard. * * '••' When we cannot prevent the action, we at least aim to purify the intention. * * * Do you understand me now ?' ^ yes, perfectly well,' says Pascal, ^ you allow men the external material action, and give to Grod the internal spiritual inten- tion ; and by this equitable division you aim to harmonize divine and human laws." " To prove that he correctly stated the princij)les of his society the father appeals first to Keginal- dus, who says : '^ A warrior may instantly pursue a wounded enemy not indeed with the intention of rendering evil for evil, but to maintain his own honor." This is not exactly the direc- tion of the intention Mr. Finney would prescribe, but we are only illustrating the principle. Again, Lessius says : "He who receives a blow must not indulge a spirit of revenge, but he may cherish a wish to avoid disgrace, and for this purpose repel the assault even with sword.'' " If your enemy be disposed to injure you," says Escobar, " you ought not to wish for his death through hatred, but you may to avoid injury." Hurtado de Mendoza says : " When a gentleman who is challenged to fight a duel is known not to be remarkably pious, but daily commits sins, with- out the least scruple, plainly evincing that his refusal to accept the challenge does not proceed from the fear of God but from timidity, he may be called a chicken and not a man. He may, in order to preserve his honor, proceed to the appointed place, not indeed with the express intention of fighting, but only of defending himself if his enemy should attack him." Sanchez goes still farther ; for he not only allows a man to accept but to give a challenge, if he direct his intention aright and Escobar agrees with him in this. " It is allowable," says Molina, ''to kill false witnesses brought against us." " According to our celebrated Father Launey, it is lawful for priests and monks to kill others to prevent their design of injuriously calumniating them. A priest or monk is allowed to kill a calumniator who threatens to publish scandalous crimes of their society or themselves, if there exists no other means of prevention ; as when just ready to propagate his malignities, if not instantly killed. For in such a case, as it would be lawful for a monk to kill a person who was desirous of taking away his life, so it is to kill him who wishes to take away LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 269 his honqr, or that of his fraternity, in the same manner as it is for the people of the world in general." From these examples the doctrine of the Jesuits is very plain. Moral character pertains to the intention alone ; and all other things are right or wrong as they proceed from a right or wrong intention. This is the doctrine by which they sapped the foun- dations of morals and social order, and which procured, more than any other cause, their indignant rejection from the civilized world. How does Mr. Finney's doctrine differ from theirs ? On p. 134, he says, in the passages just quoted, " Let it be borne in mind [it is a matter at once plain and important] that if moral obligation respects strictly the ultimate intention only, it follows that ultimate intention alone is right or wrong in itself, and all other things are right or wrong as they proceed from a right or wrong ultimate intention." The only difference here arises from the insertion of the word ^ ultimate.' But we cannot see that this makes any real difference in the doctrine itself. Both parties {%. e., the Jesuits and Mr. Finney), agree that the inten- tiqn must be right, and if that is right, every thing which pro- ceeds from it is right. The former say that the honor and wel- fare of the church is the proper object of intention, Mr. Finney says, the highest good of being is the only proper object. The latter however may include the former, and the Jesuit may well say, that in intending the welfare of the church he intends the glory of God and the highest good of the universe. In any event, the whole poison of the doctrine lies in the principle com- mon to both, viz. : That whatever proceeds from a right intention is right. If this is so then the end sanctifies the means, and it is right to do evil, that good may come ; which is Paul's reductio ad ahsurdum. An objection so obvious and so fatal to his system could not escape Mr. Finney's sagacity. He frequently notices it, and pro- nounces it self-contradictory and absurd. On p. 124, he says, " It is nonsense to object that if enjoyment or mental satisfaction be the only ground of moral obligation, we should be indifferent as to the means. This objection assumes that in seeking an end for its intrinsic value, we must be indifferent as to the way in which we obtain that end, that is, whether it be obtained in a manner possible or impossible, right or wrong. It overlooks the fact that from the laws of our own being it is impossible for us to wiU the 270 Finney's lectures on theology. end without willing also the indispensable and therefore appro- priate means ; and also that we cannot possibly regard any other conditions or means of the happiness of moral agents as possible, and therefore as appropriate and right, but holiness and universal conformity to the law of our being. As we said in a former lec- ture, enjoyment or mental satisfaction results from having the different demands of our being met. One demand of the reason and conscience of a moral agent is that happiness should be con- ditionated on holiness. It is therefore naturally impossible for a moral agent to be satisfied with the happiness or enjoyment of moral agents except on the condition of their holiness.'' The objection is, that if moral character attaches only to in- tention, then it follows that if the intention is right all that pro- ceeds from it, must be right, and consequently that the end sanc- tifies the means, no matter what those means in themselves may be. Mr. Finney's answer to the objection is, 1. That it is non- sense. 2. That it cannot bear against his doctrine because he teaches that enjoyment or happiness is the only proper object of intention. 3. That it is a law of reason that virtue is the condi- tion of happiness. 4. And therefore, as it is impossible that a man should will the end without willing the means, it is impossi- ble for him to will enjoyment without willing virtue which his reason tells him is its indispensable condition. On this answer, which is substantially repeated in several parts of the work, we remark, 1. That it overlooks his own fun- damental principle, viz. : that nothing is virtue but intending the highest good. There is no moral excellence in truth, justice, holiness, except so far as they are forms of that intention ; any- thing therefore which is a form or expression of that intention, or as he says himself, that proceeds from it, is virtuej If therefore killing a man proceeds from that intention, it is a virtuous act. 2. Mr. Finney cannot say certain things are prohibited by the law of Grod, and are therefore wrong, no matter with what inten- tion they are performed, because his doctrine is that law relates only to the intention ; its authority extends no further. The will of Grod is not the foundation of any obligation. Here he has got into a deeper slough even than the Jesuits, for they hold that the law of God is not a mere declaration of what is obhga- tory, and so far as we know they never substitute obedience to the intelligence, as a synonymous expression with obedience to t LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 271 G-od. 3. Nor will it avail to say that if a man's intention is right, he cannot err as to the appropriate means of attaining it, because those means are infallibly revealed in the reason. For this is notoriously not the fact. The intelligence makes known only to a very limited extent, the means appropriate to secure the highest good. Hence this is a point on which men differ as much as on any other that could well be mentioned. 4. It is a favorite doctrine of Mr. Finney and a necessary consequence of the maxim, that obligation is limited by ability, that a man's responsibility is limited by the degree of knowledge, or light, which he possesses. Does it not then follow that if he has been perverted by education, or brought honestly to believe that per- secution, private assassination, or any other abomination is an appropriate means to the greatest good, he is virtuous in employ- ing those means .^ If the horrors of the French revolution were perpetrated with a right intention, with a purpose to promote happiness, they were lofty specimens of virtue, and Robespierre, Marat, and Danton must be enrolled as saints. Mr. Finney him- self says : " No moral being can possibly blame or charge himself with any default, when he is conscious of honestly wiUin^^r choo^ng, or acting according to the best light he has^ | iorlmSvia - casa. he obeys the law as he understands it, and of course cannot congeive himself to be condemned by the law." P. 162. He™ does noTseera to Bave any conception of that lowest state of moral degradation of which the prophet speaks, when he says of the wicked, they put good for evil, and evil for good, sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet ; or when a man is brought to the pass of saying. Evil, be thou my good. On the page last quoted he asserts that conscious honesty of intention, according to the light possessed, is entire obedience to moral law. And on p. 165, " If the intention is what it ought to be for the time being no- thing can be morally wrong." This, as far as we can see, is the precise doctrine of the Jesuits. It is the doctrine which led to the justification of the murder of Henry the Fourth of France, of the massacre of the Huguenots, and of thousands of similar enor- mities. We mean no disrespect when we say it would be well for Mr. Finney to read the works of the Jesuit fathers ; let him see what his principles come to in the hands of wicked men who are his equals in logical acumen and boldness, and know nothing of the restraints which his moral and religious feelings impose on him. 272 Finney's lectures on theology. We consider this a fair refutation. If the principle that obli- gation is limited by ability, leads to the conclusion, that moral character is confined to intention, and that again to the conclu- sion that where the intention is right nothing can be morally wrong, then the principle is false. Even if we could not detect its fallacy, we should know it could not be true. But we have already said the fallacy lies in applying a principle which is true in reference to physical incapacity, such as want of sight, to an inability which, though natural in one sense, is as to its character moral, i. e., arises out of the moral state of the soul. A fallacy just as gross as it would be to argue that because two portions of matter cannot occupy at one time, the same portion of space, therefore two thoughts cannot co-exist in the same mind. A Second doctrine which flows from Mr. Finney's principles and which characterizes his whole system, concerns the founda- tion of moral obligation. We have seen that he holds that obliga- tion is limited to intention, but on what does that obligation rest ? Why is a man bound to intend one thing rather than another ? Mr. Finney answers this question by denying, 1st. That the will of God is the foundation of this obligation. Against this doctrine he urges such reasons as the following, 1. " This theory makes God's willing, commanding, the foundation of the obligation to choice or intent an ultimate end. If this is so then the willing of God is the end to be intended. For the end to be intended and the reason of the obligation are identical." 2. God himself is under moral obligation, and therefore there is some reason in- dependent of his own will, which imposes upon him the obliga- tion to will as he does. 3. If the will of God is the foundation of obligation, he can by willing it change virtue into vice. 4. If the will of God is the foundation of moral obligation, we have no stan- dard by which to judge of the moral character of his acts. 5. The will of no being can be law. Moral law is an idea of the reason. Mr. Finney's book is made up of half-truths. It is true that the wiU of God divorced from his infinite wisdom and excellence, mere arbitrary will, is not the foundation of moral obligation. But the preceptive will of God, is but the revelation of his na- ture, the expression of what that nature is, sees to be right, and approves. It is also true that some things are right because God wills or commands them, and that he wills other things because they are right. Some of his precepts, therefore, are founded on his own immutable nature, others on the peculiar relations of LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 273 man, and others again upon his simple command. We can have no higher evidence that a thing is right, than the command of God, and his command creates an obKgation to obedience, whether we can see the reason of the precept or not, or whether it have any reason apart from his good pleasure. Mr. Finney is right so far as saying that the will of God, considered as irrational, groundless volition, is not the ultimate foundation of moral obli- gation, but his will as the revelation of the infinitely perfect nature of God, is not merely the rule, but ground of obligation to his creatures. So that their obedience does not terminate on the universe, nor on Keason, in the abstract, but upon God, the per- sonal Eeason, the infinitely perfect, and because he is the infi- nitely perfect. 2d. Our author denies that the divine moral excellence is the ground of moral obligation. This he pronounces to be absurd. Moral obligation respects the choice of an ultimate end. The reason of the obligation and the end chosen must be identical. Therefore, what is chosen as an end, must be chosen for its own sake. But virtue being chosen as a means to an end, viz.: en- joyment, cannot be the end chosen. This of course follows from the principle that enjoyment is the only intrinsic good, the only thing that should be chosen for its own sake, and other things only as they are the means or conditions of attaining that end. We should like to ask, however, how Mr. Finney knows that ha^ppiness is a good, and a good in itself to be chosen for its own sake ? If he should answer, that is a first truth of reason ; is it not a first truth of reason, that moral excellence is a good, and a far higher good to be chosen foFTts own sake ? It is degraded and denied, if it be chosen simply as a means of enjoyment. If the idea of moral excellence, is not a primary, independent one, then we have no moral nature, we have a sentient and rational nature ; a capacity for enjoyment, and the power of perceiving and adapting means to its attainment. We may be wise or foolish, but the ideas of wrong as wrong, and right as right, are lost. They are merged into those of wise and unwise. If God and reason affirm obligation, they affirm that virtue and vice are not terms to express the relations of certain things to enjoyment. They affirm that the one is a good in itself and the other an evil in itself ; and this is the loudest affirmation in the human soul, and woe to the man in whom it ceases to be heard. No sophistry 18 274 Finney's lectures on theology. can render the conscience permanently insensible to the author- ity of God asserting that virtue is to be chosen for its own sake, and that it is not chosen at all, unless it be so chosen. Let this not be supposed to conflict with the assertion that the will of Grod is also the ground of obligation. For what is the will of God ? what is God, but the sum of all excellence, almighty self- conscious reason and holiness. In choosing virtue for its own sake we choose God. It is one of Mr Finney's hobbies that the ground of obligation must be one and simple. If it is the will of God, it is not his moral excellence ; if his moral excellence it is not his wiU. This, however, may be safely referred to the com- mon judgment of men. They are conscious that even entirely distinct grounds of obligation may concur ; as the nature of the thing commanded, the authority of him who gives the command, and the tendency of what is enjoined. If these are considerations which affect the reason, they bind the conscience. They are the bond or ligament which " binds a moral agent to the moral law.*' 3d. Mr. Finney's own theory of the foundation of moral obli- gation is of course involved in his principle that enjoyment is the only intrinsic good. The fourth lecture is devoted to the consideration of this subject. In that lecture, after arguing to prove that the highest well-being of God and the universe is the ultimate and absolute good, and that their highest good, must be natural good or happiness, and not moral good or virtue, he comes to the conclusion that the intrinsic value of happiness is the sole foundation of the obligation to will it as the ultinjate ejid. The conclusions from this doctrine, as stated on page 148, are, 1. " Upon this theory moral obligation respects the choice of an ultimate end. 2. This end is an unit. 3. It is necessarily known to every moral agent. 4. The choice of this end is the whole of virtue, 5. It is impossible to sin while this end is in- tended with all the heart and all the soul. 6. Upon this theory every mo^al agent knows in every possible instance what is right, and can never mistake his real duty. 7. This ultimate intention is right, and nothing else is right more or less. 8. Eight and wrong respect ultimate intention only and are always the same. Eight can be predicated only of good-will, and wrong only of self- ishness." We briefly remark on this theory, that it changes the whole nature of religion. Our whole and sole obligation is to the uni- verse, and to God only as one of the constituent members of uni- S LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 275 versal being. There is and can be no allegiance to God as God, and hence Mr. Finney substitutes perpetually, " obedience to the Intelligence," to an '^ idea of the Reason," as synonymous with" obedience to God, or the moral law. In his whole system and of necessity God is subordinate to the uniyerse. Again, it is of the essence of religion that love to God should include conge- niality^ corpplacency, reverence, and delight in his divine perfec- tions. In other words, that his moral excellence should be loved Md chosen for its own sake. Mr. Finney's system will not aUow him to attach any other meaning to love than " good-will," i. e., willing good or happiness to any one. Love of God, therefore, can, according to his doctrine, be nothing more than willing his happiness ; and this obligation is entirely independent of his moral excellence. He admits that his moral goodness is the condition of our willing his actual happiness, but it is not the ground of our obligation to love him, or to wiU his good. As far as omx feel- ings are concerned, there ought to be no dijfterence between God and Satan — we are bound to will the happiness of each accord- ing to their intrinsic vahie — ^good-will being the whole of virtue, and good-wiU having no respect to the moral character of its ob- ject, there is no more virtue in loving God (willing his good) than in loving Satan.* No one of course denies that benevolence is a virtue, but the slavery to system, to the miserable logic of the understanding, consists in asserting that it is the only virtue ; that love to Christ, does not differ in its nature from benevolence to the devil, nor the love of the brotherhood from benevolence to the wicked.^ As the essential nature of religion is changed, per- ^ In answer to the objection that we are under obligation " to love Grod because he is good, and that this affirmation has no reference to the good of God," he answers, " Such an affirmation if it is made, is most nonsensical. What is it to love God ? Why, as is agreed, it is not to exercise a mere emotion of complacency in him. It is to will something to him,", which of course is happiness. P. 64. "Should it be said that God's holiness is the foundation of our obligation to love him, I ask in what sense it can be so ? It cannot be a mere emotion of complacency, for emotions be- ing involuntary states of mmd and mere phenomena of the sensibility are Avithout the pale of legislation and morality." P. 91. The moral perfections of God do not even increase our obligation to love him. " We are under infinite obligation to love God and will his good with all our power because of the intrinsic value of his well-being, whether he is sinful or holy. Upon condition that he is holy, we are under obligation to will his actual blessedness, but certainly we are under obligation to will it with no more than all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. But this we are re- quu-ed to do because of the intrinsic value of his blessedness, whatever his character may be." P: 99. ' Hence Mr. Finney says, "The command is. Thou slialt love thy neighbor as 276 finney's lectures on theology. verted J and destroyed by this theory, so also of course is the na- ture of sin. But this may be more appropriately noticed under the following head : p- A THIRD doctrine which flows from the two radical principles / of this book, is that there is no moral character in the feelings or •-•affections. This, indeed, is necessarily involved in v^hat has already been said, but it is in itself so important, and so charac- teristic a part of the system, that it deserves a more distinct ex- hibition. If obligation is limited by ability, and therefore con- fined to acts of the will ; and if the affections are neither acts of the will nor under its immediate control, it follows of course that we cannot be responsible for them, they lie " without the pale of legislation and morality." Again, if enjoyment is only intrinsic good, then all virtue consists in benevolence, or in willing the happiness of sentient beings, and consequently there is no virtue in any state of the affections. So the same conclusion is reached in two different ways. This consequence of his principles Mr. Finney presents on almost every page of his book. Moral obligation he says cannot directly extend to any " states of the sensibility. I have already remarked that we are conscious that our feelings are not volun*- tary but involuntary states of the mind. Moral obligation there- fore cannot directly extend to them." P. 35. They have no more of a moral nature than outAvard actions. A man is responsible for his outward acts only as they are determined by the will, and in like manner he is responsible for his feelings only as they are produced or cherished by the will, or rather as the will yields to them. The whole of sin consists in allowing the will to be de- termined by them. In the feelings themselves there is nothing good or bad. " If any outward action or state of the feeling exists in opposition to the intention or choice of the mind, it cannot by possibility, have moral character. Whatever is be- yond the control of a moral agent, he cannot be responsible for." P. 164. And therefore, " if from exhaustion, or any cause be- yond our control the emotion does not arise from the considera- tion of the subject which is calculated to produce it, we are no more responsible for the weakness or absence of the emotion, thyself. This says nothing about the character of my neighbor. It is the value of his interests, of his well-being, that the law requires me to regard. It does not re- quire me to love my righteous neighbor merely, nor to love my righteous neighbor better than I do my wicked neighbor." P. 95. LECTURES ON THEOLOGY 277 than we should be for the want or weakness of motion in our muscles, when we willed to move them." P. 165. Of course all self-condemnation for coldness, or hardness of heart, or want of right affections towards God, rests on a false philosophy, that is, arises from overlooking " that in which moral character consists." " Love may, and often does exist, as every one knows, in the form of a mere feeling or emotion. * * * This emotion or feeling, as we are aware, is purely an involuntary state of the mind ; because it is a phenomenon of the sensibility, and of course a passive state of mind, it has in itself no moral charac- ter." P. 213. " Gratitude as a mere feeling or phenomenon of the sensibility, has no moral character." P. 278. The same thing is said of benevolence, compassion, mercy, conscientious- ness, &G., &c. The doctrine is : " That no state of the sensibil- ity has any moral character in itself." P. 521. On this subject we would remark, 1. That there is a form of truth in this as in most other parts of this system ; but a half- truth when presented as the whole, and especially when accom- panied with the denial of the other elements which enter into the proposition, becomes a dangerous error. It is true that char- acter depends more upon fixed purposes and principles, than it does on feelings. It is also true that the tenor of a man's life, as evincing his governing principles, is a better test of his character than mere emotions. But then what determines these fixed purposes of the soul ? Unless they are determined by moral and religious considerations, they are not themselves either moral or ^ religious. Unless our fixed determination to obey God, to devote ourselves to the promotion of his glory, flows from a due appre- ciation of his excellence, and from a sense of our obligations to him, it is not a religious purpose. And unless our determination that it shall be Christ for us to live, arises from an apprehension of the glory of his person and of our relation to him as the pur- chase of his blood, it is not a Christian purpose. It may be phi- lanthropic or benevolent, but it is neither religious nor Christian. But 2. The Scriptures, our own consciousness, and the universal judgment of men, recognize those affections which terminate on moral objects as having a moral character, and therefore any theory which denies this must be false. The love of God, is essentially the love of the divine perfections, complacency and delight in him as the infinitely good, which leads to adoration and obedience. It can hardly be denied that this is the constant 278 Finney's lectures on theology. representation of the Bible, and especially of its devotional parts. The Psalmist speaks of himself as longing after God as a hart pants for the cooling waters. Whom have I in heaven, he exclaims, but thee, and there is none on earth I desire besides thee. All this Mr. Finney pronounces delusion or selfishness. " When a moral agent,'' he says, " is intensely contemplating moral excellence, and his intellectual approbation is emphatically pro- nounced, the natural and often the necessary result is, a corre- sponding feeling of complacency and delight in the sensibility. . But this being altogether an involuntary state of the mind, has I no moral character.'' P. 224. " Indeed it is perhaps the general ^ usage now to call this phenomenon of the sensibility love, and for want of just discrimination, to speak of it as constituting religion. Many seem to suppose that this feeling of delight in and fondness for God, is the love required by the moral law." P. 224. " It is remarkable to what extent religion is regarded as a phenomenon of the sensibility and as consisting in feeling." P. 225. " Nothing is of greater importance than forever to under- stand that religion is a phenomenon of the will." P. 227. The leojitimate and sufficient answer to all this is that it contradicts the common conciousness of men. They know it cannot be true. If Mr. Finney says it is a first truth of reason, that it is rigbt to" will the highest good, which we admit, we say, it is a first truth of reason that compassion, benevolence, lov^of God, conscientious- ness, gratitude, devotion, reverence, humility, repentance, as states of feeling, have a moral character. He is forced to admit that this is the common judgment, and recognized in what he calls " the popular language of the Bible." A philosophy which leads to a denial of this plain fact of conciousness, this first truth of reason, is a false philosophy. It is obvious that a theory which reduces aU virtue and religion to a simple act of the will, must lead to the same view as to the nature of sin. If virtue has no place in the affections, neither can sin have. If all religion is centred in one intention, all sin must be confined to another. If all virtue is benevolence, all sin is selfishness. But as benevolence is not an affection, but a pur- pose, so selfishness must be an intention. It cannot consist, the author tells us, in malevolence ; " it cannot consist in any state of the intelligence or sensibility, for these, as we have seen, are in- voluntary and depend on acts of the will." P. 286. " It must consist in the choice of self-gratification as an end." Or '' sin LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 279 consists in being governed by the sensibility instead of being gov- erned by the law of God as it lies revealed in the reason." P. 287. This is a frequently recurring definition. " Benevolence is yielding the will up unreservedly to the demands of the intel- ligence." P. 275. " As the will must either follow the law of reason, or the impulses of the sensibility, it follows that moral agents are shut up to the necessity of being selfish or benevo- lent." P. 290. " Men naturally desire their own happiness and the happiness of others, this is constitutional. But when in obedience to these desires they will their own or others' happi- ness, they seek to gratify their sensibility or desires. This is selfishness." P. 290. Of course it makes no manner of differ- ence what the nature of the feeling is that determines the will. The sin does not lie in the nature of the feehng, but in the will's being determined by any feeling. " It matters not what kind of desire it is, if it is desire that governs the will, this is selfishness." P. 301.' It may be a desire of our own salvation, the desire of holiness, of the salvation of others, of the good of the world, of the glory of God, of the triumphs of the Lord Jesus. It matters not. It is just as selfish and as wicked to have the will deter- mined by such desires, as by avarice, envy, or malice. " The choice of any thing because it is desired, is selfishness and sin." P. 305. " Some writers have fallen into the strange mistake of making virtue to consist in the gratification of certain desires, because, as they say, those desires are virtuous. They make some of the desires selfish and some benevolent. To yield the will to the control of the selfish propensities, is sin. To yield the will to the control of the benevolent desires, such as the desire of my neighbors' happiness, and the public happiness, is virtue, be- cause these are good desires, while the selfish desires are evil. Now this has been a very common view of virtue and vice. But it is fundamentally erroneous. None of the constitutional desires are good or evil in themselves. They are all alike involuntary and terminate on their correlated objects. To yield the will to the control of any one of them, no matter which, is sin." P. 503. Mr. Finney is beautifully consistent in all this, and in the consequences which of necessity flow from his doctrine. He admits that if a man pays his debts from a sense of justice, or feeling of concientiousness, he is therein and therefor just as ^ The sinner may "feel deeply malicious and revengeful feelings towards God ; but sin does not consist in these feehngs or necessarily imply them." P. 296. 280 finkey's lectures on theology. wicked as if he stole a horse.' Or if a man preaches the gospel from a desire to glorify God and benefit his fellow men, he is just as wicked for so doing as a pirate.' We may safely challenge Hurtado de Mendoza, Sanchez, or Molina to beat that. It passes our comprehension to discover why the will being determined by the desire to honor God is selfishness and sin, while its being determined by the desire of the highest good is virtue. It is as much determined by desire in the one case as in the other. Mr. Finney says indeed that in the one case it is de- termined by the intelligence, and in the other, by the sensibility. But reason as much dictates that we should honor God, as that we should seek the happiness of the universe. And the will is as much decided by the intelhgence in the one case as in the other. The only way in which the intelligence can determine the will is, that the truth which the intelligence contemplates, whether it be the value of the well-being of the universe, or the excellence of God, awakens the corresponding desire or feeling of right, fitness, or obligation, and that determines the will. If the will is not determined by a desire to secure the happiness of the universe, what benevolence is there in such a determination ? Mr. Finney's principles lead him to assert that there is no differ- ence in their feelings between the renewed and the unrenewed, the sinner and the saint. " The sensibility of the »inner," he says, " is susceptible of every kind and degree of feeling that is possible to saints." P. 521. He accordingly goes on to show that sinners may desire sanctification, delight in the truth, abhor sin, have complacency in good men, entertain feelings of love and gratitude to God, and in short, be, as to feeling and conduct, exactly what saints are. The only essential difference is in the will, in their ultimate purpose or intention. The sinner's ultimate intention may be to promote the glory of God, from a sense of duty, or from appreciation of the loveliness of moral ' " He may be prevented (committing commercial injustice) by a constitutional or phrenological conscientiousness, or sense of justice. But this is only a feeling of the sensibility, and if restrained only by this, he is just as absolutely selfish, as if he had stolen a horse in obedience to acquisitiveness." P. 317, ^ " If the selfish man vs^ere to preach the gospel, it would be only because upon the whole it was most pleasing or gratifying to himself^ and not at all for the sake of the good of being as an end. If he should become a pirate, it would be for exactly the same reason. * * * Whichever course he takes, he takes it for precisely the same reason ; and with the same degree of light it must involve the same degree of guUt." P. 355. Finney's lectures on theology. 281 excellence, and he be no better than a pirate ; if his ultimate end is to promote happiness because happiness is intrinsically valuable, he is a saint/ A Fourth doctrine flowing from Mr. Finney's fundamental principles, is that every^nian must, at any given moment^ be either totally depraved, i. e., as wicked as it is possible for him, with his knowledge, to be, or perfectly holy. This is a conclu- sion which it would appear he finds some difficulty in persuading his friends to adopt. They receive the premises, they admit the validity of many other sequences from them, but this is rath- er more than they are prepared for. Mr. Finney is right, and he knows it. He has them in his power, and he commands them to follow wherever he and the " Intelligence" lead. If the In- telligence deceives us here, we can never know truth from error. If obligation is limited by ability ; if ability extends only to acts of the will ; if the acts of the will are confined to the choice of ends and means ; and if the choice of means has no moral character but from the nature of the end chosen, it follows that all morality is confined to the choice of an end. If the right end is chosen, the agent discharges his whole duty ; he ful- fils the single command of law and reason. If he chooses the wTong end, he commits all the sin of which he is capable. The only respect in which one moral agent can be either better or worse than another, is as one has more ability than another. A child has not the knowledge or strength of a man, nor a man of an angel. It is not required, therefore, of the child to have so high an estimate of the value of " the good of being," as a man should have, nor of a man that he should have the comprehen- sive and consequent strength of intention of an angel. If ability limits obligation, all that can be required is, that a moral agent should will the highest good with an intensity proportioned to his honest conviction of its value. That is, " with conscious honesty of intention." This is all an angel can do, and it is per- * " "Whether he [the unrenewed man] preach and pray, or rob and plunder upon the high seas, he does it only for one end, that is, for precisely the same reason, [viz. to gratify some feeling;] and of course his sinfulness is complete in the sense that it can only be varied by varying light. This I know is contrary to the common opinion, but it is the truth, and must be known ; and it is of the highest importance that these fundamental truths of morality and of immorality should be held up to the minds of all." P. 355. On the same page we are taught, that if a man abstains from any thing " because it is wicked" it is selfish, because the will is determined by " phrenological conscientiousness." t 282 fection in him. It is all a converted pirate can do, and it is per fection in him. Again, if happiness or enjoyment be the only real good, to in- tend the highest enjoyment of sentient beings is the whole of virtue, to intend our own gratification is the v/hole of sin. It is impossible that these intentions should co-exist in the mind. If a man intends the one, he does not intend the other. If all mo- rality centres in this ultimate intention, he must, therefore, at any given moment, be perfectly sinful or perfectly holy. This is a severe dose of logic, but Mr. Finney will not tolerate even a wry face in swallowing it. " The new or regenerate heart cannot sin. It is benevolence, love to Grod and man. This cannot sin. These are both uKi- mate choices or intentions, they are from their own nature effi- cient, each excluding the other, and each securing for the time being, the exclusive use of means to promote its end. To deny this, is the same absurdity as to maintain, either that the will can at the same time choose two opposite ends, or that it can choose one end only, but at the same time choose the means to accom- plish another end not yet chosen. Now either alternative is ab- surd. Then holiness and sin can never co-exist in the same mind. Each, as has been said, for the time being, necessarily excludes the other. Selfishness and benevolence co-exist in the same mind ! A greater absurdity and a more gross contradiction was never conceived or expressed." P. 310. This is sound logic, and therefore we must either admit that every man is either perfectly holy or entirely sinful, at any given time, or we must deny that moral obligation is confined to intention ; and if we deny that, we must of course admit, that feelings or states of the sensibility may have a moral character, and if we concede that point, we must concede that obligation is not limited by ability, and then the great Diana of the Ephesians has fallen. This doctrine of the simplicity or "lihTty of moral characteris very prominently presented in this work. In Lecture xi. tlie main proposition contended for is : " Moral character is wholly right or wholly wrong, and never partly right and partly wron^ at the same time." P. 156. In Lecture xxviii., he says : " This conducts us to the conclusion or truth to be demonstrated, name- ly : That moral agents are at all times either as holy or sinful as with their knowledge they can be." P. 354. We have little space to devote to remarks on this subject, and LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 283 surely little need be said. The doctrine of course rests on a false apprehension of the nature of sin and holiness, and of the grounds and extent of our obligations. Our own conscience and the Bible teach us that we are bound to be completely conformed to the law or image of God ; that in whatever respect or degree we fall short of that standard of excellence, we sin ; and that the law of God exhibits what rational beings ought to be, not what they can be, not what they have plenary power at any moment to make themselves, but what they, would be and would at all times have power to be, were it not for their sinfulness. No man, according to the standard of conscience and of the Bible, is perfect, who is not perfectly like Christ, or has not attained to " the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ ;" who has not the same love, reverence, humility, patience, long-suffering, mercy, that were in him. It shocks the moral sense of men to say that a pirate, with all his darkness of mind as to God, and divine things, with all his callousness, with all the moral habits of a life of crime, becomes perfectly holy, by a change of will, by forming a new intention, by mere honesty of purpose. If the demands of God thus rapidly sink with the increasing depravity of men, as has often been remarked, the shortest road to perfec- tion is the most debasing course of crime. 2. Need any reader of the Bible be reminded that the consciousness of sin, of present corruption and unworthiness, is one of the most uniform features of the experience of God's people as there recorded ? 3. Or is there any one point in which Christian experience in all ages of the church is more strongly pronounced, than in this sense of sin and consequently humiliation^ under it .^ In opposition to the common consciousness of men, to the plainest teachings of the Scriptures, and to the experience of the people of God, we are called upon to believe that " honest intention" is the whole of duty and religion ; if we have that, we are perfect. If this is a false doctrine, no one can fail to see what its effects must be. If a man thinks himself perfect, if he says, I am rich, and in- creased with goods, and have need of nothing ; and knows not that he is wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, his situation is most deplorable. Mr. Finney is well aware that his doctrine changes the whole nature of religion ; and hence his frequent denunciations of the false philosophy and pretended orthodoxy, by which religion has been perverted and the church corrupted. And certain it is that religion, 284 FINNEYS LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. as represented by him, is something exceedingly different from what good people in all ages have commonly regarded it. We should have to provide a new language, new hymns, new prayers, and especially a new Bible. It is useless however to continue these remarks. If a man can believe that every human being is either perfectly sinful or perfectly holy, he can believe anything. And a theory that leads to this conclusion, y is thereby exploded, and its fragments are not worth looking after. ^ # Of course Mr. Finney teaches that full or perfect obedience to the moral law is the condition of salvation, now and ever. There is not a passage in the Bible, he says, which intimates that men are saved or justified " upon conditions short of per- sonal holiness or a return to full obedience to the moral law.'*' P. 366. Any man, therefore, conscious of coming short of per- fection, has sure evidence that he is not justified. " As the moral law is the law of nature, it is absurd to suppose that entire obedience to it should not be the unalterable condition of salva- tion." P. 364. Kegeneration therefore is declared to be " an in- stantaneous CHANGE FROM ENTIRE SINFULNESS TO ENTIRE HOLI- NESS." P. 500. TTnis work has interested us principally on two accounts. y/ First, as an illustration of the abject slavery to which the under- standing, when divorced from the Bible, and from the other con- stituents of our nature, reduces those who submit themselves to its authority. One should think that history furnished examples enough of the consequences of followin^such a guide, to deter others from repeating the experiment. I Secondly, Mr. Finney's book is the best refutation that can well be given of the popular \j' theology current in many parts of our country. How long have we been accustomed to hear that inability is incompatible with obligation, and that happiness is the highest good. Grrant Mr. Finney these principles, and he need ask you no further favors. You must follow him to all his conclusions. He has had the strength and the boldness to carry them out to their legitimate consequences. And here they are. You must either take them, or give up the principles whence they flow. We heartily thank our author for having brought matters to this alternative. IX. SUPPORT OF TIE CLERGY.^ This suggestive and teeming pamphlet has now been several months before the churches, and we presume in the hands of almost all our ministers. We cannot suffer ourselves to think that so much practical wisdom, enforced by the earnest eloquence of Chalmers, can fail to influence for good a multitude of minds. We may not immediately see its effects, but the principles here suggested, the plans proposed, and the motives urged, must com- mend themselves to the judgment and conscience of the readers, and must induce them to act, or at least prepare them to act with greater intelligence and zeal, in the prosecution of the vari- ous enterprises in which, as a church, we are engaged. We propose to select from the numerous topics here discussed, the support of the clergy, as a subject of a few remarks. That it is the duty of the church to sustain those who are engaged in preaching the gospel is not a disputed point. The apostle rests this obligation on the following grounds. 1. The general princi- ple that labor is entitled to a reward, or, as our Saviour expresses it, the laborer is worthy of his hire. This principle the apostle reminds us, is recognized in all the departments of human life, and has the sanction of the law of God in its application even to brutes, for it is written : Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. 2. It is a simple matter of commutative justice. If we have sown unto spiritual things, is it a great mat- ter that we should reap your carnal things .? If we do you a * A?t Earnest Appeal to the Free Church of Scotland, on the subject of Economics. By Thomas Chalmers, D.D. First American from the Second Edinburgh Edition. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication. 184'7. Pp. 64. — Princeton Re- view, July, 1847. 286 SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. great good, is it unreasonable to expect you to do us a less ? 3. In all countries, and under all forms of religions, true or false, those who minister at the altar are partakers with the altar. 4. It is an express ordinance of Christ that they which preach the gospel should live by the gospel. It is not, however, every one who preaches the gospel, who is entitled to the benefit of this ordinance. In many cases men, who by profession are lawyers, merchants, or mechanics, are at the same time preachers. Preaching, however, is not their voca- tion ; it is not the work to which their time and talents are devoted. It is a service in which they occasionally engage as opportunity offers without interrupting their ordinary engage- ments. It is evident that such men, however laudable their mo- tives, or however useful their labors, are not entitled by the ordinance of Christ to live by the gospel. Others, who by pro- fession are preachers, who have been educated and ordained in reference to the sacred office, are at the same time something else, teachers, farmers, or planters. They unite with their voca- tion as preachers some lucrative secular employment. Some- times this is a matter of choice ; more frequently perhaps, of necessity ; sometimes, as in the case of Paul, of disinterested self-denial, that they may make the gospel of Christ without charge. No one can doubt that there may be excellent and ade- quate reasons why a preacher should be a teacher or a farmer. Nor can it be questioned that every one has a right to judge of those reasons for himself, and to determine whether he will sup- port himself, or throw himself on the ordinance of Christ. But he cannot do both. He cannot support himself and claim the right to be supported by the church. He throws himself out of the scope of the ordinance in question by devoting his time a;nd talents to the work of self-support. The plain scriptural prin- ciple is, that those who devote themselves to the service of the church, have a right to be supported by the church ; that those who consecrate themselves to preaching the gospel are entitled to live by the gospel. As this is a truth so plainly taught in the sacred Scriptures, and so generally conceded, it need not be discussed. A much more difficult question is : What is the best method of sustaining the ministers of religion ? In attempting to answer this question, we propose first to state historically and very I SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 287 briefly the different methods which have been adopted for that purpose, and secondly to show that the duty in question is a duty common to the whole church. As to the former of the two points proposed for consideration, it may be remarked that under the Mosaic dispensation, the Levites being set apart for the service of the sanctuary, had thirty-five cities with a circle of land of a thousand cubits around the walls, assigned to them, and a tithe of all the produce of the ground, of the flocks, and of the herds.. The priests were sup- ported by a tithe of the portion paid the Levites ; by the first- fruits which, according to the Talmudists, were in no case to be less than the sixtieth of the whole harvest ; by a certain portion of the sacrifices offered on the altar ; by the price paid for the redemption of the first-born among men, and of those animals which were not allowed to be offered in sacrifice. They were moreover exempt from taxation and military duty. Such was the abundant provision which God ordained for the support of the ministers of religion. Under the new dispensation, our Lord, while explicitly enjoin- ing the duty, left his people free as to the mode in which it should be discharged. From the record contained in the Acts of the Apostles, several facts bearing on this subject may be learned. First, that a lively sense of the brotherhood of believers filled the hearts of the early Christians, and was the effect of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, that in consequence of this feeling of brotherhood, they had all things in common. The multitude of them that believed, we are told, were of one heart and of one soul ; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own ; but they had all things common ; neither was there any among t)iem that lacked. Acts ii. 41, 47. Such was the effect of the vivid consciousness of the union of believers as one body in Christ Jesus. And such is the uniform tendency of that consciousness, manifesting itself in the same manner in proportion to its strength. Experience, how- ever, soon taught these early Christians that they were not per- fect, and that it was not wise to act in an imperfect and mixed community on a principle which is applicable only to one really pervaded and governed by the Spirit of God. As the church therefore increased, and came to include many who were Chris- tians only in name, or who had but little of the Spirit of Christ, 288 V SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. the operation of this feeling of brotherhood was arrested. It would have been destructive to act towards nominal as towards real Christians, towards indolent and selfish professors as though they were instinct with the Spirit of God. This is the funda- mental error of all the modern systems of communism. They proceed on the felse assumption that men are not depraved. They take for granted that they are disinterested, faithful, labo- rious. Every such system, therefore, has come to naught, and must work evil and only evil, until men are really renewed and made of one heart and of one soul by the Spirit of Grod. In the subsequent history, therefore, of the apostolic church, we hear no more of this community of goods. The apostles never com- manded it. They left the church to act on the principle that it is one only so far as it was truly one. They did not urge the outward expression a single step beyond the inward reality. The instructive fact, however, remains on record that the effusion of the Holy Spirit did produce this lively sense of brotherhood among Christians, and a corresponding degree of liberality. A third fact to be learned from the history given in the Acts, is that the early Christians looked upon their religious teachers as the proper recipients and distributors of the common property of the church. They who were the possessors of houses or lands sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles' feet ; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. It is obvious that this arrangement supposes an eminently pure state of the church, and would be intolerable in any other. It is also obvious that as the church enlarged, an amount of secular care would thus be thrown on the ministers of religion utterly incompatible with due attention to their spiritual duties. A new arrangement was therefore soon adopted. The apostles said : It is not reason- able that we should leave the word of God to serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may ap- point over this business. An example was thus early set of con- fiding to laymen, i. 6., to those who do not minister in word and doctrine, the secular concerns of the church. And no man can estimate the evil which in subsequent ages flowed from the neglect of this example. If in human governments, it is consid- ered essential to the liberty and welfare of the people, that the SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 289 sword and purse should be in different hands ; it is no less es- sential that in the church the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword, and the money- power should not be united. It was this union which proved in after ages one of the most effectual causes of the secular power of the clergy and of the corruption of the church. From what has been said, it is plain that during the lives of the apostles, the ministry was sustained by the voluntary contri- butions of the churches. As the church increased and became more compact as a visible society, this matter assumed a more regular shape. It seems from the beginning to have been the custom for the believers to bring certain gifts or offerings when- ever they assembled for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. A custom which in one form or another is continued in most churches, our own among the number, to the present time. As in the early church the Lord's Supper appears to have been a part of the regular service of every Lord's day, those contributions were of course weekly. Besides this, there was from a very early period a regular and larger contribution made every month. It appears also that the early Christians inferred from the identity of the church under the two dispensations, that it was no less the duty of the people of God now than formerly to devote the first-fruits of the earth and a tenth of their income to his service. Long before the payment of tithes was enforced by law, it had thus become a common and voluntary usage. All these contri- butions were, in each church, thrown into a common stock under the control first of the deacons, afterwards of the pastor. The- amount of the sum thus raised of course varied greatly with tlie size and wealth of the several churches. And as the pastors of the chief towns gradually became prelates, having many asso- ciated and dependent congregations connected with the metropol- itan church, this common fund was divided into three portions, one for the bishop, one for the clergy, and one for the poor. The bishop gradually acquired the control of this fund, and in the Synod of Antioch, A.D., 341, his right to its management was distinctly asserted. Thus also in what are called the Apostohc Constitutions, can. 41, the right of the bishop in this matter is placed on the ground that he who is entrusted with the care of souls may well be trusted with their money. Si animae hominum 19 290, SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. precios8B Episcopo sunt creditae, multo majus oportet eum curam pecuniarum gerere. When the Roman emperor became a Christian and made Christianity the religion of the state, the state assumed the re- sponsibility of supporting the ministers and institutions of religion. This has been done in various ways : 1. By the permanent grant of productive property to the church, and by authorizing the acquisition of such property by donations, bequest, or purchase. 2. By ordaining the payment of tithes and other contributions. 3. By empowering every parish to tax itself for the support of religion, and giving to such taxation the force of law. This was the method so long in use in New England, 4. By direct appro- priations from the public treasury in payment of the salaries of ministers, just as other public officers are paid. This is the method adopted in France since the revolution. In those countries in which the church and state are not united, the former is supported either by what may be called ecclesiastical law, or by voluntary contributions of its members. The Romish church in Ireland affords an example of the former of these methods. With the peculiar wisdom of silence for which that church is remarkable, it contrives to raise from that impoverished people an adequate support for its hierarchy and priesthood. The priests are supported by the imposition of a regular contribution upon all his parishoners, payable twice in the year, at stated times ; and by a regular tariff of charges for spiritual services, such as baptism, absolution, the mass, extreme unction, and burial. The bishops derive their income from an annual contri- bution of ten pounds sterling from every priest in their diocese, and by holding as rectors some of the most important of the parishes. In this way, by the stringent coercion of spiritual power, an income more regularly paid than tax or rent, is readily secured. Where the ministry is supported by the voluntary contributions of the people, it is done by the contributions of the particular congregation which the preacher serves, or from a common fund, or by a combination of the two methods. There are, therefore, three general methods by which the support of the clergy has been provided for. 1. Voluntary contributions. 2. Endowments and the law of the land. 3. By ecclesiastical law. In this country it is not an open question, which of these methods ought I SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 291 to be adopted. We are shut up to the first. And happily, public sentiment both in the church and out of it, has sanctioned as the best, the only method which in our case is practicable. Admitting that in this country the ministry must be supported by the voluntary contributions of the people, the particular question to which we wish to call the attention of our readers is : on whom does the responsibility of furnishing that support rest ? Does it rest on the individual congregation, which the minister serves, or upon the church as one, and the church as a whole ? Our object is to show that the obligation rests upon the church as a whole. To prevent misapprehension, however, it is proper to state : that nothing so visionary as that every minister in every part of the country should receive the same salary is con- templated. This would be at once unjust and impracticable. Much less that there should be any permanent fund from the interest of which all salaries should be paid. The principle which we wish to establish would be fully satisfied, if our Board of Missions, instead of giving a tantalizing pittance, were author- ized and enabled to give an adequate support to every minister in its service, devoted to his work, i. e., not engaged in any secular employment, but consecrating his whole time to the service of the church. The first argument in support of the position here assumed, is drawn from the nature of the church. If according to the fundamental doctrine of the Independents, believers are the materials of a church, but a covenant its form; if a number of Christians become a church by covenanting to meet together for worship and discipline ; if a church owes its existence to this mutual covenant just as a city owes its existence to its charter, so that we may as well talk of an universal city as of a church catholic, then there is no room for the discussion of this question. No one would think of contending that the obligation to support the municipal officers of any one city, rests on the inhabitants of all other cities. If, therefore, the relation which one congrega- tion bears to all others of the same communion, is the same which one city bears to other cities, then of course every congregation is bound to take care of itself, and is under no obligation, other than that of general benevolence, to sustain the ministry in other congregations, any more than the people of Philadelphia are bound to support the mayor of New York. But such is not the scrip- 292 SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. tural, it is not the Presbyterian idea of the church. It is not the idea which has been living and active in the minds of all Christians from the beginning. Every believer feels that he has a church relation to every other believer ; that he is a member of the same body, partaker of the same Spirit, that he has with them a common faith, hope, and Lord, and that in virtue of this union, he is under the obligation of communion, obedience, and fellowship in all things, to believers as such, and consequently to all believers. There are certain principles relating to the nature of the church, which though generally admitted in theory, are seldom fairly carried out in practice. Of these principles, among the most important are the following: 1. That the church is one. There is one Idngdom of Christ, one fold of which he is the shepherd, one body of which he is the head. 2. That union with Christ is the condition of unity in the church. We are one body in Christ Jesus, L e., in virtue of our union with him ; and consequently the church consists of all who are in Christ. 3. That the Holy Ghost, who dwells without measure in Christ, and from him is communicated to all his people, is the bond of union between them and him, and between the constituent members of his body. 4. That the indwelling of the Spirit in the members of the church, as it is the ultimate ground of its unity, so it is the cause or source of outward union in all its legitimate forms. The church is or ought to be one in faith, in communion, in worship, in organization, and obedience, just so far and no farther than the indwelling Spirit is productive of such union. 5. There are certain duties which necessarily arise out of this relation of behevers to each other as members of the same church, and which are coextensive with the relation out of which they spring. Among those duties are sympathy and mutual assistance. It is because believers are members of one body that they are expected to sympathize with one another just as the hand sympathizes with the foot, or the eye with the ear in the natural body. It is because believers are the organs and temples of the Holy Ghost that we are commanded to obey one another, in the fear of the Lord, to bring our complaints to the church, and to hear the church on pain of being considered heathen men and publicans. It is because we are all brethren, oIkeXol rijg TTiarecjg, that we are bound to bear one another's burdens, and to distribute to the SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 293 necessities of the saints. These are duties we owe to believers as such, and therefore not to those only who may live in the same place with us, or worship with us in the same house^ Proximity of residence or association in worship, is not the ground of these obligations. They are founded on a far higher relation, a relation which exists between all the members of Christ's body, and therefore they bind every member to all his fellow members. This being the true idea of the church, it follows that if per- fectly realized, all Christians would be united in one ecclesiasti- cal body. That consummation is now hindered by their imper- fection. Though one in faith, it is only within the narrow limits of essential doctrines. Though one in affection, it is not with that full confidence and cordiality necessary for harmonious action in the same external society. So long therefore as the inward unity of the church is imperfect, its. outward union must be in like manner imperfect. This admission, however, does not imply that outward disunion is itself a good ; or that unity ought not to be outwardly expressed as far as it reaUy exists. Consequently those who are one in Spirit ; whose views as to doctrine, worship, and discipline, are such as to admit of their harmonious co-operation, are bound to unite as one outward or visible church. It is universally admitted that those who are united in the same visible church owe certain duties to each other. In other words, there are certain duties which rest upon them as a church. It is also admitted that the support of the ministry is one of those duties. If, therefore, the church is nothing and can be nothing beyond a single congregation, then that duty and all others of a like kind which rest upon the church as such, are limited to the bounds of the congregation. The obligation of obedience does not extend beyond the list of their fellow worship- pers in the same house. The obligation to support the ministry is confined to their own immediate pastor. But if the church consists of all believers, then the whole body of believers stand in the relation of church-membership, and the duties of obedience and mutual aid in the discharge of all ecclesiastical obligations rest on the whole united body ; that is, on all who recognize each other as members of the same church. It follows, therefore, from the scriptural doctrine of the church, that the obligation to provide the means of grace for the whole church, rests on the 294 SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. churcli as a whole, and not merely or exclusively on each separate congregation for itself. The second argument in support of this doctrine is derived from the commission given to the church. Christ said to his disciples : Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. The prerogative and duty here enjoined, is to teach all nations. For the discharge of this duty the ministry was appointed. Christ in the first instance, personally, and afterwards by his Spirit, calls and qualifies certain men to be organs and agents of the church in the great work of teaching the nations. To whom then was this commission given ? On whom does the obligation of discharging the duty it enjoins rest ? Not on the apostles alone — not on the ministry alone— but on the whole church. This is indeed a very important point, much debated between Komanists and Protestants. It must be here taken for granted, that neither prelates nor presbyters are the church, but that God's people are the church, and that to the chuch as such, to the church as a whole, to the church as one, was this great commis- sion given. It was originally addressed to a promiscuous assembly of believers. The power and the promise which it conveyed, were connected with the gift of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Spirit was the source at once of the power here conferred, and of the qualifications necessary for the discharge of the duty here enjoined. And as the Spirit was not given to the apostles, prelates, or presbyters as a distinct class, and to the exclusion of others, so neither was the commission which was founded on the gift of the Spirit confined to them. The power, the duty, and the promise of the Spirit all go together. Unless, therefore, we adopt the Komish doctrine that the Spirit was given to the apostles as a distinct and self-perpetuating order in the church, to flow mechanically through the channel of that succession, a living stream through a dead body, we must admit that the com- mission in question was given to the whole church. All the pre- rogatives, duties, and promises which it conveys, belong to the church as a living body pervaded in all its parts by the life-giving and life-impelling Spirit of God. This, however, does not imply that there is no order or subordination in the church ; or that there is no diversity in the gifts, graces, and ofiices which the Spirit divides to each one severally as ae wiRs. All are not apostles, all are not prophets, or teachers, or workers of miracles. SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 295 God is not the author of confusion, but of order and peace in all the churches of the saints. The absence of order, subordination and peace in any body is an evidence of the absence of the Spirit of God. The Protestant doctrine that the commission so often referred to, was given to the whole church, is therefore perfectly consistent with the existence and prerogatives of the ministry, not only as a work, but as an office. The application of the Protestant doctrine just stated, to the subject before us. is obvious and direct. If to the church as such and as a whole, the duty of teaching all nations has been com- mitted, then upon the church as a whole rests the obligation to sustain those who are divinely commissioned in her name and as her organs for the immediate discharge of that duty. On what other ground do we appeal to all our members, young and old, male and female, to send forth and sustain our missionaries, for- eign and domestic .? We do not merely say to them that this is a duty of benevolence or of Christian charity, but we tell them it is a command of Christ, a command addressed to them, which binds their conscience, which they cannot neglect without re- nouncing the authority of Christ, and thereby proving that they are destitute of his Spirit and are none of his. In doing this, we certainly do right ; but we obviously take for granted that since the commission to teach all nations has been given to the whole church, the duty of supporting those sent forth as teach- ers rests upon the whole church as a common burden. The com- mand therefore which binds us to support the gospel in New Jersey binds us to sustain it in Wisconsin. All the reasons of the obligation apply to the one case as well as to the other. And we miserably fail of obedience to Christ if we content ourselves with supporting our own pastors, and let others provide for them- selves or perish, as they see fit. A third consideration which leads to the conclusion for which we are now contending is, that the ministry pertains to the whole church, and not primarily and characteristically to each particular congregation. When a man is ordained, the office into which he is inducted has relation to the church as a whole. All the prerogatives and obligations of that office are conveyed though he has no separate congregation confided to his care. A call to a particular church does not convey the ministerial office, it only gives authority to exercise that office over a particular 296 SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. people and within a given sphere. The office itself has far wider relations. If it were true that the ministerial office has relation primarily and essentially to a particular congregation, so that a man can no more be a minister without a congregation, than a husband without a wife (the favorite illustration of those who adopt this view of the matter), then it would follow that no man is a minister except to his own congregation, nor can he perform any ministerial acts out of his own charge ; that he ceases to be a minister as soon as he ceases to be a pastor ; and that the church has no right to ordain men as missionaries. These are not only the logical conclusions from this doctrine, they were all admitted and contended for by the early and con- sistent Independents. This view is obviously unscriptural. The apostle after teaching that the church is one— one body having one Spirit, one faith, one Lord, one baptism, adds that to this one church, the ascended Saviour gave gifts, viz., apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, for the work of the ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ. The apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers were not given to particular congregations, but to the church generally. Of all the preachers of the gospel named in the New Testament it would be difficult to find one who sustained a special, much less an exclusive relation to any one congregation. Paul did not, neither did Barnabas, nor Timothy, nor Titus. That there were pastors in every church is Of course admitted, but even in their case, the relation they sustained was like that of a captain of a single ship in a large fleet. While each pastor had a special relation to his own charge, he had a higher relation to the whole church. If the doctrine of the Independents on this subject, were true, it might be plausibly argued that the obligation to support a minister rested solely on the congregation who enjoys his ser- vices. It is altogether a private affair, analogous to the relation which a man bears to his own family. But if the true doctrine is, that the ministry belongs to the whole church ; the whole church is bound to sustain it. The relation which the officers of the navy and army sustain to the whole country, with propriety throws the burden of their support on the country as a whole. And such is the relation which ministers sustain to the church. A fourth argument on this subject is, that all the reasons SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 29t which are given in the sacred Scriptures to show that the min- istry ought to be supported, bear on the church as one body. Our Saviour says the laborer is worthy of his hire. But iiL^ whose service does the minister labor ? Who gave him his commission ? In whose name does he act ? Whose work is he doing ? to whom is he responsible ? Is it not the church as a whole, and not this or that particular congregation ? Again, to whose benefit do the fruits of his labor redound ? When souls are converted, saints edified, children educated in the fear of God, is this a local benefit ? Are we not one body ? Has the hand no interest in the soundness of the foot, or the ear in the well-being of the eye ? It is only on the assumption therefore of a most unscriptural isolation and severance of the constituent members of Christ's body, that the whole obligation to sustain the ministry can be thrown on each separate congregation. Again, it is an ordinance of Christ that those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel. This ordinance certainly binds those to whom the gospel is given, to whose custody it is com- mitted, who are charged with the duty of sustaining and ex- tending it ; who have felt its power and experienced its value. They are the persons whom Christ honors by receiving gifts at their hands, for the support of his servants and the promotion of his kingdom. Consequently the whole body of his people have by his ordinance this duty imposed on them as a common burden and a common privilege. In the fifth place, this matter may be argued from the com- mon principles of justice. Our present system is unjust, first, to the people. Here are a handful of Christians surrounded by an increasing mass of the ignorant, the erroneous, and the wicked. No one will deny that it is of the last importance that the gospel should be regularly administered among them. This is demanded not only for the benefit of those few Christians, but for the in- struction and conversion of the surrounding population. Now is it just, that the burden of supporting the ministry under these circumstances, should be thrown exclusively on that small and feeble company of believers ? Are they alone interested in the sup- port and extension of the kingdom of Christ among themselves and those around them ? It is obvious that on all scriptural prin- ciples, and on all principles of justice, this is a burden to be borne by the whole church, by all on whom the duty rests to uphold 298 SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. and propagate the gospel of Christ. Our present system is un- just, in the second place, towards our ministers. It is not just that one man should be supported in affluence, and another equally devoted to the service of the church, left to struggle for the necessaries of life. As before stated, we do not contend for anything so chimerical as equal salaries to all ministers. Even if all received from the church as a whole the same sum, the peo- ple would claim and exercise the right to give in addition what they pleased to their own pastor. We can no more make sal- aries equal, than we can make church edifices of the same size and cost. But while this equality is neither desirable nor prac- ticable, it is obviously unjust that the present inordinate inequal- ity should be allowed to continue. The hardship falls precisely on the most devoted men : on those who strive to get along without resorting to any secular employment. Those who resort to teaching, farming, or speculating in land, in many cases soon render thernselves independent. The way to keep ministers poor, is to give them enough to live upon. Observation in all parts of the country shows that it is the men with inadequate salaries who become rich, or at least lay up money. It is not therefore because we think that the ministry as a body would have more of this world's goods if adequately supported by the church, that we urge this plea of just compensation. It is be- cause those who do devote themselves to their ministerial work, are left to contend with all the harassing evils of poverty, while others of their brethren have enough and to spare. This we regard as contrary to justice, contrary to the Spirit of Christ, and the express commands of his word. Let the Presbyterian church ask itself whether it has ever obeyed the ordinance of Christ, that they who preach the gospel shall live by the gospel. It is obvious that this never has been done. And if we ask, why not, we can find no other answer than that we have not adopted the right method. We have left each congregation to do the best it can ; the rich giving themselves little concern how the poor succeed in this necessary work. We do not see how the command of Christ ever can be obeyed, how anything like jus- tice on this subject ever can be done, until the church recognizes the truth that it is one body, and therefore that it is just as ob- ligatory on us to support the gospel at a distance as around our own homes. SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 299 Sixthly, the advantages which would be secured by this plan, are a strong argument in its favor. It would secure a great in- crease in the amount of time and labor devoted to ministerial^ work. We have no means of ascertaining with accuracy what proportion of our ministers unite with their sacred office some secular employment, nor what proportion of their time is thus diverted from their appropriate duties It may be that one third or one half of the time of the ministry of our church, taken as a whole, is devoted to secular business. If this estimate is any approximation to the truth, and it has been made by those who have had the best opportunity of forming a correct judgment, then the efficiency of the ministry might be well-nigh doubled if this time could be redeemed from the world and devoted to study, to pastoral duties, and the education of the young. Again, it would exert a most beneficial influence on the char- acter of the ministry. How many men, who, from necessity, en- gage in some secular work, gradually become worldly-minded, lose their interest in the spiritual concerns of the church, and come to regard their ministerial duties as of secondary import- ance ! It is a law of the human mind that it becomes assimilated to the objects to which its attention is principally directed. It is almost impossible for a minister, whose time is mainly devoted to worldly business, to avoid becoming more or less a worldly man. A very respectable clergyman, advanced in life, who had felt this difficulty, recently said there was nothing about which he was more determined than that if he had his life to live over again, he would never settle in a congregation that did not sup- port him. It is very hard to draw the line between gaining a support and making money. It is difficult to discriminate in practice between what is proper, because necessary, and what all admit to be derogatory to the ministerial character. How often does it happen that the desire of wealth insinuates itself into the heart, under the guise of the desire for an adequate support. Without the slightest impeachment of any class of our brethren, in comparison with others, but simply assuming that they are Uke other men and other ministers, it is obvious that the neces- sity of devoting a large part of their time to secular employment, is injurious both to their own spiritual interests and to their usefulness. Every thing, indeed, depends upon the motive with which this is done. If done as a matter of self-denial, in order 300 SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. to make the gospel of Christ without charge, its influence will be salutary ; but if done from any worldly motive it must, from the nature of the case, bring leanness into the soul. It can hardly, therefore, be doubted that few things, under God, would more directly tend to exalt the standard of ministerial character and activity in our church, than a provision of an adequate sup- port for every pastor devoted to his work. How many of our most deserving brethren would the execution of this plan relieve from anxiety and want ! Many of them are now without the ordinary comforts of life ; harassed by family cares, oppressed with diffi- culty as to the means of supporting and educating their children. It would shed an unwonted light into many a household, to hear it announced that the Presbyterian church had resolved to obey the ordinance of Christ, that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel. Such a resolution would kindle the incense in a thousand hearts, and would be abundant through the thanksgiving of many to the glory of God. Again, this plan would secure stability and consequent power to the institutions of religion in a multitude of places, where every thing is now occasional, uncertain, and changing. Our church would be thus enabled to present a firm and steadily ad- vancing front. Congregations too feeble to-day to support the gospel at all, would soon become, under the steady culture thus afforded to them, able to aid in sustaining others. A new spirit of alacrity and confidence would be infused into the ministry. They would not advance with a hesitating step, doubtful whether those behind will uphold their hands. When a missionary leaves our shores for heathen lands, he goes without any misgivings as to this point. He has no fear of being forgot, and allowed to struggle for his daily bread, while endeavoring to bring the heathen to the obedience of Christ. He knows that the whole church is pledged for his support, and he devotes himself to his work without distraction or anxiety. How different is the case with multitudes of our missionaries at home ! They go to places where much is to be done, where constant ministerial labor is demanded, but they go with no assurance of support. The peo- ple whom they serve may greatly need the gospel ; it ought to be carried to them, and urged upon them, but they care little about it, and are unwiUing to sustain the messenger of God. The church does not charge itself with his support. It is true he is SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. 301 laboring in her service and in the service of her Lord, but he is left to provide for himself, and live or starve as the case may be. This is not the way in which a church can be vigorously ad- vanced. It is not the way in which Antichrist advances his kingdom. No Romish priest plants a hesitating foot an any un- occupied ground. He knows he represents a church ; a body which recognizes its unity, and feels its life in all its members. Is it right that we should place the cause of Christ under such disadvantage ? that we should adopt a plan of ministerial sup- port which of necessity makes the church most feeble at the ex- tremities, where it ought to have most alacrity and strength ? Truly the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. The great recommendation of the plan for which we contend, is, that it is right. And if right, it must be healthful in all its influences. If the church acts on the principle that it is one, it will become one. If from a conviction of the brotherhood of all believers, it acts towards aU as brothers, brotherly love will abound. The sense of injustice which cannot fail on our present plan to corrode the feelings of our neglected brethren, will cease to exist. The sympathies of the more prosperous portions of the church will become more enlisted in the welfare of those less highly favored. By acting on the principle which the Holy Spirit has prescribed for the government of the church, the church will become more and more the organ and dweUing-place of that Spirit, who will pervade it in all its parts with the glow of his presence, rendering it at once pure and prosperous, instinct with the power and radiant with the beauty of holiness. We do not; anticipate much opposition to the principles which we have attempted to advocate. We do not expect to hear any one deny the unity of the church ; nor that it is the duty of the whole church to sustain and propagate the gospel ; nor that the ministry belongs to the church as one body ; nor that every min- ister is engaged in the service of the whole church ; nor that it is just, scriptural, and expedient, that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel. Nor do we expect that any one wiU deny that it is a logical sequence from these principles that the obligation to support the ministry rests as a common burden on the church which that ministry serves. The objections which we anticipate are principally these. First, that there are many in- 302 SUPPORT OF THE CLERGY. efficient men in tlie ministry who ought not to be supported by the church, and who need the stimulus of dependence on their congregations to make them work. In answer to this objection we would say, that we believe the difficulty is greatly over- estimated, and that the inefficiency complained of arises in a great measure from the necessity which so many of our ministers labor under of providing for their own support. There is indeed no plan which is not liable to abuse. But we have in this case all the security which other churches have who act on the prin- ciple for which we contend. We have the security arising from the lidelity of sessions in guarding admissions to the church ; in the judgment of presbyteries in selecting and training men for the ministry, in ordaining them to the sacred office, and in superintending them when they come to discharge its duties. We have the security which the Board of Missions now have for the fidelity and efficiency of those who are engaged in its service. It will be observed that the plan contemplated does not propose to render the minister independent of his congregation. The principal part of his support, if a pastor, must, in most cases at least, come from them. It is only proposed that the Board of Missions should be authorized and enabled so to enlarge their appropriations as to secure an adequate support to every minis- ter devoted to his work. A more serious objection is the expense. In answer to this, we would ask whether it would require as large a portion of the income of believers as by divine command was devoted to this object under the old dispensation ? Is the gospel of the grace of God less valuable, or less dear to our hearts than the religion of Moses to the hearts of the Israelites ? Would it require a tithe of the sum which the heathen pay for the support of their priests and temples ? Would it cost Presbyterians in America more than it costs Presbyterians in Scotland, or more than it costs our Methodist brethren ? What ought to be done can be done. What others do, we can do. What the cause needs are, with the blessing of God, two things, an intelligent com- prehension of the grounds of the duty, on the part of the church, and some man or men to take the thing in hand and urge it forward. X. BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE/ The leading idea of Dr. BushneU's Discourses, is organic, as distinguished from individual life. Whatever may be thought of the expression, or whatever may he the form in which it lies in his mind, it represents a great and obvious truth ; a truth, which however novel it may appear to many of our New England breth- ren, is as familiar to Presbyterians as household words. Strange, and in our view distorted, as is the form in which this truth ap- pears in Dr. BushnelFs book, and incongruous as are the elements with which it is combined, it still has power to give his Discourses very much of an " Old-school" cast, and to render them in a'high degree attractive and hopeful in our estimation. Apart from the two great illustrations of this truth, the participation of the life of Adam by the whole race, and of the life of Christ by all believers, we see on every hand abundant evidence that every church, nation, and society, has a common life, besides the life of its individual members. This is the reason why nothing of im- portance can occur in one part of the church without influencing all other parts. No new form of doctrine, no revival or decline of spiritual life can exhibit itself in New England, that is not effective throughout the Presbyterian church. We as a body owe, in no small measure, our character as distinguished from other Presbyterian communities to our participation, so to speak, of the » 1. Discourses m Christian Nurture. By Horace Bushnell, Pastor of the North Church, Hartford. Approved by the Committee of Pubhcation. Boston : Massachu- setts Sabbath School Society. 1847. 12mo. pp. 72. 2. Dr. Tyler's Letter to Dr. Bushnell on Christian Nurture. 8vo. pp. 22. 3. An argument for ''Discourses on Christian Nurture,'^ addressed to the Publishing Committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society. By Horace Bushnell. Hartford Edwin Hunt 1847. 8vo. pp. 48.— -Princeton Review, October, 1847. 304 BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. life of New England ; and the New England churclies are in- debted, in like manner, for their character as distinguished from other Congregational bodies, to the influence of their Presbyterian brethren. No community can isolate itself. The subtle influ- ence which pervades the whole, permeates through every barrier, as little suspected and yet as efiective as the magnetic or electric fluid in nature. This fact may be explained in a manner more or less obvious or profound according to our philosophy or disposi- tion, but it cannot be denied, and should not be disregarded. We are, therefore, not uninterested spectators of the changes going on in New England. They are changes, in the body of which we are members, and their eftects for good or evil we must share. We are not therefore stepping out of our own sphere, or meddling with what does not concern us, in calling attention to Dr. Bushneirs book, and to the discussions to which it has given rise. The history of this little volume is somewhat singular. Dr. Bushnell was appointed by the Ministerial Association, of which he is a member, to discuss the subject of Christian training. He produced two discourses from his pulpit, and read the argument before the Association, who requested its publication. To this he assented, but before his purpose was executed, a request came from a member of the Committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, that the publication should be made by them. The manuscript was forwarded to the committee who retained it in their possession six months, twice returned it to the author for modifications, and finally published it with their approbation. It excited no little attention, being favorably noticed in some quar- ters, and unfavorably in others. So much disapprobation, how- ever, was soon manifested, that the committee felt called upon to suspend its publication. We are not surprised at any of these facts. We do not wonder that the committee kept the book so long under advisement ; or that they should ultimately venture on its publication ; or that when published, it should create such a sensation, or meet with the fate which actually befel it. There is enough in the book to account for all this. Enough of tnith most appropriate for our times, powerfully presented, to make the committee anxious to bring it before the churches ; enough of what was new in form and strange in aspect, to create doubt as to its effect and its reception ; and enough of apparent and BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 305 formidable error to account for the alarm and uneasiness conse- quent on its publication. We cannot regret that the book has seen the light, and done, or at least begun, its work^i-We antici- pate immeasurably more good than evil from its publication.^ What is wrong, we trust will be sifted out and perish, what is right, will live and operate. The truths which give value to this publication, and from which we [anticipated such favorable results^ are principally the following : iFirst, the fact that there is such a divinely constitu- ted relation between the piety of parents and that of their chil- dren, as to lay a scriptural foundation for a confident expectation, in the use of the appointed means, that the children of believers will become truly the children of God. We do not like the form in which Dr. Bushnell states this fact ; much less, as we shall probably state more fully in the sequel, the mode in which he accounts for it ; but the fact itself is most true and precious. It is founded on the express and repeated declaration and promise of God. He said to Abraham : I will establish my covenant be- tween me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee. Deut. vii. 9. Know, therefore, that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. Deut. xxxix. 6. The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. Isa. lix. 21. As for me this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord : my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, from henceforth forever. In the New Testament the fact that the promises made to believers include their children, was recognized from the veiy foundation of the Christian church. In the sermon delivered by Peter on the day of Pentecost, he said, the promise is to thee and to thy seed after thee. And Paul assures us even with regard to outcast Israel, the children are beloved for the father's sake. It is, therefore, true, as might be much more fully proved, that by divine ap- pointment the children of believers are introduced into the cov- enant into which their parents enter with God, and that the 20 306 BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. promises of that covenant are made no less to the children than to the parents. He promises to be their God, to give them his Spirit, to renew their hearts, and to cause them to live. This promise, however, like all others of a similar character, is general ; expressing what is to be the general course of events, and not what is to be the result in every particular case. When Grod promised that summer and winter, seed-time and harvest should succeed each other to the end of time, he did not pledge himself that there never should be a failure in this succession, that a famine should never occur, or that the expectations of the husbandman should never be disappointed. Nor does the decla- ration, " train up a child in the way in which he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," contain a promise that no well-disciplined child shall ever wander from the right path. It is enough that it expresses the tendency and ordinary result of proper training. In like manner, the promise of God to give his Spirit to the children of believers, does not imply that every Buch child shall be made the subject of saving blessings. .It is enough that it indicates the channel in which his grace ordinarily flows, and the general course of his dispensations. Again, it is to be remembered that these promises are condi- tional. God has never promised to make no distinction between faithful and unfaithful parents, between those who bring up their offspring in the nurture of the Lord, and those who utterly neg- lect their religious training. The condition, which from the nature of the case is implied in this promise, is in many cases expressly stated. His promise is to those who keep his covenant, and to those who remember his commandments to do them. It is involved in the very nature of a covenant that it should have conditions. And although in one important sense, the conditions of the covenant of grace have been performed by Christ, still its promises are suspended on conditions to be performed by or in his people. And this is expressly declared to be the case with regard to the promises of the divine blessing to the children of believers. They must keep his covenant. They must train up their children for God. They must use the means which he has appointed for their conversion and sanctification, or the promise does not apply to them. Then again, there is a condition to be performed by the children themselves. God promises to be their God, but they must consent to be his people. He promises them BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 307 his Spirit, but they must seek and cherish his influence. If they renounce the covenant, and refuse to have God for their Grod, and to walk in the way of his commandments, then the promise no longer pertains to them. It will naturally be objected, that if this is so, the promise amounts to nothing. If after all, it is not the children of be- lievers as such, and consequently all such children, who are to be saved ; if the promise to them is general as a class and not to each individual ; if it is conditional on the fidelity of parents and of the children themselves, its whole value is gone. What have they more than others ? What advantage have the children of the covenant ? or what profit is there in baptism ? It is precisely thus the Jews reasoned against the apostle. When he proved that it was not the Jews as Jews, and simply because Jews, who were to be the heirs of salvation, and that circumcision could profit them nothing unless they kept the law, they immediately asked : What advantage then hath the Jew, and what profit is there of circumcision ? Much every way, answered the apostle — chiefly because unto them were committed the oracles of God. To them belonged the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service, and the promises : theirs were the fathers, and of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. Salvation was of the Jews. All the religion that was in the world was found among them. It was therefore a great ad- vantage to be found among that favored people, even although from the want of faithfulness, on the part both of parents and children, so many of them perished. In like manner it is a great blessing to be born within the covenant, to be the children of believers — to them belong the adoption and the promises, they are the channel in which the Spirit flows, and from among them the vast majority of the heirs of salvation are taken not- withstanding the multitudes who perish through their own fault or the fault of their parents. It is, therefore, a scriptural truth that the children of believ- ers are the children of God ; as being within his covenant with their parents, he promises to them his Spirit ; he has established a connexion between faithful parental training and the salvation of children, as he has between seed-time and harvest, diligence and riches, education and knowledge. In no one case is abso- lutely certainty secured or the sovereignty of God excluded. But 308 BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. in all the divinely appointed connexion between means and end, is obvious. [That this connexion is not more apparent, in the case of parents and children is due, in a great measure, to the sad defi- ciency in parental fidelity. If we look over the Christian world, how few nominally Christian parents even pretend to bring up their children for God. In a great majority of cases the attain- ment of some worldly object, is avowedly made the end of educa- tion ; and all the influences to which a child is exposed are designed and adapted to make him a man of the world. And even within the pale of evangelical churches, it must be con- fessed, there is great neglect as to this duty. Where is the parent whose children have turned aside from God, whose heart wUl not rather reproach him, than charge God with forgetting his promise .? Our very want of faith in the promise is one great reason of our failure. We have forgotten the covenant. We have forgotten that our children belong to God ; that he has promised to be their God, if we are faithful to our trust. We do not say that all the children of the most faith- ful parent, will certainly be saved, any more than we would say that every diligent man will become rich ; but the Scriptures do say that the children of believers are the subjects of the divine promise, as clearly as they say, the hand of the diligent maketh rich. This doctrine is clearly impHed in the circumcision and bap- tism of children. Why is the sign and seal of the covenant attached to them, if they are not within the covenant ? What are the promises of that covenant but that God will be their God, that he will forgive their sins, give them his Spirit, renew their hearts, and cause them to live ? These promises are there- fore made to them, and are sealed to them in their baj^tism, just as much as they are to their parents. This has been the uniform doctrine of the Christian church. It is avowed in all confessions, and involved in the usages of all communions. In the appendix to the Geneva Catechism, in the form for the administration of Baptism, it is said : Quamobrem etsi fidelium liberi sint ex Adami corrupta stirpe ac genere, eos ad se nihilominus admittit, propter foedus videlicet cum eorum paren- tibus initum, eosque pro liberis suis habet ac numerat ; ob eamque causam jam inde ab initio nascentis ecclesias voluit infantibus cir- » BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 309 cumcisionis notum imprimi, qua quidem nota jam eadem omnia significabat ac demonstrabat, qu£e hodie in Baptismo designatur. " Take the doctrine (which I frankly say I do not hold) that regeneration is ao- corapliahed by an instant and physical act of God, to which act truth and all endeav- ors in the subject have no other relation, as moans to ends, than the rams-horns had 334 BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. religion, which comes suddenly with convictions and struggles. The whole tenor of his book is in favor of the idea that all true religion is gradual, habitual, acquired as habits are formed. [Every thing must be like a natural process, nothing out of the regular sequence of cause and effect. If Dr. Bushnell really de- nied what is commonly understood by experimental religion, if he had no faith in conversion by supernatural influence, and meant to place himself on the Rationalistic side of all these controver- sies, he could hardly have more effectually accomplished his object, than by setting as he has done his " whole subject in a naturalistic attitude." Surely it ought not to be a matter of doubt on which side of such questions such a man stands. The true character of the theory of religion taught in this department of his book, is further apparent from two additional considerations. In the first place, the author not unfrequently speaks " of generalizing the doctrines of grace and depravity, so as to bring them into the same organic laws." Argument, p. 33. He teaches that " the laws of grace" are " perfectly coincident with the organic laws of depravity." P. 36. Now, as Dr. Bush- nell does not hold that depravity is propagated by any super- natural agency of God, we do not see how he can claim that grace is thus communicated, the laws which regulate both being identical. We take these passages to mean that as it is by a process of nature that depravity is communicated from parents to children, as this is the result of organic laws, so by a like pro- cess spiritual life is communicated from the parent to the child. The result is brought about, in both cases, by parental character and treatment, as an organic power. The second consideration is, that he avows it as one of his objects, to present the most comprehensive form of truth possible, so as to include the most discordant views. He says, '^ I had a secret hope beforehand of carrying the assent of Unitarians." " In drawing up my view of depravity as connected with organic character, and also in speaking of what I supposed to be their theory of education, I did seek to present the truth in such a way that all their objections might be obviated." P. 27. He therefore exults in their approbation, and hopes they may ap- to the fall of Jericho. Yet that instant, isolated act of Omnipotence may fall on the heart of infancy, as well as of adult years, and God may give us reason to expect it." Argument, p. 33. BUSHNELL ON C H R I S T I xl N N U R T U R E. 335 prove every sentiment he may hereafter publish. He advocates towards them a very different course from that which has been, hitherto adopted. Se urges that great truths should be pre- sented in such a shape as to secure their acceptance. Now it seems to us that all this argues either such an elevation that all difterences of doctrine are lost sight of, as mountains and valleys seem one great plain to the aeronaut, or a great indifference to the truth. He must either suppose that the orthodox and unita- rians are like children, disputing about words, when they really agree, had they only sense enough to know it ; or that the points of difference are of so little importance that they may be dropped in a statement of the truth common to both. Either of these assumptions is not a little violent. It is not likely that Pelagians and Augustinians in all ages have held the same doc- trine without knowing it, waiting until some philosophical mind should arise to frame a statement satisfactory to both parties. Nor is it probable that the difference between them, if real, is now for the first time, to be shown to be of no account. Dr. Bushnell has done nothing. He has not advanced an inch be- yond Pelagius. The latter was willing to call nature grace, and the former calls nature supernatural, and wishes unitarians and orthodox to consider that a solution of the whole matter. Uni- tarians are agreed, but the orthodox demur. And well they may, for supernatural nature is but nature stiU, and if salvation comes through nature, Christ is dead in vain and we are yet in our sins. Such compromises are nothing more nor less than ill- disguised surrender of the truth. And the truth is the Hfe of the world. Dr. Bushnell, after quoting from various writers, passages teaching, as he has taught, the intimate religious connexion be- tween parents and children, and the paramount importance of Christian nurture, turns on the Massachusetts committee, and speaking of his opponents, says : " These censors of orthodoxy have raised an outcry, they have stirred up a fright, and driven you to the very extreme measure of silencing a book — in which it turns out they have been stirring up their heroism against Bax- ter and the first fathers of New England, against Hopkins, West, D wight, and I know not how many others, to say nothing of the ancient church itself, as understood by the most competent critics. o o -:::- j^nd^ now, what opinion will you have, what opinion 336 BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTUEE. will all sensible men have, two years hence, of this dismal scene of fatuity, which in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven, has so infected the nerves of orthodox Massachusetts as even to stop the press of her Sabbath School Society ?" But how comes it that while Unitarians agree with Dr. Bushnell, they do not agree with Baxter, Hopkins, West or Dwight ? Have they all along been mistaken as to what the orthodox taught, until Dr. Bushnell presented the subject in its true light ? The fact is, Dr. Bushnell is under a great mistake. The complaint against his book is not for what he has in common with Baxter and Dwight, it is not his teaching that the piety of the parent lays a scriptural foundation for expecting the children to be pious, nor that Christian nurture is the great means of their conversion, but it is for the explanation he has undertaken to give of these facts. It is because he has not rested them upon the covenant and promise of God, but resolved the whole matter into organic laws, explaining away both depravity and grace, and presented the ^' whole subject in a naturalistic attitude." It is this that renders his book so attractive to Unitarians, and so alarming, with all its excellencies, to the orthodox. Our understanding of Dr. BushnelFs theory of Christian nur- ture is, then, this : Men do exist as isolated individuals, each having his life entirely within himself, and forming his character by his own will. There is a common life of the race, of the nation, of the church, and of the family, of which each individual partakes, and which reveals itself in each, under a peculiar form, determined partly by himself and partly by the circumstances in which he is placed. As the child derives its animal lite from its parents, with all its peculiarities, so also he derives his moral and spiritual life from the same source. The organic connexion does not cease at birth, but is continued until the child becomes an intelligent, conscious, self-determining agent. Its forming period is prior to that event, during which it is in a great measure the passive subject of impressions from the parent, whose inward, spiritual life, of what sort it is, passes over or is continued in the child. Such is the condition in which men are born into this world, and such the power of the life of the parent, that natural pravity may be overcome by Christian nurture, and a real regeneration effected by parental character and treatment as an organic power. BTTSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 33T Every one sees there is a great deal of truth in this, and that most important duties and responsibilities must grow out of that truth. But, at the same time, it is both defective and erroneous as a full statement of the case. ■ It rests on a false assumption of the state of human nature, and of the power of Christian nurture. It assumes that men are not by nature the children of wrath, that they are not involved in spiritual death, and, consequently, that they do not need to be quickened by that mighty power which wrought in Christ when it raised him from the dead. The forming influence of parental character and life is fully adequate to his regeneration ; education can correct what there is of natural corruption. In answer to the objection that this is the old Pelagian, Kationalistic theory of human nature and con- version, it is said, the Spirit of Jehovah fills all worlds, and every thing is due to his presence and power. This, however, is only saying that second causes owe their efficiency to Grod ; a truth which few naturalists, and even few infidels, deny. This, there- fore, may be admitted, and yet all supernatural influence in the regeneration of men denied. It can hardly be questioned that the Bible makes a broad dis- tinction between that agency of God by which the ordinary opera- tions of nature are carried on, and the agency of his Spirit, in the conversion and sanctification of men. The same distinction has always been made in the church. In all controversies con- cerning grace, the question has been, whether apart from the in- fluence of natural causes considered as the ordinary modes of the divine efliciency, there is any special and effectual agency of the Spirit in the regeneration of men. Dr. Bushnell may choose to overlook this distinction, and claim to be a supernaturalist because he believes God is in nature, but he remains on the precise ground occupied by those who are wont to call themselves Ka- tionalists. ■ We have already adverted to the difference which may exist between what a book teaches and what its author believes. This book to our apprehension teaches a naturalistic doctrine concern- ing conversion. The author asserts that he holds to the super- natural doctrine on that subject. He is of course entitled to the benefit of that declaration. All we can say is that he seems to use the terms in a different sense from that in which they are commonly employed, and that there is enough of a rationalistic 22 338 BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. cast about it to account for all the disapprobation it has excited, and to justify the course of the Massachusetts committee. For although it contains much important truth powerfully presented, and although it inculcates principles, considering the source whence they come, of no little significance and value, yet a book which in its apparent sense denies everything supernatural in re- ligion, could hardly be expected to circulate with the approbation of any orthodox society. Having presented what we consider the true ground of the admitted connexion between believing parents and their children, and considered Dr. Bushnell's views on the subject, it was our purpose to call attention to the church or ritual doctrine. This however, we can barely state. The church doctrine admits original sin, and the insufficiency of nature, or of any power operating in nature, for the regeneration of men. This power is found in the church. As all men partake of the life of Adam, by their natural birth, so they are made partakers of the life of Christ by their spiritual birth. He by his incarnation has mtro- duced a new principle of life, which continues in the church which is his body. And as baptism makes us members of the church, and therefore members of the body of Christ, it thus makes us partakers of his life. Just as a twig engrafted into a tree partakes of its life, so a child engrafted by baptism into the church partakes of the life of Christ. It is this life thus super- naturally communicated, which is to be developed by Christian nurture, and not any thing in the soul which it has by nature. This doctrine is presented in various forms more or less gross or philosophical, according to the character and training of its ad- vocates. It is however everywhere essentially the same whether propounded at Kome, Oxford, or Berlin. The German philosophi- cal form of the doctrine bids fair to be the popular one in this country, and is advanced with the contemptuous confidence which characterizes the school whence it emanates. Everything which is not ritual and magical is pronounced rationalistic. l!Tothing is regarded as spiritual but grace communicated by external acts and contacts. The true doctrine of Protestants which makes faith ne- cessary to the efficacy of the sacraments, is denounced as Puritan, which is rapidly becoming a term of reproach. This doctrine rests on a false view of the church. The external body of professors is not the body of Christ, which consists only of believers. Trans- BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 339 ferring to the former the attributes and prerogatives which belong to the latter, is the radical error of Romanism, the source at once of its corruption and power. It rests also on a false view of the sacraments, attributing to them an efficacy independent of faith in the recipient. It assumes a false theory of religion. Instead of the free unimpeded access of the soul to Christ, we are referred to the external church as the only medium of ap- proach. Instead of the life of God in the soul by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, it is the human nature of Christ, the second Adam of which we must partake. The whole doctrine is noth- ing but a form of the physical theory of religion. It is a new anthropology palmed upon men, as the gospel. We are constantly reminded of the remark of Julius Muller that all attempts to spiritualize nature, end in materializing spirit. A remark which finds a striking illustration in the new philosophy in its dealings with religion. Its most spiritual theories serve only to reduce the principle of divine life to the same category with animal life, something transmissible from parent to child, or from priest to people. There is great reason to fear that religion, under such teaching, will either sink into the formal ritualism of Rome, or be evaporated into the mystic rationalism of Germany. Schleier- macher, whose views are so zealously reproduced, and between which and his own Dr. Bushnell seems often at a loss to choose, taught that Christ introduced a new life-principle into the world. Human nature corrupted in Adam, was restored to perfection in him. That life still continues in the church, just as the life of Adam continues in the race. Christianity is the perfection of nature, as Christ was the perfection of manhood. It is not with the historical, personal Christ that we have communion, any more than it is with Adam as an individual man with whom we have to do. Both are reduced to a mere power or principle. Christ as the Son of God is lost. So also in his system the Holy Ghost, is not a divine person, but " the common spirit," or com- mon sentiment of the church The Holy Spirit has no existence out of the Church, and in it is but a principle. In this way all the precious truths of the Bible are sublimated into unsubstan- tial philosophical vagaries, and every man pronounced a Rational- ist, or what is thought to be the same thing, a Puritan, who does not adopt them. Though we have placed the title of Dr. Tyler's Letter to Dr. 340 BUSHNELL ON CHRISTIAN NURTURE. Bushnell at the head of this article, the course of our remarks has not led us into a particular consideration of it. This is not to be referred to any want of respect. The subject unfolded it- self to us in the manner in which we have presented it, and we should have found it inconvenient to turn aside to consider the particular form in which Dr. Tyler has exhibited substantially the same objections to Dr. Bushnell's book. Dr. T. however seems to make less of the promise of Grod to parents than we do, and to have less reliance on Christian nurture as a means of con- version. We are deeply impressed with the conviction that as to both of these points there is much too low a doctrine now gen- erally prevailing. And it is because Dr. B. urges the fact of the connexion between parents and children, with so much power, that we feel so great an interest in his book. His philosophy of that fact we hope may soon find its way to the place where so much philosophy has already gone. XI. DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH ON THE LORD'S SUPPER/ We have had Dr. Kevin's work on the " Mystical Presence" on our table since its publication, some two years ago, but have never really read It, until within a fortnight. We do not sup- pose other people are quite as bad, in this respect, as ourselves. Our experience, however, has been that it requires the stimulus of a special necessity to carry us through such a book. Being called upon to investigate the question, what was the real doc- trine of the Keformed church on the Lord's Supper ? we natur- ally turned to Dr. Nevin's work, and we gratefully acknowledge the assistance derived from it. We differ from him indeed, essen- tially, as to the whole subject, not only as to the historical ques- tion, but as to what is the true doctrine. We are, however, on that account only the more disposed to give him credit for the dih- gence with which he has collected materials (though almost en- tirely on one side) for the proper decision of the question. So much has of late been said by Dr. Nevin of the apostacy of the Reformed church ; his uniform tone is so disparaging, if not contemptuous, when speaking of all the branches of that church, except his own ; the charge of Puritanism and Rationalism is so constantly flowing from his pen, that he has reason, we think, to be surprised that aU this has been so long endured in silence. We, however, do not propose on this occasion to travel out of the record, or do more than endeavor to answer the quesion, ^ The Mystical Presence. A Vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. By the Rev. John "W. Netin, D. D., Professor of Theology in the Seminary of the German Reformed Church. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott k Co. 1846. pp. 256. — ^Princeton Review, April, 1848. 342 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH What is the true doctrine of the Eeformed church on the Lord^s Supper ? Having done this, however, we shall give our reasons for thinking that Dr. Nevin is tenfold further from the doctrines of our common fathers, than those whom he commiserates and condemns. It is confessedly a very difficult matter to obtain clear views of what was the real doctrine of the Eeformed church on the Lord's Supper, during the sixteenth century. This difficulty arises from various sources. The subject itself is mysterious. The Lord's Supper is by all Christians regarded as exhibiting, and, in the case of believers, confirming their union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever obscurity rests on that union, must in a mea- sure rest on this sacrament. That union, however, is declared to be a great mystery. It has always, on that account, been called the mystical union. We are, therefore, demanding too much when we require all obscurity to be banished from this subject. If the union between Christ and his people were merely moral, arising from agreement and sympathy, there would be no mystery about it ; and the Lord's Supper, as the symbol of that union, would be a perfectly intelligible ordinance. But the Scriptures teach that our union with Christ is far more than this. It is a vital union : we are partakers of his life, for it is not we that live, but Christ that liveth in us. It is said to be analogous to our union with Adam, to the union between the head and members of the same body, and between the vine and its branches. There are some points in reference to this subject, with regard to which almost all Christians are agreed. They agree that this union includes a federal or representative relation, arising from a divine constitution ; and on the part of Christ, a participation of our nature. He that sanctified and they who are sanctified are all of one. On this account he calls them brethren. Inasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also, himself, likewise took part of the same. (Heb. ii. 11-14). It is in virtue of his assumption of our nature that he stands to us in the inti- mate relation here spoken of. It is agreed, further, that this union includes on our part a participation of the Spirit of Christ. It is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ, and dwells without measure in him as our head, who dwells also in his people, so that they become one body in Christ Jesus. They are one in relation to each other, and one in relation to him. ON thp: lokd's supper. 343 As the human body is one by being animated and pervaded by one soul^ so Christ and his people are one in virtue of the in- dwelling of one and the same Spirit, the Holy Ghost. It is further agreed that this union relates to the bodies as well as the souls of believers. Know you not, asks the apostle, that your bodies are the members of Christ ; know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in you ? The Westminster Catechism, therefore, says of believers after death, that their bodies being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection. This union was always represented as a real union, not merely imaginary nor simply moral^ nor arising from the mere reception of the benefits which Christ has procured. We receive Christ himself, and are in Christ, united to him by the indwelling of his Spirit and by a living faith. So far all the Reformed at least agreed. Do the Scriptures teach, besides all this, that we are partakers of the human nature, of the real flesh and blood of Christ ? This question Romanists and Lutherans answer in the affirma- tive. They teach the actual reception and manducation of the real body of Christ. This the whole Reformed church denied, in England, Belgium, and Germany, as well as in Switzerland. But as Christ speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and we are said to have communion in them, the question is, in what way this is to be understood ? All the Reformed answered, that by receiving the body and blood of Christ, is meant receiving their virtue or efficacy. Some of them said it was their virtue as broken and shed, i. e., their sacrificial virtue ; others said, it was a mysterious, supernatural efficacy flowing from the glorified body of Christ in heaven ; and that this last idea, therefore, is to be taken into the account, in determining the nature of the union between Christ and his people. Apart, therefore, from the mys- teriousness of the subject, the diversity of views among the Reformed themselves, is one reason of the difficulty in determin- ing the real doctrine of the church on this subject. In some of the confessions we have the one, and in some the other of these modes of representation, brought to view. Another source of difficulty is found in the fact, that almost all the Reformed confessions were framed for the express purpose of compromise. One great object of Calvin's life, was to prevent the schism between the two branches of the Protestant church. 344 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH He and the other authors of these symbols, therefore, were con- stantly endeavoring to frame a statement of this doctrine, which all parties, Lutheran, Zuinglian, and Calvinistic, could adopt. Union was, at that time, a matter of the last importance, not only on religious and ecclesiastical grounds, but for reasons con- nected with their political well-being and safety. The question about the Lord's Supper, was the only one which kept the parties separate. Here Luther was inflexible and most unreasonably violent. The Lutherans were at this time far more numerous and powerful than the Keformed. To conciliate Luther was, therefore, a constant object of desire and effort. Conference after conference was held for this purpose. The Reformed on all these occasions, and in all their confessions, went as far as possible to meet the views of the Lutherans. It is not wonderful, therefore, that their language should, at times, be hard to reconcile with what was in fact the real doctrine of the Reformed church. We find Bucer signing a formula which satisfied Luther, and Beza signing another, which satisfied the Romish commissioners, at Poissy. It is fair to infer from these historical circumstances, that while the Reformed held a doctrine which admitted of ex- pression in the language adopted, it might be much more simply and intelligibly expressed in other terms. And we find, in fact, that as soon as this pressure from without was removed, all ambiguity as to the Reformed doctrine as to the Lord's Supper ceased. No one pretends to misunderstand the language of Turretin and Pictet, the contemporaries or immediate successors of Beza. This suggests a third source of difficulty on this subject, the ambiguity of the terms employed in these confessions. The words, presence, real, true, flesh and blood, substance, &c., are all employed, in many cases, out of their ordinary sense. We are said to receive the true body and blood, but nothing material ; the substance, but not the essence ; the natural body, but only by faith. It is not easy to unravel these conflicting statements and to determine what they really mean. Besides all this it is hard to tell where to look for the authoritative exhibition of the Reformed doctrine. Shall we look to the private writings of the Reformers, or to the public confessions ? If to the latter, shall we rely on those of Switzerland or on those of the Palatinate, France, or Belgium ? These, though they have a general coinci- dence, do not entirely agree. Some favor one interpretation, and ON THE LOED's SUPPER. 345 some another. Dr. Nevin chooses to make Calvin tne great authority, and pronounces the confessions of the Swiss churches '^ chaotic and contradictory." The most satisfactory method of proceeding, as we conceive, will be to quote, in the first instanc¥, those authorities which represent the Swiss views ; secondly, those which present the views of Calvin ; and, thirdly, those symbols in which both parties concurred. Having done this, we propose to analyze these statements, and endeavor to determine their meaning First then, the Zuinglian vieio Zuingle^ says : " The Lord's Supper is nothing else than the food of the soul, and Christ instituted the ordinance as a memo- rial of himself When a man commits himself to the sufferings and redemption of Christ, he is saved. Of this he has left us a certain visible sign of his flesh and blood, both which he has commanded us to eat and drink in remembrance of him." This is said in a document, presented to the council of Zurich, in 1523. In his LXVII Articles published in 1523, he says, briefly on this subject, in article 17, " Christ who offered himself once upon the cross is the eternally sufficient offering and sacrifice for the sins of all believers. Whence it follows that the mass is not a sacrifice, but the commemoration of the sacrifice made upon the cross, and, as it were, a seal of the redemption effected by Christ." In the " Expositio Chr. Fidei," written just before his death and published by BuUinger, 1531, he says : " The natural substantial body of Christ in which he suffered, and in which he is now seated in heaven, at the right hand of God, is not in the Lord's Supper eaten, corporeally, or as to its essence, but spirit- ually only. * * * Spiritually to eat the body of Christ, is nothing else than with the Spirit and mind to rely on the good- ness and mercy of Grod through Christ. * * *•*' Sacrament- ally to eat his body, is, the sacrament being added, with the mind and spirit to feed upon him.""* And afterwards, " We as- sert, therefore, that the body of Christ is not eaten in the Sup- ^ "We use the name of Zuingle to characterize the form of doctrine which he ac- tually taught, and which was adopted in the church of Zurich, of which he was the pastor ; not in the sense in which the term Zuinglian is popularly used, to designate what was really the Sociniau or Remonstrant doctrine on the Sacraments. '•* Niemeyer Col. Conf., pp. 44, 47. 346 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH V j)er in a gross carnal manner as the Papists pretend, but spirit- ually and sacramentally, with a devout, believing, and holy mind, as St. Chrysostom says." In his Epist. ad princip. G-erman. (Op. II., p. 546), he uses this language : " When the bread and wine, consecrated by the very words of Christ are distributed to the brethren, is not the whole Christ, as it were sensibly (if words are required, I will say more that I am wont to do) presented to the senses ? But how ? Is the natural body handled and eaten .? By no means ; but offered to the mind to be contemplated, for the senses we have the sacrament of this thing. * '•' '••" We never have denied that Christ is sacramentally and in mysterio present in the Lord's Supper, as well on account of believing contemplation, as the whole symbolical service." The confessions which most nearly conform to this view are the Confessio Tetrapolitana, The First Basel, and The First Helvetic Confession. All these are apologetic. The last named protests against the representation that the Keformed regard the sacra- ments as mere badges of profession, asserting that they are also signs and means of grace. In article 22, the Lord's Supper is called cGena mystica, " in which Christus truly oflfers his body and blood, and hence himself, to his people ; not as though the body and blood of Christi Avere naturally united with the bread and wine, or locally included in them, or sensibly there present, but in so far as the bread and wine are symbols, through which we have communion in his body and blood, not to the nourish- ment of the body, but of the spiritual or eternal life." The most concise and perspicuous statement of this form of the doctrine is to be found in " The Sincere Confession of the ministers of the church of Zurich," dated 1545. Those ministers say : " We teach that the great design and end of the Lord's Supper, that to which the whole service is directed, is the re- membrance of the body of Christ devoted, and of his blood shed for the remission of our sins. This remembrance, however, can- not take place without true faith. And although the things, of which the service is a memorial, are not visible or present after a corporal manner, nevertheless believing apprehension and the as- surance of faith renders them present in one sense, to the soul of the behever. He has truly eaten the bread of Christ * *^ •"••• who believes on Christ, very God and very man, crucified for us, on whom to believe is to eat, and to eat, to believe. * '•' '•'•■ ON THE lord's SUPPER. 347 Relievers have in the Lord's Supper no other lifegiving food than that which they receive elsewhere than in that ordinance. The believer, therefore, receives both, in and out of, the Lord's Sup- per in one and the same way, and by the same means of faith, one and the same food, Christ, except that in the Supper the re- ception is connected with the actions and signs appointed by Christ, and accompanied with a testifying, thanksgiving, and binding service. '•' *••' * Christ's flesh has done its work on earth, having been offered for our salvation ; now it no longer benefits on earth, and is 'no longer here."' This is a remarkably clear and precise statement, and should be remembered ; for we shall find Calvin and others whose language is often so different, avowing their concurrence with these ministers of Zurich, or at least uniting with them in the statement of this doctrine. Views of Calvin and of the Confession formed under his influence. Inst., iv., 17, 10. " We conclude that our souls are fed by the flesh and blood of Christ, just as our corporal life is preserved by bread and wine. For the analogy of the signs would not hold, if our souls did not find their aliment in Christ, which, however, cannot be the case, unless Christ truly coalesce into one with us, and support us through the use of his flesh and blood. It may seem incredible indeed that the flesh of Christ should reach us from such an immense local distance, so as to become our food. But we must remember how far the secret power of the Holy Spirit, transcends all our senses, and what folly it must be even to think of reducing his immensity to our measure. Let faith embrace then what the understanding cannot grasp, namely, that the Spirit unites things which are totally separated. Now this sacred communication of his flesh and blood, by which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if he penetrated our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals in the holy supper ; not by the exhibition of a vain and empty sign, but by putting forth such an energy of his Spirit as fulfils what he promises. What is thus attested he offers to all who approach the spiritual ban- quet. It is, however, fruitfully received by believ.ers only, who accept such vast grace with inward gratitude and trust." In 1561, Calvin wrote, in answer to the Lutheran Hesshuss, ' Gueriche : Symbolik., s. 452. 348 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH and with a view to unite the two parties, his Tract de vera par- ticipatione carnis et sanguinis Christi in sacra coena. In an ap- pendix to that Tract, he says : " The same body then which the Son of God once offered in sacrifice to the Father, he daily offers to us in the supper, that it may be our spiritual aliment. Only that must be held which was intimated as to the mode, that it is not necessary that the essence of the flesh should descend from heaven, in order that we may feed upon it ; but that the power of the Spirit is sufficient to penetrate through all impediments and to surmount all local distance. At the same time we do not deny that the mode here is incomprehensible to human thought ; for flesh naturally could neither be the life of the soul, nor exert its power upon us from heaven ; and not without reason is the communication, which makes us flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones, denominated by Paul a great mystery. In the sacred supper we acknowledge it a miracle, transcending both nature and our own understanding, that Christ's life is made common to us with himself, and his flesh given us as aliment." Again, " these things being disposed of, a doubt still appears with respect to the word substance; which is readily allayed, if we put away the gross imagination of a manducation of the flesh, as though it were like corporal food, which being put into the mouth, is received into the stomach. For if this absurdity be removed, there is no reason why we should deny that we are fed with Christ's flesh substantially, since we truly coalesce with him into one body by faith, and are thus made one with him. Whence it follows we are joined with him in substantial connec- tion, just as substantial vigor flows down from the head into the members. The definition must then stand that we are made to partake of Christ's flesh substantially ; not in the way of carnal mixture, or as if the flesh of Christ, drawn down from heaven entered into us, or were swallowed by the mouth ; but because the flesh of Christ, as to its power and efficacy, vivifies our souls, not otherwise than the body is nourished by the substance of bread wine." We prefer giving these extreme passages as selected by Dr. Nevin, instead of others of a different character, which could easily be gathered from Calvin's works. Those of the latter class, will turn up in their appropriate places. We proceed to quote ON THE lord's SUPPER. 349 some of the confessions, which most manifestly bear the impress of Calvin's hand or spirit. The Gallican Confession was adopted by the Protestants of- France, in 1559. In the 36th article it i» said : Quamvis (Chris- tus) nunc sit in coelis, ibidem etiam remansurus donee veniat mundum judicaturus, credimus tamen, eum arcana et incom- prehensibili Spiritus siii virtute nos nutire et vivificare sui cor- poris et sanguinis substantia per fidem apprehensa. Dicimur autem hoc spiritualiter fieri, non ut efficacias et veritatis loco im- aginationem aut cogitationem supponamus, sed potius, quoniam hoc mysterium nostrge cum Christo coalitionis tarn sublime est, ut omnes nostros sensus totumqe naturee ordinem superet, denique quoniam sit divinum ac coeleste, non nisi fide percipi at appre- hendi potest. Art. 37. Credimus, sicut antea dictum est, tam in coena quam in baptismo, Deum nobis reipsa, id est vere et efficaciter donare quicquid ibi sacramentaliter figurat, ac proinde cum signis conjungimus veram possessionem ac fruitionem ejus rei, quse ita nobis ofiertur. Itaque affirmamus eos qui ad sacram mensam Domini puram fidem tanquam vas quoddam afferunt, vere reci- pere quod ibi signa testificantur, nempe corpus et sanguinem Jesu Christi, non minus esse cibum ac potum animae, quam panis et vinum sunt corporis cibus. This is perhaps the proper place to state, though not in chro- nological order, that at a meeting of the National Synod of France, in 1571, Beza being president, an application was made by certain deputies to have the clause in Art. 37 altered, which asserts that we are nourished with the " substance of Christ's body and blood." The synod refused to make the alteration, and explained the expression by saying, they did not understand by it, " any confusion, commixture, or conjunction ^' * * but this only, that by his virtue, all that is in him that is needful for our salvation, is hereby most freely given and communicated to us. Nor do we consent with them who say we do communicate in his merits and gifts and spirit, without his being at all made ours ; but with the apostle (Eph. v. 23), admiring this supernat- ural, and to our reason, incomprehensible mystery, we do be- lieve we are partakers of his b6dy delivered to death for us, and of his blood shed for us, so that we are flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones, and that we receive him together with his gifts, by 350 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH faith wrought in us by the incomprehensible virtue and efficacy of the Holy Spirit." ' This decision was considered by the minis- ters of Zurich as involving a condemnation of their doctrine, and they complained of it ^cordingly. The following year, 1572, therefore the Synod decided, that though they chose to retain the word substance in the sense explained, they did so " with- out prejudicing those foreign churches, which for reasons best known to themselves do not use the word substance/' And in- stead of saying as they had done the year before, '' that we must truly participate in the second Adam, that we may derive life from him;" they substitute for the last clause the words : "that by mystical and spiritual communication with him, we may derive that true eternal life/' " And the Lord's Supper," they add, " is principally instituted for the communication of it ; though the same Lord Jesus be offered to us both in his sub- stance and gifts, in the ministry of the word and baptism, and received by faith/"* In the articles adopted by the Synod of London, in 1552, and sanctioned by the authority of Edward VI., the article on the Lord's Supper, gives in the first clause the scriptural lan- guage, "To those who receive it worthily and with faith, the bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ," &c. The second clause rejects transubstantiation. The third denies the Lutheran doctrine, and asserts that as Christ is in heaven, non debet quisquam fidelium carnis ejus et sanguinis realem et corporalem (ut loquantur) praesentiam in eucharistia vel credere vel profiteri. In the Thirty-nine articles of the church of England, adopted in 1562, the article on the Lord's Supper corresponds in purport exactly in the first three clauses, with the article of Edward YI. Then follows these words : Corpus Christi datur, accipitur, et manducatur in coena, tantum coeleste et spirituali ratione. Me- dium autem quo corpus Christi accipitur et manducatur in coena fides est. It is a remarkable fact that the Anglican confessions have decidedly a more Zuingiian tone than those of any other of the Keformed churches. This may in part be accounted for by the consideration that they were not irenical, drawn up to con- ciliate Lutherans. In the Scotch Con. of 1560, the language of Calvin is in a * Quick's Synodicon, I., p. 92. '^ Quick's Synodicon, I., p. 104. ON THE LORD'g SUPPER. 351 gresit measure retained. The only sentence that need be quoted is the following : " We confess that believers in the right use of the Lord's Supper thus eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus- Christ, and we firmly believe that he dwells in them, and they in him, nay, that they thus become flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones. For as the eternal deity gives life and immortality to the flesh of Christ, so also his flesh and blood, when eaten and drunk by us, confer on us the same prerogatives." In the Belgic Conf. adopted in 1563, the following words occur. Art. 35. Christus testificatur, nos, quam vere hoc sacra- mentum manibus nostris accipimus et tenemus, illudque ore comedimus et bibimus (unde et postmodum vita nostra sustenta- tur), tam vere etiam nos fide (quge animas et manus et os est) in animis nostris recipere verum corpus et verum sanguinem Christi, unici servatoris nostri ad vitam nostram spiritualem. Nequa- quam erraverimus dicentes, id quod comeditur esse proprium et naturale corpus Christi, idque quod bibitur proprium esse san- guinem. At manducandi modus talis est, ut non fiat ore corpo- ris, sed spiritu per fidem. It is not necessary to quote from other Confessions language of the same import with that already quoted. All the symbols above cited contain more or less dis- tinctly the impress of Calvin's views, if we except perhaps those of the church of England, which as before remarked, are more of a Zuinglian cast. We come now to Those symbols in which both Zuinglians and Calvinists agreed. Perhaps the most interesting and important doctrine of this class is the Consensus Tigurinus. Switzerland had long been greatly distracted by the controversy on the sacraments. After much persuasion on the part of his friends, Calvin was induced to go to Zurich and to hold a conference with Bullinger, in 1549. The result of that conference was the adoption of the articles previously drawn up by Calvin himself, and afterwards published with the title : " Consentio mutua in re sacramentaria Ministro- rum Tigurinse Ecclesiae, et D. Joannis Calvini Ministri Geneven- sis Ecclesise, jam nunc ab ipsis authoribus edita." We have, therefore, in this document the well considered and solemnly an- nounced agreement of the Zuinglian and Calvinistic portions of the Keformed church. This Consensus was soon made the object of vehement attack by the Lutherans. Four years after its date, 352 DOCTKINE OF THD REFORMED CHURCH Calvin felt Himself' called upon to publish an explanation and de- fence of it. In his letter, prefixed to that defence, and addressed to the ministers of Zurich and other Swiss churches, he says : The Lutherans now see that those v/hom they denounce as Sacra- mentarians agree, and then adds, Nee vero si superstites hodie essent optimi et eximii Christi servi Zuinglius et (Ecolampadius, verbulum in ea sententia mutarent/ This Consensus embraces twenty-six articles, all relating to the sacraments, and especially to the Lord's Supper. In these articles there is not a word, which* any of the evangelical churches of the present day would desire to alter. We should like to print them all as the confessions of our own faith on this whole subject. The first four are introductory. The fifth de- clares the necessity of our union with Christ, in order that we should partake of his life. The sixth declares that union to be spiritual, arising from the indwelling of the Spirit. The seventh sets forth the design of the sacraments. They are* declared to be badges of profession and Christian communion, excitements to thanksgiving and to the exercise of faith, and to holy life, and syoigrapli(B binding us thereto. Their principal end, however, is said to be that God therein may testify his grace to us, repre- sent and seal it. For though they signify nothing not announced in the word, still it is a great thing, that they present, as it were, living images before our eyes, and which affect our senses and serve to lead us to the thing signified, while they recall to mind the death of Christ and all his benefits, that our faith may be called into exercise ; and besides this, what God had by his mouth declared, is here confirmed and sealed. The eighth de- clares that God inwardly works or communicates by his Spirit, the blessings signified by the sacraments. They are, therefore, as stated in the ninth article, not naked signs, but as it is there expressed, " Though we distinguish, as is proper, between the sign and things signified, we do not disjoin the truth (or reality) from the signs ; since all who by faith embrace the promises there presented, receive Christ with his spiritual gifts." In the ^ Compare with this the language of Dr. Nevin, who endeavors to represent the doctrine of Calvin and Zuingle on this subject to be as wide apart as the poles. He even says : " If Calvinism, the system of Geneva, necessarily runs here into Zuin- glianism, we may, indeed, well despair of the whole interest. For most assuredly no church can stand, that is found to be constitutionally unsacramentaV P. 74. ON THE LORD^S SUPPER. 353 tenth article, it is, therefore said, we should look at the promise rather than the signs. The signs without Christ, are declared in the eleventh article, to be inanes larvce. The articles from the twelfth to the seventeenth, both included, relate to the efficacy of the sacraments. It is denied that they have any virtue in themselves, all their efficacy is referred to the attending power of Grod, which is exercised only in the elect, and therefore, it is added, the doctrine that the sacraments confer grace on all who do not oppose the obstacle of mortal sin, falls to the ground. In the eighteenth it is stated that the reason why the sacra- ments fail to benefit unbelievers is to be referred to their want of faith, and neither to the sacraments, which always retain their integrity, nor to God. The nineteenth teaches that the bless- ings received in the sacraments, are by believers received on other occasions. And moreover, as is said in the twentieth, the benefit received from the sacraments, is not to bo restricted to the time of administration, but may follow long afterwards. Those baptized in infancy are often regenerated in youth or even old age. In the twenty-first art. all local presence of Christ in the Eucharist is denied. As a man he is in heaven, and is present only to the mind and faith. The twenty-second states that the words of institution, " This is my body," must be understood figuratively. In the twenty- third, it is taught that manducation of Christ's body implies no mixture or transfusion of substance, but the derivation of life from his body and blood as a sacrifice. The last three articles are directed against transubstantiation, the Lutheran doctrine of the local presence, and the adoration of the host. The force of this document, as an exhibition of the true doc- trine of the Keformed church on this whole subject, is greatly impaired in this meagre outline. We shall, however, have occa- sion to refer to its more explicit statements, in the progress of this investigation. The next witness to be cited is the Heidel- berg Catechism. It was prepared at the command of Frederick III., elector of the Palatinate, by Caspar Olevian, a disciple of Calvin, and Ursinus, a friend of Melancthon, and adopted by a general synod held at Heidelberg in 1563. This catechism hav- ing symbolical authority, both in the German and Dutch Keformed churches, is entitled to peculiar respect as a witness to the faith of the Reformed church. 23 354 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH In answer to the 66th question the sacraments are declared to be "sacred visible signs and seals, instituted by Grod, that through them he may more clearly present and seal the promise of the gospel, viz. : that he, for the sake of the one oftering of Christ accomplished on the cross, grants to us the forgiveness of sin and eternal life." ' In answer to the following question, it is stated, that the design both of the word and sacraments is to direct our faith to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as the only ground of our faith. Question 75. " How art thou reminded and assured, in the holy supper, that thou art a partaker of the one offering of Christ on the cross, and of all his benefits ? Ans. Thus, that Christ has commanded me to eat of this broken bread, and to drink of this cup, and has promised, first, that as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me, and the cup handed to me, so surely was his body broken and offered for me on the cross, and his blood shed for me. Second, that he himself as certainly feeds and nourishes my soul to eternal life with his crucified body, and shed blood, as I receive from the hand of the minister, and after a coporal manner partake of the bread and wine, which are given as the symbols of the body and blood of Christ." Ques. 76. " What is it then to eat the crucified body and drink the shed blood of Christ ? "Ans. It is not only to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the pardon of sin and eternal life ; but also, besides that, to become more and more united to his sacred body, by the Holy Ghost who dwells both in Christ and in us ; so that we, though Christ is in heaven and we on earth, are, notwithstanding, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones ; and that we live and are governed for- ever by one Spirit, as the members of the same body are by one soul." In the answer to the 78th, it is said that as in baptism the water is not changed into the blood of Christ, nor is itself the ablution of sin, but the symbol and pledge of those things, so in * There is some slight variation as to phraseology, between the Grorman and Latin copies of this catechism. We unfortunately have not the authorized English version at hand, and therefore are obhged to translate, except vs^here Dr. Nevin has given the English version, from the originals. ON .THE lord's SUPPER. 355 the Lord's Supper the bread is not the body of Christ, though from the nature of a sacrament and usage of Scripture, it is so called. In answer to Ques. 79th, it is said that the bread is called Christ's body, &c., " Not only thereby to teach us that as bread and wine support this temporal life, so his crucified body and shed blood are the true meat and drink whereby our souls are fed unto eternal life ; but more especially, by these visible signs and pledges, to assure us, that we are as really partakers of his true body and blood (by the operation of the Holy Ghost), as we re- ceive by the mouths of our bodies these holy signs in remembrance of him ; and that all his sufferings and obedience are as certainly ours as if we had in our own persons suffered and made satisfac- tion for our sins to God." In the following question. What is the difference between the Lord's Supper and the Popish mass ? The first clause of the answer is : '^ The supper of the Lord testifies to us that we have perfect remission of all our sins, on account of the one sacrifice of Christ which he himself made once for all upon the cross ; and also that we, by the Holy Spirit, are united to Christ, who accord- ing to his human nature is only in heaven at the right hand of the Father, and is there to be adored by us." There is nothing in this account of the Lord's Supper to which exception would even now be taken. There is something in the answer to the 75th question, which seems evidently intended to cover Calvin's peculiar opinion of a miraculous influence from the body of Christ in heaven, but it is also as evidently intended to cover BuUinger's view on that subject. It is language to which Zuingle and CEcolampadius, as Calvin says on another occasion, would not object. This is the more remarkable when we consider the historical circumstances under which this cate- chism was drawn up, and its decidedly irenical object. No part of Germany was more distracted by the sacramentarian contro- versy than the Palatinate. Nowhere was greater exertion made to conciliate the Lutherans by framing expressions which they could adopt. Yet this catechism, framed under these circum- stances, teaches nothing to which the ministers of Zurich would be unwilling to subscribe. The only other public symbol which it is necessary to cite, is the Second Helvetic Confession. This, on some accounts^ is the 356 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORM Ep CHURCH. most authoritative of all the confessions of the Reformed church. It was drawn up by Bullinger in 1562. In 1565, the Elector Frederick, above mentioned, alarmed by the furious contentions in his dominions, and annoyed by the misrepresentations of the Lutherans, wrote to Bullinger to send him a confession whicli would if possible unite the parties, or at least silence the clamors of the Lutherans, and which the Elector might present at the approaching diet of the empire to refute the calumnies directed against the Reformed. Bullinger sent this confession which he had prepared some years before. The Elector was pertectiy well satisfied. To give it weight it was then sanctioned by the Helvetic churches, and soon became one of the most generally recognized standards of the Reformed in all parts of Europe. What it teaches on the Lord's Supper is entitled to be regarded as a fair exhibition of the real doctrine of the church. The fact that it was written by Bullinger, the successor of Zuingle, at Zurich, the great opponent of what was considered peculiar in Calvin's views of this subject, would lead us to expect to find in it nothing but what the Zurich ministers could cordially adopt. In the 19th chapter it is taught concerning the sacraments in general, 1. That they are mystic symbols, or holy rites, or sacred actions, including the word, signs, and the things signified. 2. That there were sacraments under the old as well as under the new economy. 3. That God is their author, and still operates through them. 4. That Christ is the great object presented in them, the substance and matter of them, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the rock of which all our fathers drank, &c. 5. Therefore, as far as the substance is concerned, the sacraments of the two dispensations are equal ; they have the same author, the same significancy and efiect. 6. The old have been abolished, and baptism and the Lord's Supper introduced in their place. 7. Then follows an exposition of the constituent parts of a sacrament. First, the word, by which the elements are constituted sacred signs. Water, bread, and wdne, are in themselves, apart from divine appointment, no sacred symbols. It is the word of God added to them, consecrating or setting them apart, which gives them their sacramental character. Secondly, the signs, being thus consecrated, receive the names of the things signified. Water is called regeneration, the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, i. e., the symbols or sacra- 357 merits of his body and blood. They are not changed in their own nature. They are callecl by the names of the things signi- fied, because the two are sacramentally united, that is, united byi mystical significance and divine appointment, 8. In the next paragraph the confession rejects, on the one hand, the Komish doctrine of consecration ; and, on the other, the opinion of those who either make the sacraments mere common signs, or entirely useless. 9. The benefits signified are not so included or bound to the sacraments, that all who receive the signs receive the things signified ; nor does the efficacy depend on the administra- tor ; nor their integrity, upon the receiver. As the word of God, continues his word, whether men believe or not, so it is with the sacraments. The 21st chapter is devoted to the Lord's Supper. The fol- lowing passages, which we prefer giving in the original, will suf- fice to exhibit the doctrine here taught : Ut autem rectius et perspicacius intelligatur, quomodo caro et sanguis Christi sint cibus et potus fidelium, percipianturque a fidelibus ad vitam seternam, paucula ha3C adjiciemus. Mandu- catio non est unius generis. Est enim manducatio corporalis, qua cibus in os percipitur ab homine, dentibus atteritur, et in ventrem deglutitur. '•' * *-•' Nothing of this kind of course is admitted with regard to the Lord's Supper. Est et spiritualis manducatio corporis Christi, non ea quidem, qua existimemus cibum ipsum mutari in spiritum, sed qua, ma- nente in sua essentia et proprietate corpore et sanguine Domini, ea nobis communicantur spiritualiter, utique non corporali modo, sed spirituali, per spiritum sanctum, qui videlicet ea, qua3 per carnem et sanguinem Domini pro nobis in mortem tradita, parata sunt, ipsam inquam remissionem peccatorum, liberationem, et vitam agternam, applicat et confert nobis, ita ut Christus in nobis vivat, et nos in ipso vivamus, efficitque ut ipsum, quo talis sit, cibus et potus spiritualis noster, id est, vita nostra, vera fide per- cipiamus. * * * Et sicutoportet cibum in nosmetipsosedendo recipere, ut operatur in nobis, suamque efficaciam exerat, cum extra nos positus, nihil nobis, prosit ; ita necesse est nos fide Christum recipere, ut noster fiat, vivatque in nobis, et nos in ipso. * * * Ex quibus omnibus claret nos, per spiritualem cibum, minime intelligere imaginarium, nescio quem, cibum, sed ipsum Domini corpus pro nobis traditum, quod tamen percipiatur 358 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH a fidelibus, non corporaliter. sed spiritualiter per fidem. * * * Fit autem hie esus et potus spiritualis, etiam extra Domini coenam, et quo ties, aut ubicunque homo in Christum crediderit. Quo fortassis illud Augustini pertinet, Quid paras dentem et ventrem ? crede, et manducasti. Prgeter superiorem manducationem, spiritualem, est et sacra- mentalis manducatio corporis Domini, qua fidelis non tantum spiritualiter et interne participat vero corpore et sanguine Do- mini, sed foris etiam accedendo ad mensam Domini, accipit visi- bile corporis et sanguinis Domini sacramentum. We have thus furnished, as it appears to us, adequate mate- rials for a clear and decided judgment as to what was the real doctrine of the Reformed church as to the Lord's Supper. We propose now to review these materials and apply them to the de- cision of the various questions agitated on this subject. In what sense is Christ present in the Lord's Supper ? The authorities above cited, and the private writings of the Reformed theologians, are abundant in teaching that Christ is present in the Lord's Supper. They represent it as a calumny, when the Lutherans asserted that the Reformed regarded the bread and wine as representing the body and blood of Christ in no other sense than a statue represents Hercules or Mercury. Zuingle says. We have never denied that the body of Christ is sacramentally and mystically present in the Lord's Supper. They admitted not only that he is present as God and by his Spirit, but in an important sense as to his body and blood. The whole controversy relates to this latter point, viz., to the mode in which the body and blood of Christ are present in the Lord's Supper. In deciding this point, the Reformed theologians are very accurate in determining the different senses in which a thing may be said to be present. The word presence, they say, is a relative term, and cannot be understood without refer- ence to the object said to be present, and the subject to which it is present. For presence is nothing but the application of an object to the faculty suited to the perception of it. Hence, there is a twofold presence, viz., of things sensible and of things spiritual. The former are present, as the word imports, when they are prce sensibus, so as to be perceived by the senses ; the latter, when they are presented to the- intelligence so as to be ON THE lord's SUPPER. 359 apprehended and enjoyed. Again, presence even as^to sensible objects is not to be confounded with nearness. It stands opposed not to distance, but to absence. The sun is as near to us when absent at night, as when present by day. A thing, therefore, may be present as to ef&cacy and virtue, which is at a great dis- tance locally. In which of these senses are the body and blood of Christ present in the Lord's Supper ? All the Reformed, in answer to this question, say that it is not in the sense of local nearness. The bread is neither transmuted into the body of Christ, as Romanists say, nor is his body locally present in, with, and under the bread, according to the Lutheran doctrine. The presence is to the mind, the object is not presented to the senses, but apprehended by faith. It is a presence of virtue and efficacy not of propinquity. All these statements, both negative and positive, are found in the authorities referred to in the preceding pages. The Helv. Conf chap. 21, says : " The body of Christ is in heaven at the right hand of God. * * * Yet the Lord is not absent from his church when celebrating his Supper. The sun is absent from us in heaven, nevertheless it is efficaciously present with us ; how much more is Christ, the Sun of righteous- ness, though absent as to the body, present with us, not corporal- ly indeed, but spiritually, by his vivifying influence." Calvin, in the Consensus Tigurinus, art. xxi. says : " Every imagination of local presence is to be entirely removed. For while the signs are here on earth seen by the eyes and handled by the hands, Christ, so far as he is a man is nowhere else than in heaven ; and is to be sought only by the mind and . by feith. It is therefore an ir- rational and impious superstition to include him in the earthly elements." In the 10th art. it is taught that he is present in the promise, not in the signs. Ursinus, the principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism, in his exposition of that formulary, says : " These two, the sign and the thing signified, are united together in this sacrament, not by any copulation, or corporal and local existence of one in the other, much less by transubstantiation, or changing the one into the other ; but by signifying, sealing and exhibiting the one by the other. That is, by a sacramental union, whose bond is the promise added to the bread, requiring the faith of the re- ceivers. Whence it is clear, that these things in their lawful use, are always jointly exhibited and received, but not without 360 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH faith of the promise, viewing and apprehending the thing pro- mised, now present in the sacrament ; yet not present or in- cluded in the sign as in a vessel containing it ; but present in the . promise, which is the better part, the life and soul of the sacrament. For they want judgment who affirm that Christ's body cannot be present in the sacrament, except it be in or urkder the bread ; as if forsooth, the bread alone, without the promise, were either the sacrament, or the principal part of the sacrament/' ' There is, therefore, a presence of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper ; not local, but spiritual ; not for the senses but for the mind and to faith ; not of nearness but of efficacy. This presence (■as Zuingle said, "if they want words"), the Reformed were willing to call real; if by real was understood not essential or corporal, but true and efficacious, as opposed to imaginary or in- effective. So far as this point is concerned there is no doubt as to the doctrine of the Reformed church. What is meant by feeding on the body and blood of Christ ? This question does not relate to the thing received, but simply to the mode of receiving. What is intended by sacramental manducation ? In reference to this point, all the Reformed agreed as to the following particulars : 1. This eating was not with the mouth, either after the manner of ordinary food, which the Lutherans themselves denied, or in any other manner. The mouth was not, in this case, the organ of reception. 2. It is only by the soul that the body and blood of Christ are received. 3. It is by faith, which is declared to be the hand and the mouth of the soul. 4. It is by or through the power of the Holy Ghost. As to all these points there is a perfect agreement among the sym- bols of the Reformed church. Con. Tig, art. 23. " That Christ feeds our souls with his body and blood, here set forth by the power of the Holy Ghost, is not to be understood as involving any mixture or transfusion of substance, but that we derive life from his body once offered as a sacrifice, and from his blood shed as an expiation." Belgio Con, art. 35. God, it is said, sent Christ, as the true bread from heaven, " which nourishes and sus- tains the spiritual life of believers, if it be eaten ; that is, if it be applied and received by the Spirit through faith." Ur sinus: * Quoted by Dr. Nevin, p. 91. ON THE lord's SUPPER. 361 " Tliere is then in the Lord's Supper a double meat and drink, one external, visible, and terrene, namely, bread and wine ; and another internal. There is also a double eating and receiving an external and signifying, which is the corporal receiving of the bread and wine ; that is, that which is performed by the hands, mouth and senses of the body ; and an internal, invisible, and signified, which is the fruition of Christ's death, and a spiritual ingrafting into Christ's body ; that is, which is not performed by the hands and mouth, but by the spirit and faith." As to the question whether there is any difference between eating and believing, the authorities differ. The Zurich confes- sion, and the Helv., quoted above, distinctly say there is not. The former says : " Eating is believing, and believing is eating." The latter says : '' This eating takes place as often and when- ever a man believes in Christ." So the Belgic confession, just quoted. Calvin, however, makes a distinction between the two ; eating, he says, is not faith, but the effect of faith. " There are some," he says, " who define in a word, that to eat the flesh of Christ and to drink his blood, is no other than to believe on Christ himself. But I conceive that in that remarkable discourse, in which Christ recommends us to feed upon his body, he in- tended to teach us something more striking and sublime ; namely, that we are quickened by a real participation of him, which he designates by the terms eating and drinking , that no person might suppose the life which we receive from him to consist in simple knowledge. '"■ * * At the same time, we confess there is no eating but by faith, and it is impossible to imagine any other ; but the difference between me and those whose opin- ion I now oppose, is this, '•*' * * they consider eating to be faith itself, but I apprehend it to be rather a consequence of faith." We do not see the force of this distinction. It all de- pends upon the latitude given to the idea of faith. If you restrict it to knowledge and assent, there is room for the distinction be- tween eating and believing. But if faith includes the real appropriation of Christ, it includes all Calviu seems to mean by both terms, eating and believing. This question is of no historical importance. It created no diversity of opinion in the church. The question, whether eating the flesh of Christ, and drinking his blood is confined to the Lord's Supper ; in other words, 362 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCfl whether there is any special benefit or communion with Christ to be had there, and which cannot elsewhere be obtained, the Komanists and Lutherans answer in the affirmative ; the Ke- formed unanimously in the negative. They make, indeed, a dis- tinction between spiritual and sacramental manducation. What is elsewhere received by faith, without the signs and significant actions, is in the sacraments received in connection with them. This is clearly taught in the confession of Zurich, 1545, quoted above ; also in the second Helv. confession as has already been shown. That confession vindicates this doctrine from the charge of rendering the sacrament useless. For, as it says, though we receive Christ once, we need to receive him continually and to have our faith strengthened from day to day. Calvin teaches the same doctrine in the Con. Tig. art. 19, " The verity which is figured in the sacraments, believers receive extra eorum usum. Thus in baptism, Paul's sins were washed away, which had already been blotted out. Baptism was to Cornelius the laver of regeneration, though he had before received the Spirit. And so in the Lord's Supper, Christ communicates himself to us, though he had already imparted himself to us and dwells within us." The office of the sacraments he teaches is to confirm and increase our faith. In his defence of this Consensus, he expresses surprise that a doctrine so plainly proved by experience and Scripture, should be called into question. (Niemeyer's Col., p. 212.) In the decree of the French National Synod of 1572, already quoted, it is said, '^ The same Lord Jesus both as to his substance and gifts, is ofiered to us in baptism and the ministry of the word, and received by believers." We find the same doctrine in the Book of Common Prayer of the church of England. In the office for the communion of the sick, the minister is directed to instruct a parishioner who is pre- vented receiving the sacrament, " that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and steadfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suff'ered death for him on the cross, and shed his blood for his redemp- tion, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty thanks therefor, he doth eat and drink the body and blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his souFs health, though he do not receive the sacrament with his mouth." On this point there was no diversity of opinion in any part of the Reformed church. There was no communion of Christ, no par- ON THE lord's SUPPER. 363 ticipation of his body and blood, not offered to believers and re- ceived by them, elsewhere than at the Lord's table and by other means. This is exalting the grace of God without depreciating the value of the sacraments. What is meant by the body and blood of Christ as received in the sacrament ? The language employed in answer to this question is very various. It is said, we received Christ and his benefits, his flesh and blood, his true body, his natural body, his substance, the substance of his flesh and blood. All these forms of expression occur. Calvin says, we receive the substance of Christ. The Galilean Confession says, " We are fed with the substance of his body and blood." The Belgic Confession, That we received " his natural body." The question is. What does this mean ? There is one thing in which all parties agreed, viz., that our union with Christ was a real union, that we receive him and not his bene- fits merely ; that he dwells in his people by his Spirit, whose presence is the presence of Christ. Though all meant this, this is not all that is intended by the expressions above cited. What is meant by saying we receive his flesh and blood, or the sub- stance of them ? The negative answer to this question given by the Reformers uniformly is, they do not mean that we partake of the material particles of Christ's body, nor do they express any mixture or transfusion of substance. The affirmative state- ment is, in general terms, just as uniform, that these expressions indicate the virtue, efficacy, life-giving power of his body. But there are two ways in which this was understood. Some intended by it, not the virtue of Christ's body and blood as flesh and blood, but their virtue as a body broken and of blood as shed, that is, their sacrificial, atoning efficacy. Others, however, in- sisted that besides this there was a vivifying efficacy imparted to the body of Christ by its union with the divine nature, and that by the power of the Holy Ghost, the believer in the Lord's Sup- per and elsewhere, received into his soul and by faith this myste- rious and supernatural influence. This was clearly Calvin's idea, though he often contented himself with the expression of the former of these views. His doctrine is fully expressed in the following passages. " We acknowledge, without any circumlocu- tion that the flesh of Christ, is life-giving, not only because once 364 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH in it OTir salvation was obtained ; but because now, we being united to him in sacred union, it breathes life into us. Or, to use fewer words, because being by the power of the Spirit en- grafted into the body of Christ, we have a common lil'e with him ; for from the hidden fountain of divinity life is, in a won- derful way, infused into the flesh of Christ and thence flows out to us." Again ; " Christ is absent from us as to the body ; by his Spirit, however, dwelling in us, he so lifts us to himself in heaven, that he transfuses the life-giving vigor of his flesh into us, as we grow by the vital heat of the sun." From these and many similar passages, it is plain, Calvin meant by receiving the substance of Christ's body, receiving its virtue or vigor, not merely as a sacrifice, but also the power inherent in it from its union with the divine nature, and flowing from it as heat from the sun. The other explanation of this matter is, that by receiving the substance of Christ's body, or by receiving his flesh and blood, was intended receiving their life-giving efficacy as a sacrifice once offered on the cross for us. This view is clearly expressed in the Zurich Confession of 1545. '' To eat the bread of Christ is to believe on him as crucified. * * * His flesh once benefited us on earth, now it benefits here no longer, and is no longer here." The same view is expressed by Calvin himself in the Con. Tig., 1549. In the 19th article we are said to eat the flesh of Christ, " because we derive our life from that flesh once offered in sacri- fice for us, and from his blood shed as an expiation." With equal clearness the same idea is presented in the Heidelberg Cat- echism, 1560. In question 79, it is his crucified body and shed blood which are declared to be the food of the soul. The same thing is still more plainly asserted in the Helv. Confession, 1566, c. 21. In the first paragraph, it is said, ^' Christ as delivered unto death for us and as a Saviour is the sum of this sacrament." In the third paragraph this eating is explained as the applica- tion, by the Spirit, of the benefits of Christ's death. And lower down, the food of the soul is declared to be caro Christi tradita pro nobis, et sanguis ejus effusus pro nobis. Indeed, as this con- fession was written by Bullinger, minister of Zurich, the great opponent of Calvin's peculiar view, it could not be expected to teach any other doctrine. In what is called the Anglican Con- fession; drawn up by Bishop Jewell, 1562, the same view is pre- ON THE lord's SUPPER. 365 sented. It is there said : " We maintain that Christ exhibits himself truly present, * *•' *^ that in the Supper we feed Upon him by faith and in the spirit {fide et spiritu), and that we hav« eternal life from his cross and blood." To draw life from the cross is here the same as to draw it from his blood, and of course must refer to the sacriticial efficacy of his death. The question now arises which of the two views above stated is entitled to be regarded as the real doctrine of the Reformed ? The. whole church united in saying believers receive the body and blood of Christ. They agreed in explaining this to mean that they received the virtue, efficacy, or vigor of his body and blood. But some understood, thereby, the virtue of his body as broken and of his blood as shed, that is, their sacrificial efficacy. Others said that besides this, there was a mysterious virtue in the body of Christ due to its union with the divine nature, which virtue was by the Holy Spirit conveyed to the believer. Which of these views is truly symbolical ? The fairest answer to this question probably is. Neither, to the exclusion of the other. Those who held to the one, expressed their fellowship with those who held the other. Calvin and Bullinger united in the Consensus Tigurinus from which the latter view is excluded. Both views are expressed in the public confessions. Some have the one, some the other. But if a decision must be made between them, the higher au- thority is certainly due to the doctrine of sacrificial efficacy first mentioned. 1. It has high symbolical authority in its favor. Its being clearly expressed in the Con. Tig. the common platform of the church, on this whole subject, and in the Second Helv. Con. the most authoritative of all the symbols of the Reformed church, and even in the Heidelberg Catechism, outweighs the private authority of Calvin or the dubious expression of the Gallician, Belgic, and some minor Confessions. 2. What is perhaps of more real consequence, the sacrificial view is the only one that harmonizes with the other doctrines of the church. The other is an uncongenial foreign element derived partly from the influence of previous modes of thought, partly from the dominant influence of the Lutherans and the desire of getting as near to them as possible, and partly, no doubt, from a too literal interpretation of certain passages of Scripture, especially John vi. 54 — 58, and Eph. V. 30. It is difficult to reconcile the idea that a life-giving I 366 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH influence emanates from the glorified body of Christ, with the universally received doctrine of the Reformed church, that we re- ceive Christ as fully through the ministry of the word as in the Lord's Supper. However strongly some of the Reformed asserted that we partake of the true or natural body of Christ, and are fed by the substance of his flesh and blood, they all maintained that this was done whenever faith in him was exercised. Not to urge this point, however. All the Reformed taught, Calvin, perhaps, more earnestly than most others, that our union with Christ since the incarnation is the same in nature as that enjoyed by the saints under the old dispensation. This is perfectly intel- ligible if the virtue of his flesh and blood, which we receive in the Lord's Supper, is its virtue as a sacrifice, because he was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. His sacrifice was as effectual for the salvation of Abraham as of Paul, and could be appropriated as fully by the faith of the one as by that of the other. But if the virtue in question is a mysterious power due to the hypostatical union, flowing from Christ's body in heaven, it must be a benefit peculiar to believers living since the incarna- tion. It is impossible that those living before the advent could partake of Christ's body, in this sense, because it did not then exist ; it had not as yet been assumed into union with the divine nature. We find, therefore, that Romanists and nominal Pro- testants, make the greatest distinction as to the relation of the ancient saints to Grod and that of believers since the advent, be- tween the sacraments of the one dispensation and those of the other. All this is consistent and necessary on their theory of the incarnation, of the church, and of the sacraments, but it is all in the plainest contradiction to the doctrine of the Reformed church.* Here then is an element which does not accord with the other doctrines of that church ; and this incongruity is one good reason for not regarding it as a genuine portion of its faith. Another good reason for this conclusion is, that the doctrine almost immediately died out of the church. It had no root in the system and could not live. We hear nothing from the immediate successors of Calvin and Beza, of this mysterious, or as it way sometimes called, miraculous influence of Christ's heavenly body. Turrettin, Beza's contemporary, expressly discards it. So does ^ If any one doubts this assertion, let him read Calvin's Institutes B. iv. c. 14. § 20 — 25. This subject however will come up in another place. ON THE lord's SUPPER. 367 Pictet, who followed Turret tin, and so do the Keformed theolo- gians as a body.' As a single indication of this fact we refer to Craig's catechism, written under an order of the General Assem- bly of the church of Scotland, of 1590, and sanctioned by that body in 1592. It will be remembered that the Scotch confession of 1560, before quoted, follows the very language of Calvin on this particular point. In Craig's catechism, however, we have the following exhibition of the subject : " Ques. What signifieth the action of the supper ? Ans. That our souls are fed spirit- ually by the body and blood of Jesus Christ. John vi. 54. Ques. 71. When is this done ? A. When we feel the efficacy of his death in our conscience by the spirit of faith. John vi. 33. * * * Ques. 75. Is Christ's body in the elements ? A. No, but it is in heaven. Acts i. 11. Ques. 76. Why then is the element called his body. A. Because it is a sure seal of his body given to our souls T' In the " Confession of Faith used in the English congregation of Geneva," the very first in date of the symbols of the Scotch church, it is said : " So the supper de- clareth that God, a provident Father, doth not only feed our bodies, but also nourishes our souls with the graces and benefits of Jesus Christ, which the Scriptures caUeth eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood." It is of course admitted that a particular doctrine's dying out of the faith of a church, is, of itself, no sufficient evidence that it was not a genuine part of its original beHef This is too obvious to need remark. There is, however, a great difterence between a doctrine's being lost by a process of decay and by the process of growth. It is very possible that a particular opinion may be en- grafted into a system, without having any logical or vital union with it, and is the more certain to be ejected, the more vigorous the growth and healthful the life of that system. The funda- mental principles of Protestantism are the exclusive normal authority of Scripture, and justification by faith alone. If that system lives and grows it must throw ofi" every thing incompati- ble with those principles. It is the fact of this peculiar view of ' Wo had transcribed various authorities as to this point, but are obliged to exclude them for the want of space. We refer the reader only to Turrettin's statement of the question as between the Reformed and Lutherans, where he will see this whole mat- ter ventilated with that masterly discrimination, for which Turrettin is unrivaled. TheoL Elenet. III. p. 567. 368 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH a mysterious influence of the glorified body of Christ, having ceased to live, taken in connection with its obvious incompati- , bility with other articles of the Keformed faith, that we urge as a collateral argument against its being a genuine portion of that system of doctrine. According to the most authoritative standards of the Eeformed church, we receive the body and blood of Christ as a sacrifice, just as Abraham and David received them, who ate of the same spiritual meat and drank of the same spiritual drink. The church is one, its life is one, its food is one, from Adam to the last of the redeemed. What is the effect of receiving the body and hlood of Christ ? This question is nearly allied to the preceding. In general terms it is answered by saying, that union with Christ, and the consequent reception of his benefits, is the effect of the believing reception of the Lord's Supper. In the Basel confession, it is said, " So that we, as members of his body, as our true head, live in him and he in us." The Greneva catechism says the effect is " That we coalesce with him in the same life/' The Scotch Confession says, " We surely believe that he abides in them (be- lievers) and they in him, so that they become flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones.'' The Heidelberg catechism has much the same words, adding, " and ever live and are governed by one spirit, as the members of our body by one soul." The Second Helv. Confession says, the effect of the Lord's Supper is, such an application of the purchase of Christ's death by the Holy Spirit, " that he lives in us and we in him." So the Ang. Con- fession and others. In explaining the nature of this union between Christ and his people, the Reformed standards reject entirely, as we have already seen, every thing hke corporeal contact, or the mixture or trans- fusion of substance. The proof of this point has already been sufficiently presented. We add only the language of Calvin. He says in opposition to the Lutherans : " If they insist that the substance of Christ's flesh is mingled with the soul of man, in how many absurdities do they involve themselves ?"' See, also, his Inst. iv. 17, 32. In this negative statement, as to the nature of this union, all the Reformed agreed. They agreed also in the affirmative statement that we receive Christ himself and not ^ See his Defence of the Consensus Tigurinus. ON THE lord's SUPPER. 369 merely his benefits. The union with Christ is a real, and not an imaginary or merely moral one. This is often expressed by saying we receive the substance of Christ, i. e., as they explain it, Chiist himself, or the Holy Spirit, by whom he dwells in his people.* Their common mode of representation is that contained in the Con. Tig. Ha3c spiritualis est communicatio quam habemus cum fiiio Dei, dum Spiritu suo in nobis habitans faciat credentes omnes, omnium, qua3 in se resident, bonorum compotes. The mode in which this subject is represented in Scripture and in the Reformed standards, is, that when the Holy Spirit comes to one of God's chosen with saving power, the soul is regenerated ; the first exercise of its new life is faith ; Christ is thereby received ; the union with him is thus consummated ; and on this follows the imputation of righteousness and all saving benefits. The only question is, whether besides this union effected by the Holy Spirit, there is on our part any participation of Christ's human body, or of his human nature as such. This takes us back to the question already considered, relating to the mode of recep- tion and the thing received, when it is said in Scripture, that we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man. As to these questions, it will be remembered the Reformed agreed as to the following points : 1. That this reception is by the soul. 2. Through faith, not through the mouth. 3. By the power of the Holy Ghost. 4. That this receiving Christ's body is not confined to the Lord's Supper, but takes place whenever faith in him is exercised. 5. That it was common to believers before and after the coming of the Son of God in the flesh. We have here a complete estoppel of the claim of the authority of the Reformed church in behalf of the doctrine that our union with Christ in- volves a participation of his human body, nature, or life. If it ' All these forms of, expressions, illustrated and interchanged as' they are in the Confessions, occur also in the early Reformed theologians. Thus Turrettin says : " The union between Christ and us is never in Scripture spoken of as bodily, but spiritual and mystical, which can only be by the Spirit and faith." Tom. III. p. 5*76. " The bond of our union * * * is on tne part of Christ the eflBcacious operation of his Spirit, on our part, faith, and thence love." P. 578. This union, he adds, is called substantial and essential in reference to its verity. He asserts that we receive " the substance of Christ." " Because Christ is inseparable from his benefits. The believers under the Old Testament are correctly said to have been made partakers of Christ himself^ and so of his body and blood, which were present to their faith ; hence they are said to have drunk of that rock, which was Christ." P. 580. 24 370 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH be asked, however, in what sense that church teaches that we are flesh of Christ's flesh, and bone of his bones ? the answer is, in the same sense in which Paul says the same thing. And his meaning is very plain. He teUs us that a husband should love his wife as his own body. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. His wife is himself, for the Scriptures say, they are one flesh. All this he adds, is true of Christ and his people. He loves the church as himself. She is his bride ; flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones. If the intimate relationship, the identification of feelings, affections, and interests, between a man and his wife, if their spiritual union, justifies the assertion that they are one flesh, far more may the same thing be said of the spiritual relation between Christ and his people, which is much more intimate, sublime and mysterious, arising, as it does, from the inhabitation of one and the same Spirit, and producing not only a union of feeling and affection, but of life. The same apostle tells us that believers are one body and members one of another, not in virtue of their common human nature, nor because they all partake of the hu- manity of Christ, but because they all have one Spirit. Such, as we understand it, is the doctrine of the Keformed church and of the Bible as to the mystical union. What efficacy belongs to the Lord's Supped' as a Sacrament ? On this point the Keformed, in the first place, reject the Romish doctrine that the sacraments contain the grace they sig- nify, and that they convey that grace, by the mere administration, to all who do not oppose an obstacle. Secondly, the Lutheran doctrine, which attributes to the sacraments an inherent super- natural power, due indeed not to the signs, but the word of God connected with them, but which is nevertheless always operative, provided there be faith in the receiver. Thirdly, the doctrine of the Socinians and others, that the sacraments are mere badges of profession, or empty signs of Christ and his benefits. They are declared to be ef&cacious means of grace ; but their efficacy, as such, is referred neither to any virtue in them nor in him that administers them, but solely to the attending operation or influ- ence of the Holy Spirit, precisely as in the case of the word. It is the virtus Spiritus Sancti extrinsecus accedens, to which aU their supernatural or saving efficacy is referred. They have, in- deed, the moral objective power of significant emblems and seals ON THE lord's SUPPER. * 371 of divine appointment, just as the word has its inherent moral power ; but their efficacy as means of grace, their power, in other words, to convey grace, depends entirely, as in the case of the word, on the co-operation of the Holy Ghost. Hence the power is in no way tied to the sacraments. It may be exerted without them. It does not always attend them, nor is it confined to the time, place, or service. The favorite illustration of the Lutheran doctrine is drawn from the history of the woman who touched the hem of our Saviour's garment. As there was always supernatural virtue in him, which flowed out to all who applied to him in faith, so there is in the sacraments. The Reformed doctrine is illustrated by a reference to our Saviour's anointing the eyes of the blind man with the clay. There was no virtue in the clay to make the man see, the effect was due to the attending power of Christ. The modern rationalists smile at these distinc- tions and say it all amounts to the same thing. These three views however are radically different in themselves, and have produced radically different effects, where they have severally prevailed. All the points, both negative and positive, included in the statement of the Reformed doctrine, above given, are clearly presented with perfect unanimity in their symbolical books. In the Gall. Conf , art. 34, it is said, " We acknowledge that these external signs are such, that through them God operates by the power of his Holy Spirit." Helv. Conf. ii. c. 19, " We do not sanction the doctrine that grace and the things signified are so bound to the signs or included in them, that those who" receive the signs receive also the blessings they represent. When this fails, the fault is indeed in the receiver, just as in the case of the word ; God in both offers his grace. His word does not cease to be true and divine, nor do the sacraments lose their integrity, because men do not receive them in faith and to their salvation. See ch. 21, at the end. The Consensus Tigurinus teaches, as we have already seen, that the sacraments have no virtue in themselves, as means of grace : Si quid boni nobis per sacramen- ta confertur, id nonfit propria eorum virtute.- * * * Deus enim solus est J qui Spiritu suo agit. Art. 12. In the following ar- ticles it is taught that they benefit only believers, that grace is not tied to them, that believers receive elsewhere the same grace, and that the blessing often follows long after the adminis- 372 DOCO^RINE OF THE REFOEMED CHURCH tration. The Scotch Conf. ch. 21, teaches that the whole benefit flows ^^ from faith apprehending Christ, who alone renders the sacraments efficacious." In the Geneva Cat. the question is asked : " Do you believe that the power and efficacy of the sacrament, instead of being included in the element, flow entirely from the Spirit of God ? Ans, So I believe, that is, should it please the Lord to exercise his power through his own instruments to the end tq which he has appointed them." It is not worth while to multiply quotations, for as to this point, there was no diversity of opinion. We would only refer the reader to Calvin's Inst. iv. 14, a passage, which though directed against the Romanists, has a much wider scope. He there declares it to be a purely dia- bolical error to teach men to expect justification from the sacra- ments, instead of from faith ; and insists principally on two things, first, that nothing is conferred through the sacraments beyond what is ofiered in the word ; and, secondly, that they are not ne- cessary to salvation, the blessings may be had without them. He confirms his own doctrine by the saying of Augustin : Invisibilem sanctificationem sine visibili signo esse posse, et visibile rursum signum sine vera sanctificatione. Such then, as we understand it, is the true doctrine of the Re- formed church on the Lord's Supper. By the Reformed church, we mean the Protestant churches of Switzerland, the Palatinate, France, Belgium, England, Scotland and elsewhere. According to the public standards of these churches : The Lord's Supper is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, as a memorial of his death, wherein, under the symbols of bread and wine, his body as broken for us and his blood as shed for the remission of sins, are sio:nified, and, by the power of the Holy Ghost, sealed and applied to be- lievers ; whereby their union with Christ and their mutual fel- lowship are set forth and confirmed, their faith strengthened, and their souls nourished unto eternal life. Christ is really present to his people, in this ordinance, not bodily, but by his Spirit ; not in the sense of local nearness, but of efficacious operation. They receive him, not with the mouth, but by faith ; they receive his flesh, not as flesh, not as material particles, nor its human life, but his body as broken and his blood as shed. The union thus signified and effected, between him and them is not a corporeal union, nor a mixture of substances, but spiritual and mystical, arising from the indwelling of the ON THE LOKD's SUPPER. 378 Spirit. The efficacy of this sacrament, as a means of grace^ is not in the signs, nor in the service, nor in the minister, nor in the word, but solely in the attending influence of the Holy Ghost. This we believe to be a fair statement of the doctrine of the Ke- formed church. Dr. Nevin's Theory.^ Having already exceeded the reasonable limits of a review, we cannot pretend to do more in our notice of Dr. Nevin's book, than as briefly as possible state his doctrine and assign our rea- sons for considering it a radical rejection of the doctrine and theology of the Reformed church. It is no easy thing to give a just and clear exhibition of a theory confessedly mystical, and which involves some of the most abstruse points both of anthro- pology and theology. We have nothing to do however with any thing beyond this book. We do not assume to know how all these things lie in Dr. Nevin's mind ; how he reduces them to unity, or reconciles them with other doctrines of the Bible. Our concern is only with that part of the system which has here cropped out. How the strata lie underneath, we cannot tell. Dr. Nevin, in the full consciousness of the true nature of his own system, says the difficulties under which Calvin's theory of the Lord's Supper, labors, are " all connected with psychology, ap- plied either to the person of Christ or to the persons of his people." P. 156. The difference then lies in the region of psychology. That science has assumed a new form. It has made great prog- ress since the Reformation. "Its determinations," he says, "have a right to be respected in any inquiry which has this sub- ject for its object. No such inquiry can deserve to be called scientific, if it fails to take them into view." P. 162. There may be truth in that remark. It is, however, none the less signifi- cant as indicating the nature of the system here taught. It is a peculiar psychology applied to the illustration and determination of Christian doctrine. It is founded On certain views of " organic law," of personality, and of generic and individual life. If these scientific determinations are incorrect, the doctrine of this book * In calling the theory in question by Dr. Nevin's name, we do not mean to charge him with having originated it. This he does not claim, and we do not assert It is, as we understand it, the theory of Schleiermacher, so far as Dr. Nevin goes. 374 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH is gone. It has no existence apart from those determinations, or at least independent of them. Om' first object is to state, as clearly as we can, what the theory is. There is an organic law of life which gives unity wherever it exists, and to all the individuals through which it manifests it- self. The identity of the human body resides not in the matter of which it is composed, but in its organic law. The same is true of any animal or plant. The same law may comprehend or reveal itself in many individuals, and continually propagate and extend itself. Hence there is a generic as well as an individual life. An acorn developed into an oak, in one view is a single existence ; but it includes a life which may produce a thousand oaks. The life of the forest is still the life of the original acorn, as truly one, inwardly and organically, as in any single oak. Thus in the case of Adam ; as to his individual life, he was a man, as to his generic life, he was the whole race. The life of all men is at least one and the same. Adam lives in his posterity as truly as he ever lived in his own person. . They participate in his whole nature, soul and body, and are truly bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Not a particle of his body indeed has come down to us, the identity resolves itself into an invisible law. But this is an identity far more real than mere sameness of par- ticles. So also in the case of Christ. He was not only a man, but the man. He had not only an individual but a generic life. The Word in becoming flesh, did not receive into personal union with himself the nature of an individual man, but he took upon himself our common nature. The divinity was joined in per- sonal union with humanity. But wherever there is personality there is unity. A person has but one life. Adam had not one life of the soul and another of the body. There is no such dual- ism in our nature. Soul and body are but one hfe, the self-same organic law. The soul to be complete, to develop itself as a soul, must externalize itself, and this externalization is the body. It is all one process, the action of one and the same living organic principle. The same is true as regards Christ. If he is one person, he has one life. He has not one life of the body, another of the soul, and another of his divinity. It is one un- divided life. We cannot partake of the one without partaking of the others. We cannot be united to him as to his body, with- out being united also with his soul and divinity. His life is one ON THE lord's SUPPER. 375 and undivided^ and is also a true human life. This is communi- cated to his people. The humanity of Adam is raised to a higher character by its union with the divine nature, but remains, in all respects, a true human life. The application of these psychological principles to the whole scheme of Christian doctrine is obvious and controlling. In the first place, the fall of Adam was the fall of the race. Not sim- ply because he represented the race, but because the race was comprehended in his person. Sin in him was sin in humanity and became an insurmountable law in the progress of its develop- ment. It was an organic ruin ; the ruin of our nature ; not simply because all men are sinners, but as making all men sin- ners. Men do not make their nature, their nature makes them. The human race is not a sand heap ; it is the power of a single life. Adam's sin is therefore our sin. It is imputed to us, indeed, but only because it is ours. We are born with his nature, and for this reason only are born also into his guilt. " A fallen life in the first place, and on the ground of this only, imputed guilt and condemnation." Pp. 164, 191, &c., &c. In the second place, in order to our salvation it was requisite that the work of restoration should not so much be wrought for us as in us. Our nature, humanity, must be healed, the power of sin incorporated in that nature must be destroyed. For this purpose the Logos, the divine Word, took our humanity into personal union with himself It was our fallen humanity he assumed. Hence the necessity of suff'ering. He triumphed over the evil. His passion was the passion of humanity. This was the atonement. The principle of health came to its last struggle with the principle of disease, and gained the victory. Our nature was thus restored and elevated, and it is by our receiving this renovated nature, that we are saved. Christ's merits are insepar- able from his nature, they cannot be imputed to us, except so far as they are immanent in us. As in the case of Adam, we have his nature, and therefore his sin ; so we have the nature of Christ and therefore his righteousness. The nature we receive from Christ is a theanthropic nature. For, as before remarked, being one' person, his life is one. '' His divine nature is at the same time human, in the fullest sense." P. 174. All that is in- cluded in him as a person, divinity, soul, and body, are embraced in his life. It is not the life of the Logos separately taken, but the 376 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH life of the Word made flesh, the divinity joined in personal union with our humanity ; which is thus exalted to an imperishable divine life. It is a divine human life. In the person of Christ, thus constituted, the true ideal of humanity is brought to view. Christ is the archetypal, ideal man. The incarnation is the proper completion of humanity. " Our nature reaches after a true and real union with the nature of God, as the necessary complement and consummation of its own life. The idea which it embodies can never be fully actualized under any other form." P. 201. In the third place, divine human nature as it exists in the person of Christ, passes over into the church. He is the source and organic principle of a new life introduced into the centre of humanity itself. A new starting-point is found in Christ. Our nature as it existed in Adam unfolded itself organically, in his posterity ; in like manner, as it exists in Christ, united with the divine nature, it passes over to his people, constituting the church. This process is not mechanical but organic. It takes place in the way of history, growth, regular living, development.* By uniting our nature with the divine, he became the root of a new life for the race. " The word became flesh ; not a single man only, as one among many ; but flesh, or humanity in its universal conception. How else could he be the principle of a general life, the origin of a new order of existence for the human world as such ?'' P. 210. '• The supernatural as thus made per- manent and historical in the church, must, in the nature of the case, correspond with the form of the supernatural, as it appeared in Christ himself. For it is all one and the same life or consti- tution. The church must have a true theanthropic character throughout. The union of the divine and human in her consti- tution, must be inward and real, a continuous revelation of God in the flesh, exalting this last continuously into the sphere of the Spirit." P. 247. The incarnation is, therefore, still present and pro- gressive, in the way of actual, human development, in the church. ^ Schleiermacher says, in his second Seudschreiben to Lucko "Wo Uebernatiir- liches bei mir vorkommt, da ist es immer ein Erstes; es wird aber hernach ein Nat- iirliches als Zweites. So ist die Schopfiing iibernatiirlich ; aber sie wird hernach Naturzusammenhang ; so ist Christus iibernatiirlich seinem Anfang nach, aber er wird natiirhch als rein menschlicho Person, und ebenso ist es mit dem heiligen Greiste und der christlichen Kirche. Somewhat to the same effect, Dr. Nevin somewhere says, The supernatural has become natural. ON THE lord's SUPPER. 377 There are two remarks, however, to be here made. First, ac- cording to this system, the mystical union implies a participation of the entire humanity of Christ, for if we are joined in real life^ unity with the Logos, we should be exalted to the level of the Son of God. Still it is not with his soul alone, or his body alone, but with his whole person, for the life of Christ is one. Second, This union of Christ and his people, implies no ubiquity of his body, and no fusion of his proper personality with theirs. We must distinguish between the simple man and the univeral man here joined in the same person, much as in the case of Adam. He was at once an individual and the whole race. So we distin- guish between Christ's universal humanity in the church, and his humanity as a particular man, whom the heavens must re- ceive unto the restitution of all things. P. 173. The incarnation being thus progressive, the church is in very deed, the depository and continuation of the Saviour's thean- thropic life itself, in which powers and resources are continually at hand, involving a real intercommunion and interpenetration of the human and divine. P. 248. It follows also from this view of the case, that the sacraments of the church, have a real objective force. " The force of the sacrament is in the sacrament itself. Our faith is needed only to make room for it in our souls." P. 183. " The things signified are bound to the signs by the force of a divine appointment ; so that the grace goes inseparably along with the signs, and is truly present for all who are pre- pared to make it their own." P. 62. In the fourth place, as to the mode of union with Christ, it is by regeneration. But this regeneration is by the church. If the church is the depository of the theanthropic life of Chi-ist, if the progress of the church takes place in the way of history, growth, living development, it would seem as unreasonable that a man should be united to Christ and made partaker of his nature, otherwise than by union with this external, historial church, as that he should possess the nature of Adam by immediate crea- tion, instead of regular descent. It is by the ministration of this living church, in which the incarnation of God is progressive, and by her grace-bearing sacraments, that the church life, which is the same as that of Christ, is continually carried over to new in- dividuals. The life of the single Christian can be real only as born and sustained to the end by the life of the church, which is 378 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH the living and life-giving body of Christ. The effect of the sacra- ments, therefore, is thus to convey and sustain the life of Christ, his whole divine-human life. We partake not of his divinity only, but also of his true and proper humanity ; not of his humanity in a separate form, nor of his flesh and blood alone, but of his whole life, as a single undivided form of existence. In the Lord's Supper consequently Christ is present in a peculiar and mysterious way ; present as to his body, soul, and divinity, not locally as included under the elements, but really ; the sign and thing signified, and inward and outward, the visible and invisible, constitute one inseparable presence. Unbelievers, in- deed, receive only the outward sign, because they lack the organ of reception for the inward grace. Still the latter is there, and the believer receives both, the outward sign and the one un- divided, theanthropic life of Christ, his body, soul, and divinity. The Eucharist has, therefore, " a peculiar and altogether extra- ordinary power." It IS, as Maurice is quoted as asserting, the bond of a universal life and the means whereby men become pertakers of it. • Such, as we understand it, is the theory unfolded in this book. It is in all its essential features Schleiermacher's theory. We almost venture to hope that Dr. Nevin will consider it a fair ex- hibition, not so satisfactory, of course, as he himself could make, but as good as could well be expected from the uninitiated. It is at least honestly done, and to the best of our ability. It is not the truth of this system that we propose to examine, but simply its relation to the theology of the Keformed church. Dr. Nevin is loud, frequent, often, apparently at least, con- temptuous, in his reproaches of his brethren for their apostacy from the doctrines of the Keformation. We propose very briefly to assign our reasons for regarding his system, as. unfolded in this book, as an entire rejection not only of the peculiar doc- trines of the Keformed church on the points concerned, but of some of the leading principles of Protestant, and even Catholic, theology. First, in reference to the person of Christ. Dr. Nevin denies any dualism in the constitution of man. Soul and body, in their ground, are but one life. So in the case of Christ, in virtue of the hypostatical union, his life is one. The divine and human are so united in him as to constitute one indivisible life. " It is ON THE lord's SUPPER. 379 in all respects a true human life." P. 167. " His divine nature is at the same time Iniman, in the fullest sense." P. 174. That this is a departure not only from the doctrine of the Re- formed church, hut of the church universal, seems to us very- plain. In one view it is the Eutychian doctrine, and in another something worse. Eutyches and afterwards the Monothelites taught, that after the hypostatical union, there was in Christ hut one nature and operation. Substitute the word h'fe, for its equi- valent, nature, and we have the precise statement of Dr. Nevin's. He warns us against the error of Nestorius, just as the Eutychi- ans called all who held to the existence of two natures in Christ, Nestorians. Eutyches admitted that this one nature or life in our Lord, was theanthropic. He was constituted of two natures, hut after their union, had but one. '0/zoAoyw, he says, en 6vo (pvaecjv yeyevvTjGdai rov kvqiov rjiicdv npo rrjg evcjaeayg- fiera 6e ttjv evcjocv, jitav (pvaiv 6|t/oAoya>. And, therefore, there was in Christ, as the Mono- thelites say, but fica deavSpcKT] hegyeta. What is the difference be- tween one theanthropic life, and one theanthropic operation ? We are confirmed in the correctness of this view of the matter, from the fact, that Schleiermacher, the father of this system, strenuously objects to the use of the word nature in this whole connection especially in its application to the divinity, and op- poses also the adoption of the terms which the council of Chalce- don employed in the condemnation of Eutychianism.^ This, however, is a small matter. Dr. Nevin has a right to speak for himself. It is his own language, which, as it seems to us, dis- tinctly conveys the Eutychian doctrine, that after the hypostati- cal union there was but one (pvoig^ or, as he expresses it, one life, in Christ. He attributes to Calvin a wrong psychology in refer- ence to Christ's person. What is that but to attribute to him wrong views of that person ? And what is that but saying his own views differ from those of Calvin on the person of Christ ? No one, however, has ever pretended that Calvin had any peculiar views on that subject. He says himself that he held all the de- cisions, as to such points, of the first six oecumenical councils. In differing from Calvin, on this point, therefore. Dr. Nevin differs from the whole church. But in the other view of this matter. What was this one life (or nature) of Christ ? Dr. Nevin says : "It was in all respects * Schleierraacher's Glaubenslehre, § 97. 380 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH a true human life." P. 167. " Christ is the archetypal man, in whom the true idea of humanity is brought to view." He " is the true ideal man." Our nature is complete only in him. P. 201. But is a perfect, or ideal man, any thing more than a mere man after all ? If all that was in Christ pertains to the perfec- tion of our nature, he was, at best, but a perfect man. The only way to escape Socinianisn, on this theory, is by deifying man, identifying the divine and human, and making all the glory, wis- dom, and power, which belong to Christ, the proper attributes of humanity. Christ is a perfect man. But what is a perfect man ? We may give a pantheistic, or a Socinian answer to that question, and not really help the matter — for the real and infinite hiatus between us and Christ, is in either case closed. Thus it is that mysticism falls back on rationalism. They are but different phases of the same spirit. In Germany, it has long been a mat- ter of dispute, to which class Schleiermacher belongs. He was accustomed to smile at the controversy as a mere logomachy. Steudel objects to Schleiermacher's christology, that according to him ^' Christ is a finished man." Albert Knapp says : ^' He deifies the human and renders human the divine."' We, there- fore, do not stand alone in thinking that to represent Christ's life as in all respects human, to say he was the ideal man, that human nature found its completion in him, admits naturally only of a pantheistic or a Socinian interpretation. We of course do not attribute to Dr. Nevin either of these forms of doctrine. We do not believe that he adopts either, but we object both to his language and doctrine that one or the other of those heresies is their legitimate consequence. In the second place, we think the system under consideration is justly chargeable with a departure from the doctrine of the Re- formed church, and the church universal, as to the nature of our union with Christ. According to the Reformed church that union is not merely moral, nor is it merely legal or federal, nor does it arise simply from Christ having assumed our nature, it is at the same time real and vital. But the bond of that union, however intimate or extensive, is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, in Christ and in his people. We receive Christ himself, when we receive the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ ; we receive the life of Christ when we re- ^F. W. Gess: Uebersicht iiber Schleier. System, p. 225. ON THE lord's SUPPER. 381 ceive his Spirit, who is the S2)irit of life. Such we believe to be the true doctrine of the Reformed church on this subject. But if to this be added, as some of the Reformed taught, there was a mysterious power emanating from the glorified body of Christ, in heaven, it falls very far short, or rather is something entirely differ- ent from the doctrine of this book. Dr. Nevin's theory of the mysti- cal union is of course determined by his view of the constitution of Christ's person. If divinity and humanity are united in him as one life ; if that life is in all respects human, then it is this di- vine human life, humanity raised to the power of deity, that is communicated to his people. It is communicated too, in the form of a new organic principle, working in the way of history and growth. " The supernatural has become natural." P. 246. A new divine element has been introduced into our nature by the incarnation. " Humanity itself has been quickened into fuU correspondence with the vivific principle it has been made to en- shrine."' Believers, therefore, receive, or take part in the entire humanity of Christ. From Adam they receive humanity as he liad it, after the fall ; from Christ, the theanthropic life, humanity with deity enshrined in it, or rather made one with it, one undi- vided life. That this is not the old view of the mystical union between Christ and his people, can hardly be a matter of dispute. Dr. Nevin says Calvin was wrong not only in the psychology of Christ, but of his people. UUman, in the essay prefixed to this volume, tells us Schleiermacher introduced an epoch by teaching this doc- trine. This is declared to be the doctrine of the Church of the Future. It is denied to be that of the Church of the Past. There is one consideration, if there were no other, which determines this question beyond appeal. It follows of necessity from Dr. Nevin's doctrine that the relation of believers to Grod and Christ, is essen- tially different, since the incarnation, from that of believers before that event. The union between the divine and human began with Christ, and from him this theanthropic life passes over to the church. There neither was nor could be any such thing be- fore. This he admits. He, therefore, teaches that the saints of old were, as to the mystical union, in a very different condition from that of the saints now. Hear what he says on that subject. In arguing against the doctrine that the indwelling of Christ is by the Spirit, he says : " Let the church know that she is no 382 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH nearer God now in fact, in the way of actual life, than she was under the Old Testament ; that the indwelling of Christ in be- lievers, is only parallel with the divine presence enjoyed by the Jewish saints, who all died in the faith, ' not having received the promises ;' that the mystical union in the case of Paul and John was nothing more intimate, and vital, and real, than the relation sustained to God by Abraham, or Daniel, or Isaiah." P. 195. "In the religion of the Old Testament, God' descends towards man, and holds out to his view in this way the promise of a real union of the divine nature with the human, as the end of the gracious economy thus introduced. To such a real union it is true, the dispensation itself never came * * * The wall of partition that separated the divine from the human, was never fully broken down." P. 203. It was, he says, " a revelation of God to man, and not a revelation of God in man." Again, " That which forms the full reality of religion, the union of the divine nature with the human, the revelation of God in man, and not simply to him, was wanting in the Old Testament altogether." Let us now hear what Calvin, who is quoted by Dr. Nevin as the great representative of the Reformed church, says on the subject. He devotes the whole of chapters 10 and 11 of the Second Book of his Institutes, to the refutation of the doctrine that the Old Testament economy in its promises, blessings, and effects, differed essentially from that of the New. The difference he declares to be merely circumstantial, relating to the mode, the clearness, and extent of its instructions, and the number embraced under its in- fluence. He tells us he was led to the discussion of this subject by what that " prodigiosus nebulo Servetus, et furiosi nonnulli ex Anabaptistarum secta," (rather bad company), taught on this point ; who thought of the Jews no better, quam de aliquo por- corum grege. In opposition to them, and all like them, Calvin undertakes to prove, that the old covenant " differed in substance and reahty nothing from ours, but was entirely one and the same ; the administration alone being different." 10 : 2. " What more absurd," he asks § 10, " than that Abraham should be the father of all the faithful, and yet not have a corner among them ? But he can be cast down neither from the number, nor from his high rank among believers, without destroying the whole church." He reminds Christians that Christ has promised them no higher heaven than to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Dr. ON THE lord's SUPPER. 383 Nevin ought surely to stop quoting Calvin as in any way abet- ting the monstrous doctrine, that under the old dispensation, God was only revealed to his people, while under the new, the divine nature is united in them with the human nature, as in Christ (^' the same life or constitution,") in the way of progress- ive incarnation. What, however, still more clearly shows the radical difference between Dr. Kevin's theory, and that of the Reformed church, as to this point, is what he says in reference to the sacraments of the two dispensations. Romanists teach that the sacraments of the Old Testament merely j)refigure grace, those of the New actually confer it. This doctrine Calvin, as we have already seen, strenuously denies, and calls its advocates miserable so- phists. He asserts that " whatever is exhibited in our sacra- ments, the Jews formerly received in theirs, to wit, Christ and his benefits ;" that baptism has no higher efiicacy than circum- cision. He quotes the authority of Augustin, for saying, Sa- cramenta Judeeorum in signis fuisse diversa ; in re quae signifi- catur, paria ; diversa specie visibili, paria virtute spirituali.' Dr. Nevin, however, is constrained by his view of the nature of the union between Christ and his people, since the incarnation, to make the greatest possible difference between the sacraments of the two dispensations. He even goes further than the Ro- manists, teaching that the passover, e. g. was properly no sacra- ment at all. " Not a sacrament at all, indeed," is his language, " in the full New Testament sense, but a sacrament simply in prefiguration and type." P. 251. In the same connexion he says : " The sacraments of the Old Testament are no proper measure by which to graduate directly the force that belongs to the sacraments of the New. "'*' * '••" To make baptism no more than circumcision, or the Lord's Supper no more than the passover, is to wrong the new dispensation as really" as by mak- ing Christ nothing more than a Levitical priest. Systems which lead to such opposite conclusions must be radically different. The lowest Puritan, ultra Protestant, or sectary in the land, who truly beheves in Christ, is nearer Calvin than Dr. Nevin ; and has more of the true spirit and theology of the Reformed church, than is to be found in this book. In the third place. Dr. Nevin's theory, differing so seriously > Institutes, v. 14: 23—26. 384 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH from that of the Reformed church, as to the person of Christ and his union with his people, may be expected to differ from it as to the nature of Christ's work, and method of salvation. Ac- cording to him, human nature, the generic life of humanity, being corrupted by the fall, was healed by being taken into a life-unioQ with the Logos. This union so elevated it, raised it to such a higher character, and filled it with such new meaning and power, that it was more than restored to its original state. This however could not be done without a struggle. Being the bearer of a fallen humanity, there was a necessity for suffering in order that life should triumph over the law of sin and death. This was the atonement. See p. 166. The first-remark that suggests itself here, is the query, what is meant by " fallen humanity ?" Can it mean any thing else than a corrupted nature : i, e., our nature in the state to which it was reduced by the fall ? How else could its assumption in- volve the necessity of suffering ? It is however hard to see how the assumption of a corrupt nature, is consistent with the perfect sinlessness of the Redeemer. Dr. ISTevin, as far as we see, does not touch this point. With Schleiermacher, according to whom absolute freedom from sin was the distinguishing prerogative of the Saviour, this was secured, though clothed with our nature, by all the acts or determinations of that nature, being governed in his case, by " the God-consciousness" in him, or the divine principle. This is far from being satisfactory ; but we pass that point. What however are we to say to this view of the atone- ment ? It was vicarious suffering indeed, for the Logos as- sumed, and by the painful process of his life and death, healed our nature, not for himself but for our sakes. But there is here no atonement, that is, no satisfaction ; no propitiation of Grod : no reference to divine justice. All this is necessarily excluded. All these ideas are passed over in silence by Dr. Nevin ; by Schleiermacher they are openly rejected. The atonement is the painfuUy accomplished triumph of the new divine principle intro- duced into our nature, over the law of sin introduced into it by Adam. Is this the doctrine of the Reformed church ? Again, the whole method of salvation is necessarily changed by this system. We become partakers of the sin of Adam, by partaking of his nature ; we become partakers of the righteous- ness of Christ, by partaking of his nature. There can be no im- ON THE lord's SUPPER. 385 putation of either sin or righteousness to us, except they belong to us, or are inherently our own. " Our participation in the ac- tual unrighteousness of his (Adam's) life, forms the ground of our participation in his guilt and liability to punishment. And in no other way, we affirm, can the idea of imputation be satis- factorily sustained in the case of the second Adam.'' " Right- eousness, like guilt, is an attribute which supposes a subject in which it inheres, and from which it cannot be abstracted with out ceasing to exist altogether. In the case before us, that sub- ject is the mediatorial nature or life of the Saviour himself Whatever there may be of merit, virtue, efficacy, or moral value in any way, in the mediatorial work of Christ, it is all lodged in the life, by the power of which alone this work has been accomplished, and in the presence of which only it can have either reality or stability." P. 191. This is very plain, we re- ceive the theanthropic nature or life of Christ ; that nature is of a high character, righteous, holy, conformed to Grod ; in re- ceiving that life we receive its merit, its virtues and efficacy. On p. 189, he is still more explicit : " How can that be imputed or reckoned to any man on the part of God, which does not be- long to him in reality ?" " This objection," he says, " is insur- mountable, according to the form in which the doctrine of impu- tation is too generally held." " The judgment of God must ever be according to truth. He cannot reckon to any one an attribute or quality which does not belong to him in fact. He cannot de- clare him to be in a relation or state, which is not actually his own, but the position merely of another. A simple external imputation here, the pleasure or purpose of God to place to the account of one what has been done by another, will not answer." " The Bible knows nothing of a simple outward imputation, by which something is reckoned to a man that does not belong to him in fact." P. 190. " The ground of our justification is a righteousness that was foreign to us before, but is now made to lodge itself in the inmost constitution of our being." P. 180. God's act in justification " is necessarily more than a mere de- claration or form of thought. It makes us to be in fact, what it declares us to be, in Christ." Ih. Here we reach the very life- spot of the Reformation. Is justification a declaring just, or a making just, inherently ? This was the real battle-ground on which the blood of so many martyrs was spilt. Are we justified 25 386 DOCTEINE OF THE* REFORMED CHURCH for something done for us, or something wrought in us, actualiv our own ? It is a mere playing with words, to make a distinc- tion, as Mr. Newman did, between what it is that thus makes us inherently righteous. Whether it is infused grace, a new heart, the indwelling Spirit, the humanity of Christ, his life, his the- anthropic nature ; it is all one. It is subjective justification after all, and nothing more. We consider Dr. Nevin's theory as impugning here, the vital doctrine of Protestantism. His doctrine is not, of course, the Komish, teres atqiie rotundus ; he may distinguish here, and discriminate there. But as to the main point, it is a denial of the Protestant doctrine of justifica- tion. He knows as well as any man that all the churches of the fifteenth century held the imputation not only of what was our own, but of what though not ours inherently, was on some adequate ground set to our account ; that the sin of Adam is imputed to us, not because of our having his corrupted nature, but because of the imputation of his sin, we are involved in his corruption. He knows that when the doctrine of mediate im- putation, as he teaches it, was introduced by Placseus, it was universally rejected. He knows moreover, that, with regard to justification, the main question was, whether it was a declaratory or an effective act, whether it was a declaring just on the ground of a righteousness not in us, or a making just by communicating righteousness to us. Komanists were as ready as Protestants to admit that the act by which men are rendered just actually, was a gracious act, and for Christ's sake, but they denied that justifi- cation is a forensic or declaratory act founded on the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, which is neither in us, nor by that imputation communicated as a quality to our souls. It was what Romanists thus denied, Protestants asserted, and made a matter of so much importance. And it is in fact the real keystone of the arch which sustains our peace and hope towards Grod ; for if we are no further righteous than we are actually and inherently 80, what have we to expect in the presence of a righteous God, but indignation and wrath ? In the fourth place, the obvious departure of Dr. Nevin's sys- tem from that of the Reformed church, is seen in what he teach- es concerning the church and the sacraments. The evidence here is not easy to present. As he very correctly remarks witli regard to certain, doctrines of the Bible, they rest far less on dis- ON THE lord's SUPPER. 387 tinct passages which admit of quotation, than on the spirit, tenor, implications, and assumptions which pervade the sacred volume. It is so with this book. Its whole spirit is churchy. It makes religion to be a church life, its manifestatians a liturgical service, its support sacramental grace. It is the form, the spirit, the predominance of these things, which give his book a character as different as can be from the healthful, evangelical free spirit of Luther or Calvin. The main question whether we come to Christ, and then to the church ; whether we by a personal act of faith receive him, and by union with him become a member of his mystical body ; or whether all our access to Christ is through a mediating church. Dr. Nevin decides against the evangelical system. It follows of necessity, as he himself says, from his doctrine of a progressive incarnation, '^ that the church is the depository and continuation of the Saviour's theanthropic life itself, and as such, a truly supernatural constitution, in which powers and resources are constantly at hand, involving a real intercommunion and in- terpretation of the human and divine.^' P. 248. The church with him, being " historical must be visible." " An outward church is the necessary form of the new creation in Christ Jesus, in its very nature." P. 5. With Protestants the true church is " the communion of saints," the " congregatio sanctorum," " the com- pany of faithful men ;" not the company or organization of pro- fessing men. It would be difficult to frame a proposition more subversive of the very foundations of all Protestantism, than the assertion that the description above given, or any thing like it, belongs to the church visible as such. It is the fundamental error of Komanism, the source of her power and of her corrup- tion to ascribe to the outward church, the attributes and pre- rogatives of the mystical body of Christ We must, however, pass to Dr. Nevin's doctrine of the sacra- ments, and specify at least some of the points in which he departs from the doctrine of the Eeformed church. And in the first place, he ascribes to them a specific and "altogether extraordinary power." P. 118. There is a presence and of course a receiving of the body and blood of Christ, in the Lord's Supper, " to be had nowhere else." P. 75. This idea is presented in various forms. It is, however, in direct contravention of the Confessions of the Reformed churches, as we have already seen. They make DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH a circumstantial distinction between spiritual and sacramental manducation, but as to any specific difference, any difference as to what is there received from what is received elsewhere, they expressly deny it. In the Helv. Conf. already quoted, it is said, that the eating and drinking of Christ's body and blood takes place, even elsewhere than in the Lord's Supper, whenever and wherever a man believes in Christ. Calvin, in the Consensus Tigurinus, Art. xix., says : What is figured in the sacraments is granted to believers extra eorum usum. This he applies and proves, first in reference to baptism, and then in reference to the Lord's Supper. In the explanation of that Consensus he vin- dicates this doctrine against the objections of the Lutherans. *'Quod deinde prosequimur," he begins, ^^fidelibus spirit ualium bonorum effectum qua3 figurant sacramenta, extra eorum usum constare, quando et quotidie verum esse experimur et probatur scripturse testimoniis, rairum est si cui displiceat.'' The same thing is expressly taught in his Institutes, iv., 14. 14. The second point on which Dr. Nevin differs from the Ke- formed church, as to the sacraments, relates to their efficacy. All agree that they have an objective force ; that they no more owe their power to the faith of the recipient than the word of God does. But the question is. What is the source to which the in- fluence of the sacraments as means of grace, is to be referred ? We have already stated that Romanists, say it is to be referred to the sacraments themselves as containing the grace they con- vey ; Lutherans, to the supernatural power of the word, insepar- ably joined with the signs ; the Reformed, to the attending power of the Spirit which is in no manner inseparable from the signs or the service. Dr. Nevin's doctrine seems to lie somewhere between the Romish and the Lutheran view. He agrees with the Romanists in referring the efficacy to the service itself, and with the Lutherans in making faith necessarj^ in order to the sacrament taking eflect. Some of his expressions on the subject are the following : Faith " is the condition of its (the sacra- ment's) efficacy for the communicant, but not the principle of the power itself. This belongs to the institution in its own na- ture. The signs are bound to what they represent, not subjec- tively simply in the thought of the worshipper, but objectively, by the force of a divine appointment. * * * The grace goes inseparably along with the sign, and is truly present for aU who 389 are prepared to make it their own." P. 61. " The invisible grace enters as a necessary constituent element into the idea of the sacrament ; and must be, of course, objectively present with it wherever it is administered under a true form. * * * It belongs to the ordinance in its own nature. * * * The sign, and thing signified are by Christ's institution, mysteriously tied together. * * * The two form one presence." P. 178. In the case of the Lord's Supper, the grace, or thing signified, is, according to this book, the divine-human nature of Christ, " his whole person," his body, soul, and divinity, constituting one life. This, or these are objectively present and inseparably joined with the signs, constituting with them one presence. The power in- separable from the theanthropic life of Christ, is inseparable from these signs, and is conveyed with them. " Where the way is open for it to take effect, it (the sacrament) serves in itself to convey the life of Christ into our persons." P. 182. We know nothing in Bellarmine that goes beyond that. Dr. Nevin refers for illustration, as Lutherans do, to the case of the women who touched Christ's garment. As there was mysterious supernatural power ever present in Christ, so there is in the sacraments. " The virtue of Christ's mystical presence," he says ^'is compre- hended in the sacrament itself" According to the Reformed church, Christ is present in the sacraments in no other sense than he is present in the word. Both serve to hold him up for our ac- ceptance. Neither has any virtue in itself Both are used by the Spirit, as means of communicating Christ and his benefits to believers. '^ Spiritualiter," says Calvin, ^''per sacramenta fidem alit (Deus), quorum unicum officium est, ejus promissiones OCULIS NOSTRIS SPECTANDAS SUBJICERE, IMG NOBIS EARUM ESSE piGNORA." Inst, iv., 14. 12. We here leave Dr. Nevin's book ; we have only one or two re- marks to add not concerning him, nor his own personal belief, but concerning his system. He must excuse our saying that, in our view, it is only a specious form of Rationalism. It is in its essential element a psychology. Ullman admits that it is nearly allied to pantheistic mysticism, and to the modern speculative philosophy. In all three the main idea is, " the union of God and man through the incarnation of the first and deification of the second."* It has, however, quite as strong an affinity for a * Preliminary Essay. P. 45. 390 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH mucli lower form of Rationalism. We are said to have the life of Adam. He lives in us as truly as he ever lived in his own person ; we partake of his substance, are ilesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones. No particle of his soul or body, indeed, has come down to us. It all resolves itself into an invisible law. This and little more than this, is said of our union with Christ. What then have we to do with Christ, more than we have to do with Adam ? or than the present forests of oak have to do with the first acorn ? A law is, after all, nothing but a force, a power, and the only Christ we have or need, is an inward principle. And with regard to spirits, such a law is something very ideal, indeed. Christ by his excellence makes a certain impression on his disciples, which produced a n*ew life in them. They associate to preserve and transmit that influence. A principle, belonging to the original constitution of our nature, was, by his influence, brought into governing activity, and is perpetuated in and by the church. As it owes its power to Christ, it is always referred back to him, so that it is a Christian consciousness, a conscious- ness of this union with Christ. We know that Schleiermacher endeavored to save the importance of a historical personal Christ ; but we know also that he failed to prevent his system taking the low rationalist form just indicated. With some it takes the purely pantheistic form ; with others a lower form, while others strive hard to give it a Christian form. But its tendency to lapse into one or the other of the two heresies just mentioned, is undeniable. We feel constrained to make another remark. It is obvious that this system has a strong affinity for Sabellianism. Accord- ing to the Bible and the creed of the church universal, the Holy Spirit has a real objective personal existence. There are three distinct persons in the Godhead, the same in substance and equal in power and glory. Being one Grod, where the Spirit is or dwells, there the Father and the Son are and dwell. And hence, throughout the New Testament, the current mode of representa- tion is, that the church is the temple of God and body of Christ, because of the presence and indwelling of the Holy Ghost, who is the source of knowledge, holiness, and life. What the Scrip- tures refer to the Holy Spirit, this system refers to the thean- thropic nature of Christ, to a nature or life ^4n all respects human." This supersedes the Holy Spirit. Every reader, there- ON THE lord's SUPPER. 391 fore, must be struck with the diificulty Dr. Nevin finds from this source. He does not seem to know what to do with the Spirit. His language is constrained, awkward, and often unintelligible; He seems, indeed, sometime to identify the Spirit with the the- anthropic nature of Christ. " The Spirit of Christ," he says, " is not his representative or surrogate simply, as some would seem to think ; but Clirist himself under a certain mode of subsistence ; Christ triumphant over all the limitations of his moral (mortal ?) state (^oyoTrotrj^eig Trvevfiart) received up into glory, and thus in- vested fully and forever with his own proper order of being in the sphere of the Holy Ghost." P. 225. The Spirit of Christ, is then Christ as exalted. On the following page, he says : " The glorification of Christ then, was the full advancement of our human nature itself to the power of a divine life : and the Spirit for whose presence it [the glorification of Christ] made room in the world, was not the Spirit as extraanthropological simply, un- der such forms of sporadic and transient afflatus as had been known previously ; but the Spirit as immanent now, through Jesus Christ, in the human nature itself — the form and power, in one word, of the new supernatural creation he had introduced into the world." Again, " Christ is not sundered from the church by the intervention of the Spirit. * * * No conception can be more unbiblical, than that by which the idea of Spirit (jrveviia) in this case, is restrained to the form of mere mind, whether as divine or human, in distinction from body. The whole glorified Christ subsists and acts in the Spirit, Under this form his na- ture communicates itself to his people." P. 229. But according to this book, the form in which his nature is communicated to his people, is that of " a true human life ;" it is a human nature advanced to a divine power, which they receive. The Spirit is, therefore, not the third person of the Trinity, but the thean- thropic nature of Christ as it dwells in the church. This seems to us the natural and unavoidable interpretation of these pas- sages and of the general tenor of the book. We do not suppose that Dr. Nevin has consciously discarded the doctrine of the Trinity ; but we fear that he has adopted a theory which destroys that doctrine. The influence of his early convictions and expe- rience, and of his present circumstances, may constrain him to hold fast that article of the faith, in some form to satisfy his con- science. But his system must banish it, just so far as it prevails. 392 DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCH. Schleiermaclier, formed under different circumstances, and less inwardly trammelled, openly rejected the doctrine. He wrote a system of theology, without saying a word about the Trinity. It has no place in his system ; he brings it in only at the conclusion of his work, and explains it as God manifested in nature, God as manifested in Christ, and God as manifested in the church. With him the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit which animates the church. It had no existence before the church and has no ex- istence beyond it. His usual expression for it is, " the common spirit'' (Gemeingeist) of the church, which may mean either something very mystical, or nothing more than we mean by the spirit of the age, or spirit of a party, just as the reader pleases. It is in point of fact understood both ways. XII. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS.^ It is a matter of notoriety that the American Board of Com- missioners for Foreign Missions, have for several years been sorely harassed on account of their supposed patronage or tole- rance of slavery. Those known to the country as abolitionists, have felt it to be a duty to expostulate with the Board from time to time, for receiving money from the owners of slaves, for em- ploying slaveholding missionaries, and for sustaining mission churches in which slaveholders were received as members. The Board have thus been constrained to take action on the subject, and on several occasions have given deliverances which seemed to satisfy for the time, the great body of their patrons. Still the matter has not been suffered to rest. With a view apparently of having the subject finally disposed of, the Board in 1847 adopted the following resolution, viz. : " That the Prudential Committee be requested to present a written report at the next annual meeting, on the nature and extent of the control which is to be exercised over the missionaries under the care of the Board ; and the moral responsibility of the Board for the nature of the teaching of the missionaries, and for the character of the churches." In the meantime, the Prudential Committee directed the Rev. S. B. Treat, one of the secretaries, to visit the Cherokee and Choc- * 1. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Special Report of the Prudential Committee, on the control to he exercised over Missionaries and Mission Churches. Printed for the use of the Board at the Annual Meeting. Revised edition. Press of T. R. Marvin. 2. Correspondence between the Cherokee and Choctaw Missions, the Rev. S. B. Treat, and the Prudential Committee. Missionary Herald, October, 1848. — Princeton Bb- VIEW, Jamiary, 1849. S94 BESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS taw Missions, " to ascertain, as fully as practicable, the state and prospects of those missions ; and to enquire more particularly into their relations to the subject of slavery." Mr. Treat devoted seventeen weeks to this visitation. He held full conference with the missionaries, and at his request, each mission addressed a let- ter to the committee, exhibiting " their views and principles in detail," on the subject of slavery. Subsequently he drew up a report to the Prudential Committee of his visit, which report, together with the letters just mentioned, and the reply made by the committee through Mr. Treat, are all published in the Mis- sionary Herald for October, 1848. The report of the Prudential Committee, above mentioned, was submitted to the Board a't its late meeting in September last, " but as the members had not time to give the subject that con- siderate attention which its importance demanded, the final dis- position of the same was postponed." Mr. Treat's report on his mission, and the correspondence to which it gave rise, were read to the Board, and by them referred to a committee who reported that they abstained from expressing any opinion either on the let- ters of the missions or on that of Mr. Treat in reply, because they constitute a part of an unfinished correspondence^ and because no final action could, with propriety, be had at that time. It was therefore resolved, that " the whole subject should be left for the present, where it now is, in the hands of the Prudential Com- mittee." Neither of these important documents, therefore, has yet received the sanction of the Board. In the meantime they are published, in various forms, for information and discussion. There are several reasons which determine us to call the atten- tion of our readers to these documents. In the first place, the principles contained in the Keport of the Prudential Committee on the control of missionaries, are of great importance, afiecting the whole nature and organization of the church. In the next place, those principles, and the whole subject, have as direct a bearing on the missionary operations of our church, as upon those of the American Board. Thirdly, it is to be presumed that the very design of the extensive publication of these papers, is to elicit friendly discussion. And finally, the first and most strin- gent application of the principles of Mr. Treat's letter, is to ministers and churches of one of our own presbyteries. The questions embraced in the Eeport are discussed with A.S TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 395 singular skill and wisdom. In most points we are happy in agreeing with its excellent authors. From some of their positions we are forced to dissent ; and as far as Mr. Treat's letter is concerned, dissent must assume the form of a solemn protest, which, in that particular case, every Presbyterian is entitled to enter. The first class of subjects discussed in this Report relate to the general principles of ecclesiastical polity. It is specially interesting to find that principles which retired men have gathered, after much study, from the Scriptures, are those which practical men are led to adopt from stress of circum- stances. The providence of God is forcing on the church views of its nature and polity, very diiferent from those which theorists have in many instances entertained. It is well known e. g. that it was the common doctrine of all denominations that ordinations sine titulo are unscriptural ; that the office of an evangelist was confined to the early age of the church ; that those thus designa- ted in the New Testament, were the vicarii of the apostles, vested with extraordinary powers for a special purpose and a limited time. To congregationalists no less than to prelatists, a bishop without charge was as much a solecism as a husband without a wife. A call from the people, in some form, was regarded as an essential part of a call to the ministry. Even Presbyterians, though their principles involved no such conclusion, were led by their circumstances, to entertain a like disapprobation of such ordinations. They were an inconvenience. The whole land was possessed. No more ministers than parishes were needed, and therefore it was thought wrong to create them. It is curious to see how all those parties have been driven, by the course of events, from their theory on this subject. Rome, petrified in one rigid form, cannot change, and therefore perpe- trates the absurdity of ordaining men to extinct or imaginary dioceses. Hence we hear of the bishop of Heliopolis, or Ecbata- na, or Hieropolis, even here in America. The independents when brought into contact with the heathen, were for a long time in a strait what to do. They felt that it was a crying sin to allow their fellow-men to perish in ignorance of the gospel. Christ, however, had provided, according to their system, no means of sending the gospel beyond the limits of organized churches. The office of evangelists was obsolete. Nothing therefore was to be 396 KESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS done but to allow the heathen to perish, or to endeavor to plant churches so near them that they could individually be brought under Christian influence. Puritan piety soon burnt off these tow bonds of a narrow system. The absurdity that a church, commissioned and required to preach the gospel to every creature, could not lawfully have any preachers except among those already Christians, was soon discarded. Almost every accessible portion of the heathen world has been visited and blessed by ministers ordained in violation of the fundamental principles of original Congregationahsm. Nay, the old doctrine seems to be well-nigh forgot. This Report says with as much confidence as though there was not a Congregationalist alive, " The denial that a missionary is an office-bearer until a Christian church has invited him to take the oversight of it in the Lord, is made in utter for- getfulness, as it would seem, of the commission by which a preaching ministry was originally instituted. The primary and pre-eminent design of that commission was to create the mission- ary office, and to perpetuate it until the gospel should have been preached to every creature." P. 6. Ministers, in the order of nature and of time, are before churches. The missionary work has thus wrought a complete emancipation of our Congregational brethren from a portion at least of their swaddling-clothes. The Presbyterians who came to the middle States were scarcely less strict in their notions on this subject, than the Independents of New England. They had larger ideas of the church, and a higher view of the ministry, but they still thought that a theory elaborated in a thickly settled country, could be transferred bodily to this new world. Because Scottish law and English parliaments forbad ordinations sine titulo, they thought they must be wrong in themselves, except at least under very peculiar circumstances. But when they found themselves in a country where, instead of every square foot of land belonging by law to some parish, hun- dreds of square miles contained only here and there a Christian family, they were forced to have more ministers than organized churches. Still they could not entirely shake off the prejudices of education, and therefore, as our early records show, the Pres- byteries were constantly coming with the humble request to the Synod, for permission to ordain A. B. or C. D. sine titulo. This doctrine is however as thoroughly obsolete as the dress of our forefathers. As a matter of fact the churches do not believe it, AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 397 and they do not practice upon it. They have outgrown it. Trans- planted into a larger sphere and awakened to a sense of her origi- nal vocation to preach the gospel to every creature, Vthe church feels that she has need of men to gather churches as well as to supply themj of mfen to exercise on all occasions, and to every willing people, and not to one congregation only, the gifts of a diddanaXog. She has turned from the laws of European nations, made to protect bishops and rectors in the undisturbed possession of their livings, to the New Testament. There she has found no such trammels as to the exercise of her right to ordain — and somewhat to her surprise, perhaps, has discovered that every minister mentioned in the Scripture was ordained sine titulo ; in other words, that there is among all preachers named in the New Testament, scarcely one who was pastor of a particular congre- gation. The church breathes rather more freely here than she did in the crowded countries of the old world. It will be labor thrown away to attempt to bring her again into bondage. This is one good service done the church by the missionary work, for- eign and domestic. A second benefit to be expected from the same source is the gradual banishment of high-churchism, and the consequent pro- motion of catholic unity. By high-churchism we mean the dis- position to attribute undue importance to the external organiza- tion of the church ; the desire to make everything relating thereto a matter of divine right ; and to insist that no society, hgwever orthodox and pure, can be a church unless organized in one par- ticular form. This disposition has deep root in human nature. The external and visible is ever too apt to overshadow the spirit- ual. It is not therefore only in Romanists and Prelatists, but even in Presbyterians and Independents we see manifestations of this spirit. Things are made obligatory, which Grod has left indifferent. Points are regarded as essential which are either unimportant or injurious. This spirit perverts the very nature of religion. It subjects the conscience to human authority. It alienates those who ought to be united, and is the cause of almost all the schism which afflicts, disgraces, and impedes the church. We, as Presbyterians, of course believe that the essential prin- ciples of our system are laid down in Scripture ; that there is no office jure divino superior to that of presbyters ; that the people 398 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS have a right by their representatives to take part in the govern- ment of the church, and that the whole church is one, and hence a part is responsible to a larger portion, or to the whole. But we neither believe that any one mode of organization is essential to the being of the church, nor that the details of any system of church polity are laid down in Scripture as universally obligatory. The idea that the church has no discretion in such matters, no liberty to adapt herself to her varying circumstances, is derived, in no small measure, from pressing unduly the analogy between the old dispensation and the new. Because everything was pre- scribed to the Hebrew church, it is inferred that there must be an express divine warrant for every arrangement adopted in the Christian church. Thus also it argued that because there was a priesthood then, there must be a priesthood now ; because the church and state were united then, they must be united now. The old economy was a visible theocracy, and therefore the new dispensation must be the same. Strange to say, this was the great argument and the great mistake, alike of Papists and Puritans, of the persecuting Dominicans and of the intolerant Covenant- ers. There is nothing to favor this doctrine. The old dispensa- tion was designed for one people, for one very limited countiry, for a specific object, and for a limited time. Most of its institutions also were typical, and therefore of necessity fixed. The institu- tions of the Christian church are not prophetic, neither are they limited to one people. They are designed for all nations, for all ages, and for every part of the globe. It is inconceivable that any one outward form of the church can be suited for all these difier- ent circumstances. We can readily believe that one style of building and one mode of dress might suit all parts of Palestine, but who can believe that God would prescribe the same garments for the Arabs and the Laplanders. It is therefore cl priori in the highest degree improbable that God ever intended to deny to his church all discretion as to the details of her organization. When we open the New Testament, the first thing that strikes the at- tention of the reader is, its comparative silence on this subject. It is truth, repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ; it is the way of reconciliation with God and restoration to the divine image, which are the prominent, overshadowing subjects there presented. Prelatists meet this difficulty by acknowledging the fact, but appealing to tradition as of equal AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 399 authority with the Scriptures. Those Protestants who adopt the jus divinum principle, are obliged to substitute conjecture as to what was done, in place of positive commands as to what we should do. The fact that God has not commanded Christians to adopt any one mode of organization, is proof enough that he in- tended to leave his people free, within certain prescribed limits, to adapt their church polity to their circumstances. This is the conclusion to which the work of missions is for- cing all denominations of Christians. This Report avows that it is found impracticable to transfer bodily to heathen countries, any of the forms of church organization adopted in Christian lands. With regard to religious teachers the committee uses the following language : " Considering the weakness and way- wardness so generally found in men just emerging from hea- thenism, native pastors must for a time, and in certain respects, be practically subordinate to the missionaries, by whom their churches were formed, and through whom, it may be, they are themselves partially supported. * * * Should a practical parity, in all respects, be insisted on between the missionaries and the native pastors, in the early periods when everything is in a forming state, it is not seen how the native ministry can be trained to system and order, and enabled to stand alone, or even to stand at all. As with ungoverned children, self-sufficiency, impatience of restraint, jealousy and other hurtful passions will be developed. The native pastors themselves are, for a season, but babes in Christ, children in experience, knowledge, and char- acter. And hence missionaries, who entertain the idea that or- dination must have the effect to place the native pastors at once on a perfect equahty with themselves, are often backward in intrusting the responsibilities of the pastoral office to natives." P. 7. '^ It must be obvious that the view just taken of this subject involves no danger to the future parity of the native ministry, considered in their relation to each other, for, in the nature of things, the missionary office is scarcely more successive and com- municable to native pastors than the apostolic office to evan- geUsts." P. 8. This appears to us perfectly reasonable and scriptural. No one would think of instituting a democracy among recently emancipated slaves, especially where they formed a majority of the community. It is not inconsistent with our republicanism 400 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS that we keep the Indian tribes on our borders in a state of pu- pilage, or for a time appoint the governors and judges of our Territories. It is a plain scriptural principle that superiority / should be acknowledged and respected. Parents are superior to their immature children, and therefore it is the \7ill of God that children should obey their parents.. The inspired apostles were superior to all other ministers, and therefore they had au- thority over the whole church. The Eomish theory on this sub- ject is right enough, it is only false in fact. That theory is, that the bishops are apostles, and therefore have a right to govern the church. We admit that if they were apostles, that is, inspired and infallible men, they would indeed have a right to rule, and that to resist them would be disobedience to Grod. But as they are no more inspired than other men, and are often in all respects the inferiors of their brethren, to claim for them a divine right to rule, becomes an un scriptural and most hurtful usurpation. It is not the mere transient inequalities as to age and capacity, such as exist among men born and educated under the same circumstances, that can lay any adequate foundation for offi- cial subordination. It must be of such a nature as in the cases referred to, as creates a real incapacity on the one side to share in the duties and responsibilities of the other side. That such a disparity does exist between European and American missionaries and their heathen converts, cannot be denied. Such converts, however, must be employed as religious teachers, both because the field is far too large for the missionaries to cultivate alone, and because in this way only can a native ministry be trained up. Being however children in comparison to the mis- sionaries, they must be treated as such. They are in such a sense inferior that they must be subordinate. The providence of God has already forced the missionaries, especially in the Sandwich Islands, to act upon this principle. There a single missionary has under his care a church with four or five thou- sand communicants. This supposes a congregation of from ten to fifteen thousand persons. It is impossible that the pastor can adequately minister to such a multitude. He must have helpers. Those assistants must be taken from among the native converts. The pastor selects them, assigns them their district or sphere of labor, tells them what they must do, superintends their instruc- tions, and advances them from one kind of duty to a higher as AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 401 they increase in capacity. Whatever names may be given to these assistants, it would be hard to find anything on scriptural grounds to object to such an arrangement. As to the organization of mission churches, the Report before us says : " When the time comes for organizing native converts into churches, the missionaries, acting in behalf of these children in knowledge and in the power of self-organization and govern- ment, cannot properly be restrained by foreign interference, from conforming the organization to what they regard as the apostolical usage in similar cases, having respect, of course, to those necessary limitations already mentioned." ' P. 31. " The result may be a much simpler organization for the mission churches, than is found in lands that have long sat under the light and influences of the gospel. Indeed, experience has clearly shown, that it is not well to attempt the transfer of religious de- nominations of Christendom, full-grown and with all their peculi- arities, into heathen lands, at least until the new-born churches shall have had time to acquire a good degree of discriminative and self-governing power. The experience acquired in lands long -Christian, partially fails us when we go into heathen countries. We need to gain a new experience, and to revise many of our principles and usages ; and for this purpose to go prayerfully to the New Testament." P. 31. " The religious liberty which we ourselves enjoy, is equally the birth-right of Christian converts in every part of the heathen world, on coming into the spiritual kingdom of Jesus Christ, which they may claim as soon as they are prepared for it ; just as American freedom is the birth-right of our own children. The right of our children is not infringed by that dependence and control which they need during their infancy and childhood. ^ Reference is here made to pp. 12, 13 of the Report, where it is said the missionary comes under certain well understood pledges. "1. As to his manner of life; which is to be one of exemplary piety and devotion to his work. 2. As to his teaching; which must be conformed to the evangelical doctrines generally received by the churches, and set forth in their well known Confessions of Faith. 3. As to ecclesiastical vsages ; to which he must conform substantially as they prevail among the churches operat- ing through the Board. He must hold to a clerical parity among the brethren of the mission. He must hold to the validity of infant baptism. He must admit only such to the Lord's Supper, as give credible evidence of faith in Christ. So far as his rela- tion to the Board and his standing in the mission are concerned, he is of course not pledged to conform his proceedings to any other book of discipline than the New Tes- tament." 26 402 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS It is even their right to claim, that the parent shall thus act for them in the early stages of their existence. But the wise parent will always form the principles and habits of his child with reference to the time when the right of self-control must he fully exercised and yielded. In like manner the missionary must needs give form, at the outset, to the constitution and habits of mission churches, and for a time he must virtually govern them. But he will do this with a constant regard to a coming period, when those churches must and will act independently." P. 32. Experience then has led the authors of this Keport to recog- nize the following principles. 1. That a call from a church is not necessary to a call to the ministry ; or, that ministers may properly be ordained sine titulo; or, that the office of an evan- gelist is not obsolete. 2. That such evangelists have all the rights and prerogatives belonging to the ministerial office. They are true office-bearers in the church of God. 3. That they may exercise a wide discretion as to the mode in which they organize churches gathered from among the heathen. 4. That mission churches have all the rights which belong to other Christian churches, though for a time they may properly be retained in a state of pupilage. These principles must commend themselves to every candid reader. Kegeneration does not convert an African into a Eu- ropean, or a Hindoo into an American. The heathen among whom our missionaries labor are far behind the Jews, Greeks, and Romans to whom the apostles preached. As the church is to be established among all sorts of men, Hottentots, Hindoos, Sand- wich Islanders, Indians, Greeks, and Barbarians, wise and unwise, it must have liberty to adapt itself to these diverse circumstances. To transfer Congregationalism to a heathen country, would be destructive, and has been found impossible. This fact should teach our eastern brethren that their system is not jure divino for all Christians, and should moderate the tone of assumption, which in some parts of the country, has begun to prevail on this subject. We do not pretend that Scotch Presbyterianism can be transferred bodily to our infant missionary churches. But we are disposed to make this claim in behalf of the genuine princi- ples of continental and American Presbyterianism. They have an elasticity which admits of their being suited to every change of circumstances. It is no violation of those principles to have AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 403 preaching and teaching elders, subordinate to the pastor, as in the French churches ; nor where suitable elders are scarce, to have several churches under one session or consistory as in various parts of Europe. We believe that God has mercifully left his people at liberty, within certain general principles laid down in his word, to modify their church polity as his providence may render expedient, and yet under all these forms to remain faith- ful to the radical principles of Presbyterianism. It is not our purpose, however, to glorify Presbyterianism ; on the contrary we wish to express our sympathy with the catholic spirit of this Report, and to show how much against the providence as well as the word of God, is the exclusive high-church principle, which would transfer to the Christian church all the trammels, which, for wise reasons, were imposed on the church before the advent. The second subject considered by the committee is the respon- sibility of missionaries. What security have the churches at home for the fidelity of the men sent to plant the gospel among the heathen ? The answer given to this question is — 1. The care taken in the selection of the men. 2. The definite and well-understood engagement into which the missionary enters. 3. His claim to support, like that of a pastor, depends on his fulfilling his engagements. . 4. The Board have a right to enforce this fidelity, not by ecclesiastical censures, but by dissolving the connection of the missionary with itself and with the mission. 5. The mutual watch and care of the missionaries over each other, and the direct influence of truth on their minds and hearts. 6. The influence of public sentiment at home. The missionaries know that in a peculiar manner the eyes of the church are fixed upon them, and that any failure on their part must be attended with special disgrace. To all this is to be added, if not included under number five, the responsibil- ity of the missionary to the ecclesiastical body at home to which he may belong. These, to say the least, are as secure pledges for the faithful discharge of their duties as can be given by ministers in this country. Experience shows this to be the case. They have their infirmities and their difiiculties ; but it is matter of devout thankfulness to God, that American missionaries have been an honor and blessing to their country, and sustain a char- acter in all respects equal to any similar body of men in the for- eigu field. 404 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS The rights and responsibilities of the Board in relation to mis- sionaries and mission churches, is the third topic discussed. This is much the most difficult and delicate division of the whole subject. The principles advocated in this Report are the following : 1. The Board has no ecclesiastical control, properly- speaking, either over the missionaries or their churches. It can neither depose, nor excommunicate, nor in any way affect the ec- clesiastical standing of those under his care. Pp. 13, 22. 2. It has the right to enforce fidelity on the part of the missionaries to their engagements. Those engagements include among other particulars, a. Exemplary Christian conduct, h. Correct relig- ious teaching, c. Conformity to established ecclesiastical usages. d. Proper diligence in the discharge of their duties. Pp. 12, 13, 21, 38. 3. The rule by which the Board purpose to judge of the religious teaching of their missionaries is, "the evangelical doc- trines generally received by the churches, and set forth in their weU-known Confessions of Faith.'' P. 13. "Many things," it is said, "which at first, it might seem desirable for the Board to do, are found on a nearer view, to lie entirely beyond its jurisdic- tion ; so that to attempt them would be useless, nay, a ruinous usurpation. Nor is the Board at liberty to withdraw its confi- dence from missionaries, because of such differences of opinion among them, as are generally found and freely tolerated in pres- byteries, councils, associations, and other bodies here at home." P. 17. The standard of judgment as to matters of polity is, " the ecclesiastical usages" which " prevail among the churches operating through the Board." ^ ^ While the Board may not es- tablish new principles in matters purely ecclesiastical, it may enforce the observance of such as are generally acknowledged by the churches, and were understood to be acknowledged by the missiona?ries when sent to their fields." P. 13. 4. The Board is, therefore, " responsible directly, in the manner which has been described, for the teaching of the missionaries." P. 38. 5. The Board is not responsible directly for the character of the mission churches. If there be evils, even scandalous wickedness in those churches, they can be reached only through the missionaries. P. 39. When evils exist, however, in the mission churches, the committee may and must inquire whether the missionaries are doing their duty. This we believe to be a correct statement of the views of the AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 405 committee in relation to their authority and responsibility in ref- erence to the missionaries and the mission churches. From this it appears that the committee claim for the Board the right not only to enforce the fidelity and diligence of those under its care, as missionaries, but their correct teaching and discipline, as min- isters. It is assumed that the Board has the right, in all cases, to judge of that correctness. They can inflict no ecclesiastical censure, but they can dissolve the connection between the mis- sionary and the mission for error in doctrine, or discipline. We, of course, do not controvert all the positions above quoted from the Report. Nor do we deny that the Board, under peculiar circumstances, may rightfully exercise all the powers here claimed in its behalf. The above view of the subject, however, involves, in our judgment, an important misapprehension of the relation of the Board both to the churches at home, and to the mission- aries and churches abroad. The Board is simply the agent, and not the plenipotentiary of the church. It does not stand in the place of the church, nor is it invested with all the oversight and control over the missionaries, which the church may properly exercise. It stands related to those whom it sends out, as mis- sionaries, and not as ministers. Every such messenger to the heathen sustains a twofold relation, the one as a missionary to the Board, the other as a minister to his ecclesiastical superiors or associates. To the former, he is responsible for his conduct as a missionary ; he must go where he is sent ; stay where he is required to remain ; perform that part of the missionary work which may be assigned to him, &c., &c. To the latter, he is re- sponsible for his doctrines and ministerial conduct. When a missionary stands isolated, or has no ecclesiastical supervisors, or none who can act as such, then as a matter of necessity, the con- sideration of his doctrine and acts of discipline, falls under the cognizance of the Board ; not, however, as a part of their ap- propriate function, but on the same principle that in cases of emergency, every citizen, and not merely the police, is bound to enforce the law of the land. The case of a missionary is analogous to that of an officer of the army. Every such officer bears a twofold relation ; the one to his military superiors, the other to the civil authorities. As an officer, he is to be judged by the articles of war ; as a citizen, by the laws of the land. For the Secretary at War, or command- 406 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS ing-general, to take into Hs hands the administration of the civil law, is equivalent to the proclamation of martial law. In like manner for the Board of Missions to undertake to judge of mat- ters of doctrine and discipline, would be like putting the whole missionary world in a state of siege. . If the Board be the agent of the churches for the conduct of missions, it is clear, I. That it has the right to select and send forth missionaries, to determine their location, to superintend and direct their, labors, to enforce fidelity and diligence, and in general to do whatever is requisite for the successful prosecution of their work, which is not otherwise provided for. 2. That the Board has the power to discard any missionary at pleasure, i. e., for any reason that to them may seem sufficient. It may be in- competency, indolence, ill-temper, or any other cause. 3. The only question is. What are the reasons which justify an exercise of that power ? It is evident that those reasons may be perfectly adequate ; or they may be insufficient ; or they may be such as involve a breach of trust on the part of the Board toward the churches. If, for example, they should discard a missionary be- cause he was a Calvinist or Paedo-baptist, that would clearly be a breach of faith with those churches for whom they act and from whom they derive their funds. 4. The points on which we think it important to insist are these : First, that no doctrine or mode of teaching can be an adequate ground for discarding any missionary, which doctrine or mode of teaching is sanctioned by the churches operating through the Board ; and that no mode of church organization, or condition of church membership, can be a justifiable reason for withholding aid and fellowship from a mission church, which mode of organization and condi- tion of church membership, is approved by those churches. And secondly, that the question whether a given doctrine is consistent with the faith of those churches, or a given mode of organization, or condition of church membership is compatible with their dis- cipline, is one for those denominations and not for the Board to decide. That is, the Board cannot go behind the decisions of those churches, and pronounce that to be inconsistent with their doctrines, which they say is consistent, or that to be incompati- ble with their discipline, which they say is conformable to it. It is hardly to bo presumed that the Prudential Committee would dissent from either of these propositions as thus stated. AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 407 And yet they are very different from the principles of their re- port, and Jead to widely different practical results. The principal points of difference ar^ these two. First. The Keport assumes that the Board is directly responsible for the teaching of the mis- sionaries, and of course have the right to superintend and direct it. Hence the committee call upon the missionaries and interro- gate them. Do you think so and so ? Do you teach thus and thus ? According to our view this responsibility does not rest upon the committee (unless as a derelict) but upon the ecclesias- tical body, presbytery, classis, or association to which the mission- ary belongs. Second. The Keport, as a necessary consequence of the assumed responsibility on the part of the Board for the teach- ing of the missionaries, claims for it the right of judgment of that teaching ; of deciding whether it is consistent with the gen- erally received doctrines of the churches ; and of matters of church polity and discipline, whether they are consistent or otherwise with established ecclesiastical usage. We on the other hand, must deny to the Board any such right (except, as before said, in the absence of the legitimate judges of such matters). The right of judging must rest where the responsibility is That our view of this important subject is the correct one, we think will appear from the following considerations. 1. The Board is not an ecclesiastical body. It disclaims all ecclesiastical autho- rity. But to sit in judgment on the orthodoxy of ministers, to determine whether their doctrines are consistent .with " the well- known Confession of Faith," or their principles of polity and dis- cipline, with established ecclesiastical usage, is one of the very highest and most difficult duties of an ecclesiastical tribunal. It is, from the nature of the case, ecclesiastical control in the truest and highest sense of the term. It is of no account to say that the Board cannot affect the ecclesiastical standing or privileges of those whom it judges. The nature of the cause depends on the matter tried, and not on the character of the penalty. Depo- sition and excommunication are rare ecclesiastical inflictions. Admonition and other milder censures are much more frequent. That the effect of an unfavorable decision by the Board is dis- grace, the loss of standing and the loss of support, instead of temporary suspension from church privileges, does not alter the case. If the judgment be rendered for error in doctrine, it is an ecclesiastical judgment, whatever may be the nature of the pen- 408 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS alty. In England^ the courts having jurisdiction over clergymen, for clerical offences, whether the Court of Arches or the Privy Council, are courts of ecclesiastical control, even though the penalty they impose be fine or loss of stipend. The report says : " The question assumes a plain business form — whether there is an actual departure from the basis on which the missionary ap- pointment was made, and what effect it has exerted on the peace and usefulness of the mission, and on the operations of the Board." (P. 22.) This is not one whit a plainer question, nor one whit more a business matter, than a trial for heresy before a presbytery. In this latter case, the simple question is, ^' whether there is an actual departure from the basis on which" the man was received into the presbytery. If the latter is an ecclesiastical question so is the former. They are both questions relating to the orthodoxy of ministers. And the body authorized to sit in judgment on that question, is vested with ecclesiastical jurisdic- tion. The right therefore to judge of such matters does not be- long to the Board, for by common consent they have no ecclesias- tical control. 2. This authority to judge in matters of doctrine does not be- long to the Board. It was never committed to them by any power, human or divine. It does not inhere in them in virtue of their constitution, nor has it been delegated to them by the churches. 3. It is an authority which the Board is not competent to ex- ercise. The Board itself meets but once in the year, and that only for a few days. Its authority is really in the hands of the Pru- dential Committee. Such a committee, however, is evidently not a competent tribunal to sit in judgment on the ministerial charac- ter, the orthodoxy or heterodoxy, of hundreds of missionaries in all parts of the world. They are, in many cases laymen, and have not the competent knowledge. Lawyers would not like to see clergymen set to administer the laws of the land. And, with- out disrespect, it may be said, that if there is anything from which ministers and the church need pray to be delivered, it is from being subject to civil judges, in ecclesiastical matters. Judge Roger's decision has given a wholesome lesson on that subject to old-school Presbyterians, and the decision of Judge Gibson, we hope, has been equally beneficial to our new-school brethren. Besides the incompetency arising from want of training, any such AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 409 body as the Prudential Committee, is too remote from the person to be tried. They cannot adequately examine into any such case, unless it happens to be one of the most open and notorious char- acter. They, cannot, however, calculate upon always having cases of that kind. They may be called upon to determine whether a given doctrine is not Arminian or Pelagian, and a real denial of the well-known creed of the churches. Besides all this they have no promise of divine guidance in this matter. 4. The power in question is both onerous and dangerous. One would think the Prudential Committee had work enough on their hands, in superintending so many missions in every part of the world, with all their complicated concerns, without assuming the additional burden of directing the teaching, and judging the orthodoxy of some hundreds of missionaries. We doubt not the committee would rejoice to see themselves exempted from all re- sponsibility on that subject. It is besides rather incongruous with our Protestant, and especially with our American ideas, that ^ve or six men in Boston or New York, should have the power to determine what doctrines shall, and what shall not, be taught in Europe, Asia, Africa and America ; and to decide whether this or that opinion is consistent with the standards of evangelical churches. How much controversy have we had on that very point in all parts of the country. How earnestly has it been de- bated in New England itself. • How decided were such men as Cornelius and Nettleton that certain doctrines, whose advocates were neither few nor inconsiderable, ought not to be tolerated in our churches at home or abroad. Is the Prudential Committee prepared to decide all these litigated points ? They must of ne- cessity either exercise an intolerable power, or they must in a great measure let things take their course. Generally they would pursue the latter method, and every now and then the former. But the churches never can long recognize a power at war with all our ecclesiastical institutions. It would be very much like the republicanism which they have in Paris under General Cavaignac. 5. It is altogether unnecessary that the power to inspect the teaching of the missionaries, and to judge of their doctrines, should he lodged in the hands either of the Board or of the Pru- dential Committee. It is far more safe and effective, if lodged elsewhere. The committee do not receive a missionary in the first instance, on the ground of any personal knowledge of his ortho- 410 KESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS doxy. They do not subject him to any theological examination. They take his orthodoxy for granted on the authority of the pres- bytery or the council that ordained him. They may refuse to receive him for ill-health, ignorance, unamiableness, or other reasons of like nature, but they could not refuse his services be- cause he held any opinion which the church to which he belongs, and the body which ordained him, pronounce to be sound. In the fiist instance then, the committee are relieved of the respon- sibility of judging of matters of doctrine, and disclaim all right to review the decisions of competent church courts. When the missionary enters upon his field, he retains his ecclesiastical con- nexion, whatever it was. He remains a minister of the Dutch, of the Presbyterian, or of the Congregational church or denomina- tion. In all ordinary cases, three, six, or more ministers, belong to one station. If they are Presbyterians they form a Presbytery, if Congregationalists, an Association. There is just the same oversight over the orthodoxy of a member of the Choctaw Pres- bytery of Indiana, as over that of a member of the Presbytery of New York. There is just as much security for the correct teach- ing of a Congregational minister in Ceylon, as for that of a similar minister in Connecticut. In all such cases the responsi- bility rests with the ministerial associates of the missionary. It is the doctrine of all the churches operating through the Board, that a minister is subject to his brethren through the Lord. That subjection is neither thrown off nor transferred when he becomes a missionary. If no man or committee is entitled to question a member of the Presbytery of New York, or the Association of East Windsor, about his doctrines, no man or committee can question the members of a presbytery or association in a foreign land. Placing the responsibility for the teaching of the missionaries, and the right to judge concerning it, on their ministerial asso- ciates, has, it seems to us, every thing in its favor. It is accord- ing to principle. It is what all churches do in this country, and what they all say ought to be done. It is one of the most valuable rights of the ministry. It is to them what trial by jury is in the State. It is far more safe and effective as a method of control. It relieves the committee of a burdensome, invidious, and most dangerous prerogative. And finally it is right, and the other wrong. \ AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 411 It has already been admitted, that where a missionary is perfectly isolated, where he has no ministerial associates, then, from the necessity of the case, his responsibility is to the com- mittee. But these are rare cases, and ought not to be permitted to occur. 6. Operating on the principle here advocated, would free the committee from a great deal of embarrassment. The Congrega- tional, Keformed Dutch, and a large part of the Presbyterian churches, make the American Board their agent for conducting foreign missions. These denominations have severally their standards of doctrine, and each its own method of determining what is and what is not consistent with its faith and discipline. Let them decide such matters. So long as a minister is rectus in ecdesia with the Dutch or the Presbyterians, the committee are free from all responsibility as to his doctrine. So long as those churches allow of a certain mode of church organization, or condition of church membership, the committee have nothing to say in the matter. If the venerable Mr. Kingsbury stands well in his own presbytery, the five or six gentlemen in Boston composing the Prudential Committee, may well rest satisfied with his doctrines. If father Spaulding, in Ceylon, has the confidence of all his ministerial associates, the churches in this country will not be suspicious of his orthodoxy. If the Keformed Dutch or Presbyterians allow those who drink wine or hold slaves to come to the Lord's table, the blame, if there be any, rests with them. How can the committee help it ? Will they withhold the money contributed by those denominations from churches who do exactly what they are allowed to do by their ecclesiastical superiors ? The committee themselves say they cannot withdraw their confidence from any missionary for any opinion tolerated by the churches at home. (P. 17.) Then why not let the churches decide whether a doctrine or usage is tole- rated in fact, and ought to be so. This is all we contend for, viz., that it rests with the churches, i. e., with the regular eccle- siastical authorities, to judge whether the doctrines and discipline of the missionaries and their churches are to be tolerated or not. We can hardly think of a case where this principle would not apply. In all the large missions of the Board, there are ministers and church members enough to constitute as trust- worthy a tribunal as can be formed at home. If those ministers 4B RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS form a presbytery or classis, there is an appeal from their decis- HMi to the Synod or Greneral Assembly. If they fonn an asso- ciation or council, that is the highest tribunal known to the Ckmgregational churches. K a mission, presbytery, or association become decidedly heretical, tbey are to be treated precisely as sffidi bodies would be treated at home. But the question of hHleBy is one for the churches and not for the committee to de- cide. The New School General Assembly aUow slaveholders to come to the Lord's table. Shall the committee, agents of the New School Presbyterians, refuse to sustain such churches, or shall they throw the responsibility on the denominations to which the churches belong ? We think the latter is the only course ccmsistent with right principles, or compatible with the harmo- nious action of the numerous patrons of the Board. Much therefore as we admire this Report in many of its fea- tures, and greatly as we respect the source whence it proceeds, we cannot but believe that the committee have misconceived the relation in wbich the Board stands, as well to the churches at home, as to the missionaries abroad. The Board is not the plen- ipotentiary of the churches, to secure the orthodoxy of mission- aries or the purity of mission churches. It is an agent for em- ploying such missionaries and planting such churches abroad, as the churches at home approve. The missionaries are responsible to the Board for their fidelity and diligence as missionaries, but for their doctrines and discipline as ministers, they are responsi- ble to tbe denominational churches to which they belong, which dmrches are represented by the ministerial associates with whom the missionaries are connected. We have not said a word against the organization of the Board. We would not for any consideration lisp a syllable liiat could in any way do them harm. We most unfeignedly rejoice in their great success and usefulness. We conceive we are doing them a friendly act in publishing this review. It is r^t to discuss, with respect and kind feeling, a question in which all churches, and the Presbyterian especially, are deeply ooBcemed. We believe it is perfectly easy for the American BhHud so to conduct their operations, as not to come into collision with the rights of the churches. We believe, moreover, that any departure from that way will be found to be, in the language of this Report, ^' a ruinous usurpation." AS TO MISSION ABIES AND MISSION CHUBCHE8. 413 That the misconception of the trae relation of the Board to the church and the missionaries, to which we have referred^ is a very serious matter, is evident from the letter of the Rev. Mr. Treat to the Cherokee and Choctaw missions. In the existing state of the church and of the country, we cannot regard the adoption of that letter by the Prudential Committee, and its pub- lication, as anything short of a national calamity. The elements of strife and disunion are already so numerous and powerful, that the accession of a body, among the most influential in the whole land, to the side of separation, must be regarded as a most serious event. Should that letter be ultimately sanctioned by the Board, as it has already been by the Prudential Committee, the consequences must be disastrous. As soon as the letter was read, its true character was apparent. The abolitionists at once said, We ask nothing more ; that is our creed. One of those abolitionists since his return home has published a manifesto, giving an account of his visit to Boston, of his fidelity to his principles, and of the action of the Board. In that publication, he says, " While slavery has a tolerated existence in churches planted and watered by those Boards (of Foreign and Domestic Missions), it will be impossible to bring American Christianity into that open and honest antagonism with slavery, which is necessary for its destruction." Mr. Secretary Treat has done what was promised a year ago, "to the entire satisfection of the most decided abolitionists of Boston and vicinity, and to my own." " If," says he, " the missionaries obey (the instructions of the committee) they are abolitionists. If they disobey, they will be dropped." " I am satisfied," he adds, " with the above action of the committee. Deference to opposing opinions has made them use much indirectness and verbosity, in stating their abolition creed, but it is an abolition creed nevertheless." After referring to the action of the Board in the premises, he says, •* I see not what the Board could have done farther, unless they had resolved to cut off the missionaries without waiting to see whether they would obey the instructions of their committee or not. "Let us sustain the American Board in the anti- slavery race which it has so well begun. It will be deplorable indeed, if anti-slavery men do not supply any falling off of funds in pro-slavery sections of the country. Let us unitedly move the 414 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS Home Missionary Society to plant the South with a slavery ex- pelling gospel." * Such is the interpretation put upon Mr. Treat's letter by the abolitionists, and such, we are deeply grieved to say, appears to us its only true interpretation. The American Board of Commissioners is beyond doubt one of the noblest institutions of benevolence in tlie world. All Christians, yea, all mankind are interested in its proper management. A fearful responsibility rests on those who are at the helm of that noble ship. Under the guidance of strong and skilful hands, she has hitherto weath- ered every storm. She is now approaching, with all her canvas spread, the outer circle of the great whirlpool of fanaticism. The slightest deviation from the proper course, must bring her within the sweep of that fearful current. Those on board may, for a while, exult in her accelerated motion. But every practised eye can see, from the quivering of her sails, that such acceleration is due, not to the favoring breezes, but to the dreadful undertow, which must inevitably engulph every thing yielded to its power. A brief analysis of this Letter will enable the reader to judge of its true character. There are three points as to which it ex- presses the views of the committee. 1. As to slavery and slave- holding. 2. As to the duties of the missionaries in relation to it. 3. The power and authority of the committee in the premises. As to the first of these points the letter says : " Domestic slavery is at war with the rights of man, and opposed to the principles of the gospel." " It is an anti-christian system, and hence you have a right to deal with it accordingly. True, it is regulated by law, but it does not for that reason lose its moral relations. Suppose polygamy or intemperance were hedged in by legal enactments, could you not speak against them as crying evils r' Though the system is always and everywhere sinful, yet slave- holding is not always a sin. Provided, 1. The slaveholder enters the relation and continues in it, involuntarily ; or, 2. That he holds the relation simply for the benefit of the slave. The slaveholder may indeed misjudge in not granting immediate emancipation. In that case, " the continuance of the relation is wrong, but the ' President Blanchard's Appeal, as given in the Christian Mirror, Portland, Novem- ber 30, 1848. AS TO MISSIONARIES* AND MISSION CHURCHES. 415 master may stand acquitted in the sight of God, because influ- enced solely by benevolent motives." Christ and his apostles, though they did not expressly condemn slavery, said much which "bears strongly against it. If the single precept, ^ Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them,' were carried out, it would cease at once in all its essential features.^' The directions given in the New Testament, as to the relative duties of masters and slaves, are said to be " consistent with the hypothesis that the apostles re- garded the general relation as unnatural and sinful." "But why," asks the writer, " did not the apostles directly affirm the sinfulness of slavery ? Why did they not insist on the duty of emancipation ? Simply because (if we may presume to give an opinion) they saw such a course, in their circumstances, would not soonest and best extirpate the evil." As to the duty of missionaries, in reference to slavery, this let- ter teaches, 1. That they should denounce it. The only question is as to time and mode. This must be left to their discretion, but apostolic example does not justify continued silence. If after twenty-five years that time has not yet come, in those Indian mis- sions, the committee say, " We may well ask, When will it come ?" 2. If a recent convert is connected with slavery, the missionary should inquire into his views of that institution. 3. If he pro- poses to come to the Lord's Supper, he must " prove himself free from the guilt of that system, before he can make good his title to a place among the followers of Christ." He must show either, 1. That his " being the owner of slaves is involuntary on his part," or, 2. That " he retains the legal relation at their request and for their advantage," and that " he utterly repudiates the idea of holding property in his fellow-men." 3. The committee, " denying that there can be morally, or scripturally, any right of property in any human being, unless it be for crime, and holding that the slave is always to be treated as a man, suppose that whatever is done in plain and obvious violation of these princi- ples, may properly receive the notice of yourselves and your ses- sions." 4. The missionaries are to pursue such a course that the mission churches may soon be freed " from all participation in a system that is so contrary to the spirit of the gospel and so re- gardless of the rights of man." 5. They are to abstain from using slave labor. "It is with profound regret," the committee say, 416 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS " that we have learned how many hired slaves are now in the service of the Choctaw mission. We readily acquit you of any plan or purpose to disregard our known wishes on this subject. We cheerfully accept the excuse you offer, namely, that the boarding-schools established in 1843, in consequence of an arrange- ment made with the Choctaw government, in your view made such assistance necessary, and that you supposed the committee must have assented to its employment." '' This engagement with the Choctaw government has some fifteen years to run, and yet we do not feel willing to be a party to the hiring of slaves for this long period. By so doing, as it seems to us, we countenance and encourage the system. We make this species of labor more profitable to the owner ; at the same time that we put it into his power, if he will, to plead our example to justify or excuse the relation. In this state of things, it appears to be our duty to ask you first of all, to inquire once more into the supposed necessity of this practice, and to see if slave labor cannot in some way be dispensed with. And if you can discover no method by which a change can be effected, we submit for your consideration whether it be not desirable to request the Choctaw government to re- lease us from our engagement in respect to the boarding-schools It is with pain that we present this alternative ; but such are our views of duty in the case, that we cannot suggest a different course." This practical question as to the propriety of employing slave labor, stands, in a measure, by itself We would venture to re- mark respecting it, 1. That as it is properly a secular matter, connected immediately with the schools, which are the property and under the control of the committee, they may be entitled to use the strong language of authority which is employed in this letter. 2. It is no doubt conceivable that to employ such labor may be very inexpedient. If any considerable number of Chris- tians are offended by it, or if any are thereby led into sin, it may be well to abstain from it, on the same principle that Paul said he would eat no meat while the world stood, if meat made his brother to offend. 3. The reasons, however, assigned by the com- mittee are to us very unsatisfactory. Those reasons are all founded on the assumption that slaveholding is sinful. Otherwise there could be no scruples of conscience in the case. The committee would not hesitate to aUow the missionaries to set to those around AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 417 them a Christian example as to the method of treating and in- structing slaves, did they not regard the " relation itself as unnatural and sinful." The slaves often earnestly desire to be em^^loyed by the mission, their condition is thereby improved, their privileges iucreased, and they are thus brought into the way of religious instruction, and perhaps of salvation. Unless slave- holding is a sin, it is hard to see how the force of these consid- erations is to be resisted. 4. The committee urge that by allowing the mission to hire slaves, they sanction the system and put it into the power of the owner to plead their example to jus- tify the relation. This is not the fair interpretation of their conduct. Nothing more than the recognition of a de facto relation is involved in employing slaves. No opinion is thereby expressed of the justice of the relation. When one government recognizes another, it is only as de facto not as de jure. It would involve endless difficulty and doubt, if such recognition was understood to be a judgment as to the legitimate or equitable title of the government recognized. It is so also with matters of property. Does every man who buys land of the United States, thereby sanction the equity of all the treaties by which that land was acquired ? The settlers in New Holland are not understood to pro- nounce judgment on the justice of the sentences by which the men they hire are consigned to bondage. Those who employed, and those who redeemed the Christian captives in Algiers, did not sanction the piracy by which those captives were obtained. What would be thought of a father who should allow his son to pine in hopeless bondage, refusing to pay his ransom, because by so doing he would admit the right of his master, and render piracy more profitable ? If such conduct would be unnatural, to us it seems no less unnatural that a Christian Board should refuse to hire slaves to their own advantage, refuse to bring them under the influence of the gospel, lest they should be understood to sanc- tion slavery. 5. The principle on which the committee act in this matter cannot be consistently carried out. Every use we make of the product of slave labor, is an encouragement to slav- ery. If all men were to agree not to use anything in the produc- tion of which slaves have been employed, slavery must instantly cease. This is not done here at the North. We presume it is^ not done by the committee. It is not done by the missionaries. They doubtless consume the wheat, the beef, the corn whick 27 418 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS slaves have assisted in raising. It therefore seems very strange that the committee should say they will give up their schools rather than sanction slavery, when they will not give up the sugar for their coffee for the same reason. The missionaries require a great deal of assistance in their domestic and farming operations. Free labor is very difficult to be obtained. The plan of sending out assistant missionaries, has been tried and failed. The use of slave labor has been sanctioned by the former officers of the Board. In 1825 the Prudential Committee resolved, that they " did not see cause to prohibit the practice." In 1836 they resolved to dispense altogether with slave labor, but on a representation having been made by the missionaries that they could not get on without it, " the matter was left to their Christian discretion." There the subject has been left until the present excitement has called it up, and so disturbed the conscience of the committee, that they are forced to submit the alternative to the missionaries to give up their schools or to do without slave labor. The encouragement given to slavery by the missions hiring a few slaves, much to their own benefit, is as nothing compared with that afforded by the wholesale use of the products of slave labor by the good people of Boston. We are sincerely sorry to say that this whole letter seems to us full of a mistaken spirit ; carping at trifles in laborious, devoted, men in the wilderness, while bUnd to tenfold greater evils of the same na- ture, which pass without rebuke in our pampered churches at home. ' The doctrine then of this letter is that slavery is everywhere and at all times sinful. Christ condemned it, though not in words. The apostles abstained from denouncing it, only on mo- tives of expediency. Slaveholding is excusable and consistent with church-membership, only when involuntary, or when tempo- rarily continued at the request of the slave, and for his benefit. The missionaries are to inculcate these principles, and to pursue such a course as shall free the mission churches from all partici- pation in the system. Even hiring slaves is to be abstained from, though the consequence be the disbanding the missionary schools. We have never understood that the avowed abolitionists go any further than this. They inculcate these doctrines in plainer terms, and in a more straight-forward, clear-headed manner. They are more peremptory in their demands, and violent in their AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 419 spirit. But as to all essential matters, their doctrines are those here presented. - The third point on which the committee touch, is their own authority in reference to this whole subject. They say, 1. " We do not claim any direct^ control over the churches which you have gathered, nor shall we ever approach them in the language of authority or dictation." We can suppose a case " in which we might be constrained by the sacredness of the trust committed to us, to withhold that pecuniary aid it has given us, in past ySars, so much pleasure to afford." 2. " We do not wish you, either individually or collectively, to bring any other influence to -bear on those churches or the community in which you dwell, except such as belongs to the ministerial office." 3. " We do not design to infringe in the least, by what we shall say in this letter, upon your rights as ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ." That is, the committee does not claim what, even a presbytery or a bishop, would not think of assuming, the right of dictation in matters of discipline. Nor do they wish the missionaries to assume that power to the exclusion of their session, or to the infringement of the rights of the churches. Nor finally do they claim any author- ity over the missionaries themselves, inconsistent with their office as ministers. Their whole claim is that they have the right to withhold pecuniary aid from those churches which do not con- form their discipline to the views of the committee ; and from those ministers who do not obey their instructions as to their manner of teaching. This is the precise doctrine of the Report, viz., that the Board are responsible for the teaching of the mis- sionaries, and therefore have the right to examine into what that teaching is, and to direct what it should be ; and to withdraw their patronage from missionaries and churches who do not con- form to their instructions. The missionaries have been led to take this view of the power claimed by the committee, and to re- gard themselves and their churches as entirely in the hands of the Board. If on account of our views on this subject, they say, " the Committee or Board can no longer sustain us, if they must withdraw from us their support, and so far as they are concerned, leave the Cherokee people without the preaching of the word of God, then wherever the responsibility belongs, there let it rest. » « o w^e pray the committee to remember, that if the pat- * The Italics are not ours. 420 KESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS ronage of the Board be withdrawn from us, it will not be for the violation, on our part, of any condition on which we were sent into the field ; but in consequence of new conditions, w^th w^hich we cannot in conscience comply." Again, " If support be with- drawn from us on account of views which we have expressed in this communication, it will of necessity be, so far as the Board are concerned, an entire withholding of the word of God from the Cherokee people. For to recall us on this ground, and to send others who would pursue an opposite course, would be manifestly preposterous and vain." There is no doubt, therefore, as to how the missionaries have been taught to view this matter. So also in the passage quoted above from President Blanchard's appeal, it is said with approbation, "If the missionaries obey, they are aboli- tionists ; if they disobey, they are dropped." The committee claim, therefore, in this letter, as we understand them, and as they seem to be universally understood, the right to withhold pecuniary aid from missionaries and mission churches unless they become abolitionists. 1. Our first objection then to this letter, as may be inferred from what we have already said, is that it proceeds on a misap- prehension of the true relation and powers of the Board. It assumes that the Board is responsible for the teaching of the missionaries, and therefore, has the right to judge of it, and to. direct it. This, we have endeavored to show, is a mistake. The Board are the agents, and not the plenipotentiaries of the churches. The churches have never committed to them the right to judge, in their behalf, of Christian doctrine, or of deciding what is and what is not consistent with their several creeds. This is a high ecclesiastical function, which belongs only to eccle- siastical bodies. The Board cannot go behind the official judg- ment of the churches. If the Presbyterian church has pronounced a certain doctrine consistent with her standards, the Board can- not dismiss a Presbyterian missionary from their service, on account of holding or teaching that doctrine. Nor can they withhold their support from any mission church, under the care of a presbytery, for any cause which the Presbyterian church does not consider worthy of censure. If the members of the commit- tee discover that the Presbyterian church holds doctrines or tol- erates usages, which they cannot with a good conscience help to sustain, the simple course is for them to resign. But if multi- AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 421 tudes sympathize with them, then the fact is revealed that they and the Presbyterians can no longer unite in the missionary worE But it is clearly unreasonable for the committee to profess to he agents of the Presbyterian church (old or new), and yet refuse to be guided by the judgment of that church. The New School Gen- eral Assembly, as well as the old, has decided that such slavehold- ing as is tolerated in the mission churches of the Cherokees and Choctaws, is consistent with Christian character and fellowship. With what show of reason then can the Boston committee, the agents of these Presbyterians, in disbursing Presbyterian money, say it shall not be permitted ? It is clear as day that so long as the Dutch, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches unite in the work of missions, the Board has no right to withdraw their patronage from any man or church, on account of any doctrine or usage which those churches approve. And it is no less clear that the right to judge of the consistency or inconsistency of any doc- trine or usage with the standards of those churches, rests not with the committee, but with the churches themselves. To deny either of these propositions, is to create a dictatorship at once. The effect of this misapprehension is clear throughout Mr. Treat's letter. The secretary summons before liim ministers who are members of presbytery in good standing, interrogates them as to their opinions, their mode of teaching, and exercise of discipline. He lays down rules as to how that teaching is to be conducted, and the terms on which members are to be received into Pres- byterian churches. He gives them to understand that*the com- mittee may "be constrained by the sacredness of the trust committed to them, to withhold that pecuniary aid it has given them, in past years, so much pleasure to afford.'" His sole legit- imate authority, in the matter, was to ask, " Brethren, does your church approve of such and such teaching ? and does it sanction such and such conditions of church-membership ?" If the an- swer to those questions is affirmative, the matter is ended. The committee may be grieved, or they may be glad. Their private opinions are not to be in the least consulted in such cases. As to manner, the letter is unexceptionable. It is couched in the * That aid, however, is not given by the committee, but by the churches through the committee. A very important distinction. If given by the committee, it may be given at their discretion — but if given by the churches, it must be given accord- ing to their pleasure, i. e., to men and churches whom they approve. 422 KESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS blandest terms. It was evidently penned with the determination that no word should grate on the most delicate ear. Neverthe- less, it is perfectly Archiepiscopal in its tone. It was written just as the " servant of servants" is wont to write ; or, to use a better illustration, as Paul wrote, when he said, "' Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin that which is convenient ; yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such a one as Paul the aged." This is lovely and venerable from apostolic lips — but apostolic lips have long since been sealed in death. We do not in the least attribute the apostolic tone of this letter to anything in the personal feelings of its authors. We believe them to be good men, and as humble as the rest of us. It is due to their false apprehension of their position. They are not entrusted with the authority which they suppose belongs to them. So long as the ecclesiastical bodies, with which the missionaries and mission churches among the Cherokees and Choctaws are connected, are satisfied with their doctrine and discipline, the Prudential Committee have no more right to in- terfere in the matter than any other five gentlemen in Boston. 2. Our second objection to this letter is that it is inconsistent with the Special Keport of the Prudential Committee. It agrees indeed with the Report in claiming the right to sit in judgment on the teaching of the missionaries, and to control it according to their own interpretation of the general creed of the churches. It differs, however, from it in another important principle. The Report says expressly, the Board is not '' at liberty to withdraw its confidence from missionaries, because of such differences of opinion among them, as are generally found and freely tolerated in presbyteries, councils, associations and other bodies here at home." P. 17. This rule follows as a matter of course, from what is said on pp. 13, 14, as to the standard by which the Board proposes to judge of doctrine, viz., the articles of faith " generally received by the churches." It may enforce obedi- ence in those things in which the churches are united, but not in those cases in which they are divided. This principle is on p. 14 expressly applied to slavery. ^' The admission of slave- holders into the apostolical churches" is said to be one of the points about which the churches differ. Hence " the Board," it is said, " may not undertake to decide, that this class of persons was certainly admitted to church membership by the apostles, AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 423 nor that they were excluded, in such a way as to have the effect on the missionaries of a statute, injunction, or Scripture doctrine in respect to the admission of such persons into churches now to be gathered in heathen nations where slavery is found." The committee, it is added, may reason, persuade, and remon- strate, but further, neither they nor the Board, are authorized to go. Now according to the interpretation, as far as we know, universally put upon this letter ; according to what appears to us its necessary meaning, and according to the understanding of the missionaries themselves, this is precisely the question the committee undertake in this letter authoritatively to de- cide. It lays down the rule as to how slaveholders are to be dealt with, when they are to be received, and when rejected from the communion of the church. All this is done officially, and with authority, and with the intimation that the continu- ance of the connexion between the Indian churches and the Board, depends upon their acting agreeably to the instructions here given. If this be not the character of the letter it loses all its importance.^ If it is an unofficial letter of friendship, instead of a letter of instructions, why should it be so sol- emly sanctioned by the committee, reported to the Board, and their decision respecting it looked to us as determining the ground the Board was hereafter to stand upon ? It would be sad news for the abolitionists, but a great relief to the mission- aries, and to the Christian public, to know that the Board re- nounces the right to forbid slaveholding in the mission churches on pain of losing their patronage. This, however, is not to be hoped for, if this letter expresses their views of their own au- thority. It expresses the sentiment of the committee on the whole subject of slavery, calls upon the missionaries to say ^ The writer of this review feels called upon to state that he has recently received a communication from one of the officers of the American Board, in which he says, " I am sure it \i. e., Mr. Treat's letter] never was designed to have any such legisla- tive authority ; nor was such authority ever desired or sought for it, nor has the letter such authority now. The action of the Board upon it, at Hartford in the year 1854, added nothing to the import of the letter — did not change its nature. It is not a body of instructions, but of opinions, to have their weight and influence only as such among the missionaries." This alters the whole aspect of the case ; and the strictures in the text lose their force so for as they rest on the authoritative character of the letter. They are of consequence only as a vindication of the Choctaw mission- aries who regarded the letter as " a body of instructions." — August, 1856. 424 EESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS whether they acquiesce in them, and are ready " to act in a-c- cordance with them." The committee, therefore, here under- take to decide a point disputed among the churches. It decides moreover in favor of the minority. It proposes a doctrine of church communion which no denominational church has been left to adopt. It was indignantly voted down by an overwhelm- ing majority (hundreds to units) in the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. It was rejected, after nearly three weeks' debate, by the New School Assembly in Philadelphia. It is repudiated by the Eeformed Dutch church, and by that branch of the Presbyterian church with which some of these mission churches are immediately connected. It is probably rejected by four-fifths of all the educated converted men in the world. Yet this doctrine the official organs of one of the most influential benevolent institutions in the world, would force on the ministers and churches of Christ. It would be better for the committee to cut off their right hands, rather than cut off the Indian churches because they admit slaveholders to their communion. Not because of any pecuniary loss it may oc- casion, but because it cannot be done without a sacrifice of principle, without subjecting the church to public opinion, now violently this, and again violently that. We sincerely pray that the Board may be preserved from any such disastrous mistake. 3. Our third objection to this letter is, that it is pervaded by a false philosophy. This is no small evil. It is a recognized truth that the world is governed by ideas. The character of men is formed, their conduct determined, and their destiny decided, in no small degree, by definitions. It is the view which they take of the primary principles of moral and metaphysical truth, that governs their opinions, and consequently their conduct. The false philosophy of this letter leads to wrong views of duty, and those wrong views of duty to a course of measures which, if persisted in, must split the American Board to pieces, and, to the extent of its influence, facilitate first, the division of the American churches, and then the dissolution of the American Union. "The philosophy on which this communication is founded, is what is popularly called " the doctrine of expediency." It is that philosophy in which the words "right" and "wrong," lose AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 425 their distinctive meaning, and become the mere synonym es of beneficial and injurious. It is a philosophy which makes the end sanctify the means, and teaches that an action may be ex- ternally wrong and internally right. This is the philosophy to which all the doctrines and directions of this letter owe their character. This, for example, is the origin of the distinction between " slavery and slaveholding ;" between " the system and the persons implicated therein." The system is always sinful, but those who practice it may be innocent. " The continuance of the relation is wrong, but the master may stand acquitted in the sight of Grod, because he was influenced solely by benevo- lent motives. Just as the selling ardent spirits, in the days of our common ignorance on the subject of temperance, was clearly wrong ; and yet many good men, never imagining that they were acting contrary to the law of love, engaged in the traffic. The eocternal character of an act is one thing ; its internal char- acter quite another thing. A man may conscientiously do that which is injurious in its tendency; as, on the other hand, he may, with a bad motive, do that which is innocent or beneficial in its tendency." Such language necessarily supposes that right means benefi- cial, and wrong, injurious. No moral distinction is admitted, but only a difference as expedient or inexpedient. A thing being injurious may indeed be one reason why it would be wrong in any one voluntarily to do it, but.tQ^nierge the distinction of right and wrong into that of expedient and inexpedient, subverts the foundation of morals and religion, and when logically carried out, leads to the greatest enormities. According to the doctrine of this letter, no matter what " the external character of an act" may be, it is innocent if done conscientiously or from benevo- lent motives. If this is so, then Paul was not to blame for per- secuting the church, because he verily believed he was doing God service ; he had no doubt that the interests of truth, of his nation, and of the world were involved in putting down what he regarded as an imposture. This doctrine exculpates all per- secutors and inquisitors, the exterminators of the Waldenses and of the Peruvians, provided only they were conscientious, which was, as it regards many of them, no doubt the case. It is vain to argue this matter. No man can look the naked pro- position in the face, that every thing is innocent to him who 426 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS thinks it to be right. The very essence of the guilt of men, the very sum of their depravity, is their thinking good evil and evil good. The Bible holds up to us coincidence of moral judg- ment with Grod as the ideal of perfection, and as the clearest evidence of alienation from him that we regard that to be right which he abhors. If an act may be externally wrong and in- ternally right, then the assassination of Henry IV., from an earn- est desire to rid the world of an evil, was right ; and then the doctrine that the end sanctifies the means, must, in all its length and breadth, be admitted. The motive of an action is deter- mined by the end in view. If that end be the good of society, the motive is benevolent, and no matter what the nature of the act, the agent stands acquitted in the sight of Grod, because he is governed by benevolent motives. This is radically and lament- ably false morality. No man can sin innocently. No man stands acquitted in the sight of God for doing what God forbids. If slaveholding is sinful, all slaveholders are sinners. If persecu- tion is wicked, all persecutors are without excuse. If selling ardent spirits is wrong now, the good men who formerly en- gaged in the traffic sinned against God. The reason of this is plain. All moral truths contain their own evidence ; evidence which no man can innocently reject. How preposterous would it be for men to talk of committing theft, murder, or drunken- ness from benevolent motives. No man can screen himself at a human tribunal, much less at the bar of God, behind his mo- tives. It is indeed a plain doctrine of the Bible, and a plain principle of morals, that some sins, by reason of several aggrava- tions, are more heinous in the sight of God than others. But it remains true nevertheless, that every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and in that which is to come. The crimes of the heathen committed in their blindness, do not lose their nature as sins, though it will be far more tolerable in the day of judgment for them, than for many Christians. That sins may be greatly aggravated by the circumstances under which they are committed, and especially by the light enjoyed by the transgressor, is very different from the doctrine which holds a man innocent who conscientiously commits sin, or which teaches that a thing may be externally wrong and internally right. Another evidence of the false philosophy of this letter, is found AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 427 in the manner in which it speaks of the conduct of our Lord and his apostles in relation to slavery. It represents them as abstain- ing from the denunciation of sin, from motives of expediency. God, however, hates, and everywhere, and at all times, denounces all sin. Why were idolatry and covetousness denounced ? They were far more prevalent than slaveholding ; they were more in- fluential, and more deeply rooted, and yet no considerations of expediency constrained the apostles to silence regarding them. It is an impeachment of the integrity of any teacher of morality to say that he avoided all denunciation of theft, murder, and adultery, from motives of expediency. No one can think, with- out a shudder, of Clirist and the apostles giving directions to thieves and drunkards how to treat their associates or victims. This doctrine that men's conduct, in reference to moral questions, may be regulated by expediency, overlooks all moral distinctions. With regard to things indifferent, expediency is a very proper guide — but no truth can be plainer than that all sin should be everywhere denounced, and immediately forsaken. To the same false principle are to be referred all the directions which this letter gives to the missionaries. Slaveholding is sinful, but you need not say so. You may choose your time. You may wait for suitable occasions. You may do it indirectly, when it would not answer to do it plainly. That all this is wrong is obvi- ous. No such directions cauld be given with regard to any other sin. It would not do to say to the missionaries, you may take your time to denounce robbery and murder. You may do it indirectly, &c., &c. The public are not so entirely blinded by a false philosophy, as not to see this would be wrong. And we can- not but hope it may be given to the Prudential Committee, to see that there is something amiss in their theory. Either slavehold- ing is not a sin, or this is not the way to treat it. From this same doctrine of expediency, from the doctrine that a thing may be externally wrong and internally right, flows the inquisitorial treatment of slaveholding converts here recommend- ed ; this prying into their motives in owning slaves, to determine whether they are selfish or benevolent. Is this the course pursued with regard to lying and theft ? Is the poor convert cross- questioned as to his motive in cheating and stealing ? We trow not. And why not ? Simply because every one knows that cheating and slaveholding belong to very diflPerent categories. 428 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS Lying and theft are sinful in themselves, and it matters not with what motives they are committed. If slaveholding is sinful, there is no need to enquire into a man's motives in sinning. 4. Our fourth objection to this letter is its want of discrimina- tion and clearness. The writer gives us no distinct idea of what it is he condemns. He condemns slavery, but he does not tell us what he means by it. He seems to speak of it as a system which keeps men in degradation, which denies to them a just compen- sation for labor ; which disregards their rights as husbands and parents ; which forbids their instruction, and debars them from access to the word of God. He sees, as every one else sees, that a system which does all this, must be sinful. It is a system w^hich ought not to be dallied with, or assaulted indirectly, but should be openly denounced, and immediately abandoned by every good man. But these things are not slavery. They do not enter into its definition. It may, and in many cases does exist without one of these circumstances. Slavery is involuntary servitude. And servitude is the obligation to serve. This is aU that is essential to slavery. It supposes the right on the part of the master to the service of the slave, without his consent. In every country where slavery prevails there are two sets of laws relating to it. The one designed to enforce this right of the master, to render it profitable, and to perpetuate it. The other intended to protect the slave. These laws vary continually. They were far more unjust in the French West India Islands than in the British, and more unjust in the British than in the Spanish. Laws made by slaveholders, and intended to enforce, and to render secure and profitable their right to the service of their slaves, are almost always more or less in conflict with the gospel. So is all class legislation of any kind. In regard to these laws, it is the busi- ness of the church, by her instructions and discipline, to enforce such as are good and such as are indifi'erent, and to denounce such as are wicked. If the Koman law gave the power of life and death to the master, he was none the less a murderer, in the sight of the church, if he maliciously put his slave to death. If American law gives the master the power of punishment, he is none the less guilty in the sight of the church, for every act of cruelty. If the law allows the master to keep back from his slaves a due recompense for their labor ; to debar them access to the means of grace, and especially from the word of Grod ; he is not the less accountable to the church for every violation of the AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 429 law of justice and mercy. Human laws allow to parents and husbands a power which they may dreadfully abuse. Yet the possession of that power is not itself sinful. What we complain of is, that this letter makes no discrimina- tion between slavery and slave laws ; between the possession of a master's power and the abuse of that power. The relation it- self is pronounced " unnatural and sinful/' when all the arguments tend "to prove not the relation, but the abuse of it to be wrong. Christ and his apostles evidently regarded the possession of des- potic power, whether in the state or the family, a matter of indifference, i. e., neither right nor wrong in its ow^n nature, but the becoming one or the other according to circumstances. It was therefore not despotism in the state, or slaveholding in the family, which they condemned, but the wrong use of the author- ity of the despot or the master. There is the same confusion with regard to the word " proper- ty." The letter says the converted slaveholder must repudiate the idea of having a right of property in a human being. Every- thing done on the assumption of such a right, is declared to be a proper matter for discipline. But not one word is said to inform us wdiat this right of property is. Abolitionists say it is the right to make a man a thing, or a brute. If this is what is meant, will any one venture to say that Christ and his apostles, from motives of expediency, failed to denounce so great a sin as that ? Neither lying nor stealing could be one-half so offensive to Q-od, as such an insult and degradation put upon his own image. No slave laws, however atrocious, ever proceeded on the assumption that a slave was not a rational being, of the same nature with his master. If this is what the letter means by the right of property, it is a mere chimera. The only sense in which one man can have property in another, is in having a right to his services. In this sense the state has the right of property in her citizens, a right which she often presses further than the slave- holder can press his power, when she forces men into her armies and navies, and sends them to die by pestilence or the sword. These are subjects which we have repeatedly discussed at length, in the pages of this journal. We have no desire to travel again over the same ground. We have said enough to show the lamentable consequences of not discriminating things that differ ; of confounding things lawful or indifferent, w^th things in their own nature sinful. If the noble letters written by the Cherokee 430 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS and Choctaw missionaries, failed to open the eyes of the commit- tee to this distinction, we despair of being able to do it. Those letters show that the missions are faithful in this whole matter ; dealing with the subject just as the Scriptures treat it, condemn- ing all that is sinful, and requiring all that justice or love demand, abstaining only from pronouncing, contrary to the Scriptures, and contrary to the judgment of nine-tenths of the people of God in all ages, '' the relation itself to be unnatural and sinful." There are several perfectly distinct and intelligible views of this whole subject of slavery, and of the proper method of deal- ing with it. The first is, that it is a good and desirable institu- tion ; a state of the laboring population, which, upon the whole, is preferable to any other. Appropria-te means ought, therefore, to be taken to perpetuate and extend it. As, however, slavery is founded on the inferiority of one class of society to another, it cannot continue to exist unless that inferiority be perpetuated. Consequently, according to this view, slaves ought to be debarred from the means of improvement, and kept in a condition of in- tellectual and social debasement. This is the fanatical pro- slavery doctrine. It has been repudiated by all the great men of the South in the earlier periods of our history, and is probably not held by one educated man in a hundred, perhaps not by one in a thousand, in our slaveholding States. The second view is, that the relation is unnatural and sinful, and should, therefore, be immediately and universally renounced, just like any other sin, drunkenness, lying, or theft. This is clear-headed, and straight-forward abolitionism. The third is the scriptural view. Slaveholding, according to this view, belongs to the class of things indifferent, of things neither forbidden nor commanded in the word of God, which are right or wrong, according to circumstances. It is like despotism in the state. A man may possess despotic power in the state, power giving him authority over the persons and property of his fellow-men. The abuse of such power is a great sin. To employ it with the view of perpetuating it, by keeping those under its control in a state of ignorance or debasement, is one of the greatest acts of injustice that one man can commit towards his fellows. But if that power be used justly and benevolently, its possession is no sin, and the despot may be one of the greatest benefactors of his race. Despotism, however, is not a desirable form of government ; no means, therefore, ought to be employed AS TO MISSIONARIES AND MISSION CHURCHES. 431 to perpetuate it. It is adapted only to a low state of civilization, and must disappear as the mass of the people increase in intelli- gence, property, and virtuous self-control. It is just so with slavery or domestic despotism. A man may be a slaveholder without any impeachment of his Christian character. The rela- tion in which he stands to his slaves is not a sinful one. It is not forbidden in the word of Grod. It may be the most appro- priate and natural relation in which the parties can stand to each other. Just as despotism, in some circumstances, is the very best form of government. But such slaveholder is bound to use his power as a Christian, just as a parent or husband is bound to use his authority ; or a rich man his wealth. He must act in obedience to the gospel, which teaches that the laborer is worthy of his hire, and that a fair compensation must, in all cases, be made to him ; which forbids the separation of those whom God has joined in marriage ; which requires all appro- priate means to be used for the intellectual and moral improve- ment of our fellow-men, and especially that free access should be allowed them to the word of God, and to all the means of grace. This is the gospel method of dealing with slavery. If this method be adopted, the inferiority of the one class to the other, on which slavery is founded, will gradually disappear, and the whole system be peacefully and healthfully abolished. This is the way in which the gospel has already banished domestic slavery from a large part of the Christian world. There are some men who are so blind they cannot see, or so wicked they will not acknowledge, the difference between this view and the first above mentioned. An unsuccessful attempt is sometimes made, as in this letter of Mr. Treat's, to find some middle ground between abolitionism, and what we have ventured to designate as the scriptural view of this subject. The principles of the aboHtionists are admitted, but their conclusions are denied or modified. The system is sinful, but those who practise it may be innocent. The relation is wrong, but it need not be immediately abandoned. Being sinful, it affords prima facie evidence that those who are con- cerned with it, are not Christians. Before they can be properly recognized as such, they must prove they are influenced by be- nevolent motives, in doing what is " unnatural and sinful." In all we have now written, we have been influenced by the most friendly feelings towards the American Board. We believe it has been an incalculable blessing to this country, and to the 432 RESPONSIBILITIES OF BOARDS OF MISSIONS. heathen world. We regard the interests of the Kedeemer's king- dom as deeply involved in its prosperity. We think all Chris- tians are bound to pray for its success, to avoid everything that can injuriously afiect it, and to promote its efiiciency, as God may give them the ability and occasion. We believe that the misapprehension, which in our judgment, characterizes the Ke- port of the Prudential Committee, is perfectly natural, and entirely consistent with the purest intentions on their part. We believe, further, that the correction of that misapprehension, and the adoption of the principles Ave have endeavored to sustain in this review, so far from impeding their operations, would tend directly to disembarrass and facilitate them. The committee say they are directly responsible for the teaching of the missionaries. They must, therefore, have the right to know what it is, to judge and to direct it. The consequence is, their conscience is always on the alert. The opinions of the few gentlemen in Boston as to what is, and what is not, the fliith and discipline of the church, become the rule by which all missionaries are to conduct their teaching, subject, indeed, to the revision of the Board. Hence, if the missionaries teach that slavery is not in itself sinful, and that slaveholding is not prima facie evidence of an unconverted state, and the committee think otherwise, and that the churches agree with them, they are bound to require the missionaries to conform to their views. Accordinsi: to the other view of the matter, the committee are not directly responsible for the teaching of the missionaries. That responsibility rests on the ecclesiastical body to which they belong. To that body, therefore, and not to the committee, belongs the right of inquiry, judgment, and direction. Consequently, so long as the denomi- nation, with which a missionary is connected, approves of any doctrine or rule of discipline, the committee cannot interfere. If, for example, missionaries connected with the Presbyterian or Dutch church, with the approbation of those churches, admit slaveholders to the communion, the committee are relieved from all responsibility. On the other hand, if missionaries connected with the Congregationalists, with the approbation of those enti- tled to judge, hold and teach that slaveholders should not be received, the committee are bound to acquiesce, as to the mission churches under Congregational control. By the Board and the churches keeping thus, in their separate spheres, we see not why there need be any collision between them. XIII. GOD IN CHRIST.* The doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, are the common property of Christians. They helong to no sect and to no country. Any assault upon them, any explanation or de- fence of them, is matter of general interest. These doctrines are discussed in the volume now before us. It is addressed, there- fore, to the whole Christian public, and not exclusively to New England. On this account we are disposed to call the attention of our readers to its contents. We are the more inclined to take this course, because the character of the work, and the peculiar circumstances of its origin, are likely to secure for it an extensive circulation. We hardly think, indeed, that it will produce the sensation which many seem to expect. Dr. Biishnell says : " Some persons anticipate, in the publication of these ' Discourses,' the opening of another great religious controversy.'' This expecta- tion he does not himself entertain, because he says, " I am quite resolved that I will be drawn into no reply, unless there is pro- duced against me some argument of so great force, that I feel myself required, out of simple duty to the truth, either to sur- render or to make important modifications in the views I have advanced. I anticipate, of course, no such necessity, though I do anticipate that arguments, and reviews, very much in the character of that which I just now gave myself, will be advanced — such as wiU show off my absurdities in a very glaring light, and such as many persons of acknowledged character will accept with applause, as conclusive, or even explosive refutations. Therefore ^ God in Christ ; Three Discourses delivered at New Haven, Cambridge, and An- dover ; with a preliminary Dissertation on Language. By Horace Bcshnell. Hart- ford ; Brown & Parsons. 1849. pp. 356.— Princeton Review, April, 1849. 28 434 GOD IN CHRIST. I advertise it beforehand, to prevent a misconstruction of my silence, that I am silenced now, on the publication of my volume." This passage clearly indicates that an effect is expected from these discourses, such as few sermons have ever produced. We are disposed to doubt as to this point. We should be sorry to think that the public mind is in such an unhealthy state as to be much affected by any thing contained in this volume. Every / thing from Dr. Bushnell has indeed a certain kind of power. His vigorous imagination, and his adventurous style, cannot fail to command attention. There is in this book a great deal of truth pungently presented ; and there are passages of exquisite beauty of thought and expression. Still, with reverence be it spoken, ^.- we think the book a failure. In the first place, it settles nothing. It overturns, but it does not erect. Men do not like to be house- less ; much less do they like to have the doctrines which over- hang and surround their souls as a dwelling and a refuge, pulled to pieces, that they may sit sentimentally on the ruins. If Dr. Bushnell takes from us our Grod and our Redeemer, he is bound to provide some adequate substitute. He has done no such thing. He rejects the old doctrine of the Trinity and Incarna- tion ; but he has produced no other intelligible doctrine. He has not thought himself through. He is only half out of the shell. And therefore his attempt to soar is premature. He rejects the doctrine of three persons in one God. He says : " It seems to be agreed by the orthodox, that there are three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the divine nature." This he denies, and argues against. P. 130-136. In opposition to such a Trinity, he presents and urges the doctrine of a historical Trini- ty, a threefold revelation of God. But then, the old house down, and the new not keeping out the rain, and tottering under even the builder's solitary tread, he tries (though too late, except as an acknowledgment of failure) to re-construct the old. What Trinitarian wishes more, or can say more than Dr. Bushnell says on p. 174 : " Neither is it any so great wisdom, as many theolo- gians appear to fancy, to object to the word person; for, if any thing is clear, it is that the Three of Scripture do appear under the grammatic forms which are appropriate to person — I, Thou, He, We, and They ; and, if it be so, I really do not perceive the very great license taken by our theology, when they are called three persons. Besides, we practically need, for our own sake, to I GOD IN CHRIST. 435 set them out as three persons before us, acting relatively towards each other, in order to ascend into the liveliest, fullest realization of God. We only need to abstain from assigning to these divine persons an interior, metaphysical nature, which we are nowise able to investigate, and which we may positively know to contradict the real unity of God." To all this we say. Amen. Then what becomes of his arguments against three persons in the divine nature ? What becomes of his cheating mirage of a Trinity — a trinity of revelations ? He takes away the doctrine on which the spiritual life of every Christian rests, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and gives us " a God historically three ;" and then admits that the Scriptures teach, and that we need, a God per- sonally three ! Dr. Bushnell cannot reasonably expect to convert others until he has completed the conversion of himself. This half-ism is manifested also in what he says of the person of Christ, p. 158-167. He presents all the usual objections against the assumption of a two-fold nature in the Kedeemer. He insists that it is God that appears under the limitations of humanity, and that of the divine nature is to be predicated the ignorance, subordination, and suffering ascribed to Christ. He commits himself fully to the Apollinarian view of Christ's per- son. And then his heart or his conscience smites him. His unsteady head again reels, and he gives it all up. When cate- gorically demanded, whether he renounces the divine and life- giving doctrine of God and man, in two distinct natures and one person, he falters, and says : " It maybe imagined that I intend, in holding this view of the incarnation, or of the person of Christ, to deny that he had a human soul, or any thing human but a human body : I only deny that his human soul, or nature, is to be spoken of, or looked upon, as having a distinct subsistence." P. 168. But this we all deny. Who ever heard of " two distinct subsistences" in Christ ? If Dr. Bushnell has got no further than this, he has not got beyond his Catechism. For it is there taught there is but one subsistence, one suppositum inteUigens, one person in Christ. He returns, however, to his eMwAov, to his Christ without a soul, a Christ who is no Christ, almost on the next page. We do not gain any thing, he says, " by supposing a distinct human soul in the person of Christ, connecting itself with what are called the humanities of Christ. Of what so great consequence to us are the humanities of a mere human soul." I 436 GOD IN CHRIST. P. 156. This saying and unsaying betrays a man who is not sure of his ground. People will never confide in a leader who does not confide in himself. Dr. Bushnell has undertaken a task for which he is entirely incompetent. He has not the learning, the knowledge of opinions or forms of doctrine ; nor has he the philo- sophical culture, nor the constructive intellect, required to project a consistent and comprehensive theory on the great themes ot Grod, the Incarnation, and Kedemption. We say this with no disrespect. We would say it with tenfold readiness of ourselves. We have the advantage of our author, however, in having sense enough to know that our sphere is a much humbler one. Machia- velli was accustomed to say, there are three classes of men : one who see things in their own light ; another who see them when they are shown ; and a third who cannot see them even then. We invite Dr. Bushnell to resume his place with us, in the second class. By a just judgment of God, those who uncalled aspire to the first, lapse into the third. The characteristic, to which we have referred, is not so strongly marked in the discourse on the Atonement. Here, alas ! the writer has been able to emancipate himself more completely from the teachings of the nursery, the Bible, and the Spirit. Yet even here, there is that yearning after the old and scriptural, that de- sire to save something from the wreck of his former faith, which excites respectful commiseration. There are but three radical views of the Atonement, properly so called. The scriptural doc- trine, which represents it as a real propitiation ; the governmental view, which makes it a method of teaching symbolically the justice of God ; the Socinian view, w^hich regards it as designed to produce a subjective effect, to impress men with a sense of God's love, &c. Dr. Bushnell spurns the first, rejects the second, and adopts the third. But then he finds that he has lost every thing worth retaining, and therefore endeavors to regain the first which he calls the " Altar view." His " constructive logic" will not allow his holding it as truth, he therefore endeavors to hold it as " form." He cannot retain it as doctrine, but he clings to it as " art." He admits that it is the scriptural view ; that the whole church has adhered to it as to the source of life, and that it is the only effective view. " Christ," he says, " is a power for the moral renovation of the world, and as such is measured by what he expresses." How is this renovation effected ? Not by GOD IN CHRIST. 437 his offering himself as a propitiation for our sins, and thus re- conciling us to God, and procuring for us the gift of the Holy- Ghost, but " by his obedience, by the expense and pains-taking of his suffering life, by yielding up his own sacred person to die, he has produced in us a sense of the eternal sanctity of God's law that was neefiful to prevent the growth of license or of in- difference and insensibility to religious obligations, such as must be incurred, if the exactness and rigor of a law system were wholly dissipated by offers of pardon grounded in mere leniency." This is really what Christ does. This is his atoning work. He produces a sense of the sanctity of the law in us. This is full out the Socinian view of the doctrine. But, says Dr. Bushnell, it has no power in this abstract form. " We must transfer this subjective state or impression, this ground of justification, and produce it outwardly, if possible, in some objective form ; as if it had some effect on the law or on God. The Jew had done this before us, and we follow him ; representing Christ as our sacri- fice, sin-offering, atonement, sprinkling of blood. * * * These forms are the objective equivalents of our subjective im- pressions. Indeed, our impressions have their life and power in and under these forms. Neither Ipt it be imagined that we only happen to seize upon these images of sacrifice, atonement, and blood, because they are at hand. They are prepared, as God's form of art, for the representation of Christ and his work ; and if we refuse to let him pass into this form, we have no mould of thought which can fitly represent him. And when he is thus rep- resented, we are to understand that he is our sacrifice and atone- ment, that by his blood we have remission, not in any speculative sense, but as in art." P. 254. The plain meaning of this is ; that the actual thing done is the production of a certain subjective change, or impression in us. This impression cannot be produced in any way so effectively as by what Christ has done. As a work of art produces an impression more powerful than a formula ; so Christ viewed as a sacrifice, as a ransom, as a propitiation, produ- ces the impression of the sanctity of the law more powerfully than any didactic statement of its holiness could do. It is in this "artistic" form that the truth is effectually conveyed to the mind. This mode is admitted to be esseutial. Vicarious atone- ment, sacrifice, sin-offering, propitiation is declared to be " the Divine Form of Christianity, in distinction from all others, and 438 GODINCHRIST. is, in that view, substantial to it, or consubstantial with it." " It is obvious," he adds, " that all the most earnest Christian feelings of the apostles are collected round this objective representa- tion, the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, for the sins of the world. They speak of it, not casually * * '••' but systematically, they live in it, their Christian feeling is measured by it, and shaped in the mould it offers." P. 259. We do not consider this assertion of the absolute necessity of Christ's being presented as a sacrifice, or this admission that his work is set forth as a vica- rious atonement in the Scriptures, as a formal retraction or contradiction of the author's speculative view of the real nature of the Redeemer's work ; but we do consider it sufficient to con- vince any rational man that that speculative view is an inanity, a lifeless notion, the bloodless progeny of a poetic imagination. Few persons will believe that the life and death of Christ was a liturgical service, a chant and a dirge, to move " the world's mind ;" a pageant with a moral. These discourses, then, unless we are sadly deceived as to the amount of religious knowledge and principles in the public mind, must fail to produce any great impression. They lack the power of consistency. They say and unsay. They pull down, and fail to rebuild. What they give is in no proportion to what they take away. Besides this, their power is greatly impaired by the mixture of incongruous elements in their composition. Ration- alism, Mysticism, and the new Philosophy are shaken together, but refuse to combine. The staple of the book is rationalistic, the other elements are adventitious. They have been too re- cently imbibed to be properly assimilated. Either of these ele- ments by itself has an aspect more or less respectable. It is the combination that is grotesque. A mystic Rationalist is very much like a Quaker dragoon. As, however, we prefer faith with- out knowledge, to knowledge without faith, we think the mysti- cism an improvement. We rejoice to see that Dr. Bushnell, even at the expense of consistency and congruity, sometimes lapses into the passive mood of a recipient of truth through some other channel than the discursive understanding. The new Philosophy, which gleams in lurid streaks through this volume, is still more out of place. We meet here and there with transcendental principles and expressions, which, even "the deepest chemistry of thought" (the solvent by which he proposes GOD IN CHRIST. 439 to make all creeds agree, page 82), must fail to bring into com- bination with the pervading Theism of the book. The presence of all these incongruous elements in these discourses is patent to every one who reads them. In our subsequent remarks we hope to make it sufficiently plain even to those who read only this re- view. Our present object is merely to indicate this characteristic as a source of weakness. Had Dr. Bushnell chosen to set forth a consistent exhibition of all that the mere understanding has to say against the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atone- ment ; or had he chosen to give us the musings of a poetical' mystic ; or had he even endeavored to reproduce the system of Hegel or Schleiermacher, we doubt not he would have made a book of considerable power. But the attempt to play so many incongruous parts at one time, in our poor judgment, has made the failure as complete as it was inevitable. The extravagance of the book is another of its characteristics which must prevent its having much effect. Everything perma- nently influential is moderate. But Dr. Bushnell is extravagant even to a paradox. This disposition is specially manifested in the preliminary dissertation on language, and in the discourse on dogma. There is nothing either new or objectionable, in his general theory of language. The whole absurdity and evil lie in the extravagant length to which he carries his principles. It is true, for example, that there are two great departments of lan- guage, the physical and intellectual, or proper and figurative, the language of sensation and the language of thought. It is also true that the latter is to a great extent borrowed from the former. It is true, moreover, that the language of thought is in a measure symbolical and suggestive, and therefore, of necessity more or less inadequate. No words can possibly answer accu- rately to the multiplied, diversified and variously implicated states of mind to which they are applied. In all cases it is only an ap- proximation. Something is always left unexpressed, and some- thing erroneous always is, or may be, included in the terms em- ployed. Dr. Bushnell, after parading these principles with great circumstance, presses them out to the most absurd conclusions. Because language is an imperfect vehicle of thought, no depend- ence can be placed upon it ; there can be no such thing as a scientific theology ; no definite doctrinal propositions ; creeds and catechisms are not to be trusted ; no author can be properly 440 GOD IN CHRIST. judged by his words, &c., &c. See pp. 72, 79, 82, 91, et seq., and the discourse on dogma passi7n. As creeds mean nothing or anything, he is willing to sign any number of them. He has never been able, he says, '' to sympathise, at all, with the abun- dant protesting of the New England Unitarians against creeds. So far from suffering even the least consciousness of restraint or oppression under any creed, I have been the readier to accept as great a number as fell in my way ; for when they are subjected to the deepest chemistry of thought, that which descends to the point of relationship between the form of the truth and its inte- rior formless nature, they become, thereupon, so elastic, and run so freely into each other, that one seldom need have any diffi- culty in accepting as many as are offered him." P. 82. This is shocking. It undermines all confidence, even in the ordinary transactions of life. There can, on this plan, be no treaties be- tween nations, no binding contracts between individuals ; for " the chemistry" which can make all creeds ahke, will soon get what results it pleases out of any form of words that can be framed. This doctrine supposes there can be no revelation from God to men, except to the imagination and the feelings, none to the reason. It supposes that man, by the constitution of his nature is such a failure, that he cannot certainly communicate or receive thought. The fallacy of all Dr. Bushnell's reasoning on this subject, is so transparent, that we can hardly give him credit for sincerity. Because, by words a man cannot express every- thing that is in his mind, the inference is that he can express nothing surely ; because each particular word may be figurative and inadequate, it is argued that no number or combination of words, no variety of illustration, nor diversity in the mode of set- ting forth the same truth, can convey it certainly to other minds. He confounds, moreover, knowing everything that may be known of a given subject, with understanding any definite proposition respecting it. Because . there is infinitely more in God than we can ever find out, therefore, the proposition, God is a Spirit, gives us no definite knowledge, and may as well be denied as affirmed I His own illustration on this point is the proposition, "Man thinks," which, he says, has "a hundred different mean- ings." Admitting that the subject " man," in this proposition, may be viewed very variously, and that the nature and laws of the process of thought predicted of him, are very doubtful mat- GOD IN CHRIST. 441 ters, this does not throw the smallest obscurity or ambiguity over the proposition itself. It conveys a definite notion, to every human being. It expresses clearly a certain amount of truth, a fact of consciousness, which, Avithin certain limits, is understood by every human being exactly alike. Beyond those limits there may be indefinite diversity. But this does not render the propo- sition ambiguous. The man who should reverse the assertion, and say, " man does not think," would be regarded as an idiot, though the greatest mental chemist of the age. This doctrine that language can convey no specific, definite truth to the un- derstanding, which Dr. Bushnell uses to loosen the obligation of creeds, is all the sceptic needs, to destroy the authority of the Bible ; and all the Jesuit requires to free himself from the tram- mels of common veracity. The practical difference between be- lieving aU creeds and believing none, is very small. What our author says of logic is marked with the same ex- travagance. It is true that the understanding out of its legiti- mate sphere, is a perfectly untrustworthy guide. When it applies its categories to the infinite, or endeavors to subject the incom- prehensible to its modes it must necessarily involve itself in contradictions. It is easy, therefore, to make any statement re- lating to the eternity, the immensity, or will of God, involve the appearance of inward conflict. From this Dr. Bushnell infers (^. e., when speaking as a mystic) that logic and the understand- ing are to be utterly discarded from the whole sphere of religion ; that the revelations of G od are not addressed to the reason, but to the aasthetic principles of our nature ; and that a thing's being absurd, is no proof that it is not true. Nay, the more absurd the better. He glories in the prospect of the harvest of contra- dictions and solecisms the critics are to gather from his book. He regards them as so many laurels plucked for the wreath which is to adorn his brows. That we may not be suspected of having caught a little of the Doctor's extravagance, we beg the reader to turn to such passages as the following : " Probably the most contradictory book in the world is the gospel of John ; and that for the very reason that it contains more and loftier truths than any other." P. 57. " There is no book in the world that con- tains so many repugnances, or antagonistic forms of assertion, as the Bible. Therefore, if any man please to play off his construc- tive logic upon it, he can easily show it up as the absurdest book 442 GOD IN CHRIST. in tlie world." P. 69. "I am perfectly well aware that my readers can run me into just what absurdity they please. Noth- ing is more easy. I suppose it might be almost as easy for me to do it as for them. Indeed, I seem to have the whole argu- ment which a certain class of speculators must raise upon my Discourses, in order to be characteristic, fully before me. I see the words footing it along to their conclusions. 1 see the terri- ble syllogisms wheeling out their infantry on my fallacies and absurdities." P. 106. He laughs at syllogisms as a ghost would at a musket. Syllogisms are well enough in their place ; but the truth he teaches is perfectly consistent with absurdity, and therefore, cannot be hurt by being proved to be absurd. He says : ^^ There may be solid, living, reaUy consistent truth in the views I have offered, considering the Trinity and Atonement as addressed to feeling and imagination, when, considered as ad- dressed to logic, there is only absurdity^ and confusion in them." P. 108. The Incarnation and Trinity " offer God, not so much to the reason, or logical understanding, as to the imagination, and the perceptive or gesthetic apprehension of faith." P. 102. They are to be accepted, he elsewhere says, and addressed " to feeling and imaginative reasons" — not " as metaphysical entities for the natural understanding." P. 111. It is among the first principles of the oracle of God, that re- generation and sanctification are not aesthetic effects produced through the imagination. They are moral and spiritual changes, wrought by the Holy Ghost, with and by the truth as revealed to the reason. The whole healthful power of the things of God over the feelings, depends upon their being true to the intellect. If we are affected by the revelation of God as a father, it is be- cause he is a father, and not the picture of one. If we have peace through faith in the blood of Christ, it is because he is a propitiation for our sins in reality, and not in artistic form merely. The Bible is not a cunningly-devised fable — a work of fiction, addressed to the imagination. It would do little for the poor and the homeless, to entertain them with a picture of Ely- sium. It would not heal a leper or a cripple, to allow him to gaze on the Apollo ; nor will it comfort or sanctify a convinced sinner, to set before him any sublime imaginings concerning God and atonement. The revelations of God are addressed to the whole soul, to the reason, to the imagination, to the heart, and GOD IN CHRIST. 443 to the conscience. But unless they are true to the reason, they are as powerless as a phantasm. Dr. Bushnell makes no distinction between knowing and understanding. Because it is not necessary that the objects of faith should be understood (^. e., comprehended in their nature and relations), he infers that they need not be known. Be- cause Grod is incomprehensible, our conceptions of him may be absurd and contradictory ! This is as much as to say, that be- cause there are depths and vastnesses in the stellar universe which science cannot penetrate ; nebulsB which no telescope can resolve, therefore we may as rationally believe the cos- mogony of the Hindus as the Mechanique Celeste. It is plain the poetic element in Dr. BushnelFs constitution has so com- pletely swallowed up the rational and moral, he can see only through the medium of the imagination. Through that me- dium all things are essentially the same. Different creeds present to his eye, " in fine frenzy rolling," only the various patterns of a kaleidoscope. It may be well enough for him to amuse himself with that pretty toy ; but it is a great mistake to publish what he sees as discoveries, as though a kaleidoscope were a telescope. As one other illustration of our author's spirit of exaggeration, we would refer to what he says of his responsibility for his opinions. No man will deny that we are all in a measure passive in the reception of any system of doctrine ; that the circumstances of our birth and education, and the manifold in- fluences of our peculiar studies and associations, and especially (as to all good) of the Spirit of God, determine. In a great meas- ure, our whole intellectual and moral state. But under these ah extra influences, and mingling with them, is the mysterious operations of our spontaneous and voluntary nature, yielding or opposing, choosing, or rejecting, so that our faith becomes the most accurate image and criterion of our inner man. We are what we beheve ; our faith is the expression of our true moral character, and is the highest manifestation of our inward self. We are more responsible, therefore, for our faith than even for our acts ; for the latter are apt to be impulsive, while the for- mer is the steady index of the soul, pointing God-ward or earth- ward. Dr. Bushnell, however, pushes the admitted fact that outward and inward influences have so much power over 444 GOD IN CHRIST. men, to the extent of denying all responsibility for his opinions. " I seem," he says, " with regard to the views presented, to have had only about the same agency in forming them, that I have in preparing the blood I circulate, and the anatomic frame I occupy. They are not my choice or invention, so much as a necessary growth, whose process I can hardly trace myself And now, in giving them to the public, I seem only to have about the same kind of option left me that I have in the matter of appearing in corporal manifestation myself — about the same anxiety, I will add, concerning the unfavorable judgments to be encountered ; for though a man's opinions are of vastly greater moment than his looks, yet, if he is equally simple in them, as in his growth, and equally subject to his law, he is responsible only in the same degree, and ought not, in fact, to suffer any greater concern about their reception than about the judgment passed upon his person." P. 98. Hence the sublime confidence expressed on p. 116 : " The truths here uttered are not mine. They live in their own ma- jesty. * * * If they are rejected universally, then I leave them to time, as the body of Christ was left, believing that after three days they rise again." We venture to predict that these days will turn out to be demiurgic. AU we have yet said respecting the characteristics of these Discourses might be true, and yet their general tendency be good. It is conceivable that a book may pull down rather than construct ; that its materials may be incongruous, and its tcne exaggerated, and yet its principles and results be in the main correct. This, we are sorry to say, is very far from being the case with regard to the volume now before us. Its principles and results are alike opposed to the settled faith of the Christian world. This we shall endeavor, as briefly as possible, to demon- strate. We have already said that the spirit of this book is rational- istic. The Kationalism which we charge on Dr. Bushnell is not that of the Deists, which denies any higher source of truth than human reason. Nor is it that Rationalism which will re- ceive nothing except on rational grounds ; which admits the truths of revelation only because they can be proved from reason though not discovered by it. The charge is, that he unduly exalts the authority of reason as a judge of the contents GOD IN CHRIST. 445 of an admitted revelation. All men, do, of necessity, either ex- pressly or by implication, admit tliat reason has a certain judicial- authority in matters of faith. This arises from God's being the author both of reason and revelation. And he has so constituted our nature, that it is impossible for us to believe contradictions. We may believe things which we cannot reconcile ; but we can- not believe any proposition which affirms and denies the same thing. Contradictions, however, are carefully to be distinguished both from things merely incomprehensible, and from those which are not made evident to us, and which, for the time being, we cannot believe. A contradiction is seen to be such, as soon as the terms in which it is expressed are understood. That a thing is and is not ; that the whole is less than one of its parts ; that sin is holiness ; that one person is three persons, or two persons are one, are at once, and by all men, seen to be im- possibilities. A contradiction cannot be true, what is incompre- hensible may be. Its being incomprehensible may depend on our ignorance or weakness of intellect. What is incomprehensible to a child is often perfectly intelligible to a man. While, therefore, we cannot be required to believe contradictions, we are com- manded to believe, at the peril of salvation, much that we cannot understand. Men often confound these two classes of things, and reject, as contradictory what is merely incomprehensible. This, how- ever, is rationalism ; it is an abuse of the judicium contradic- tionis which belongs to reason. It is a still more common form of rationalism to reject doctrines because they are distasteful, or because they conflict with our opinions or prejudices. Of such rationalism the church is full. Men's likes and dislikes are, after all, in a multitude of cases, their true rule of faith. It is with both these forms of Kationalism we think Dr. Bush- neirs book is chargeable. With him the questions respecting the Trinity and Incarnation are not questions of scriptural in- terpretation. He scarcely, especially as to the former, deigns to ask, What does the Bible teach ? The whole subject is sub- mitted to " the constructive logic.'' Can the church doctrine, on these points, be reduced under the categories of the understand- ing ? This, with Dr. B., is the great question. Because he cannot see how there can be three persons in the same divine substance, he pronounces it to be impossible. He admits that 446 GOD IN CHRIST. the Scriptures appear to teach this doctrine ; nay, that we are forced to conceive of God as triune, to answer our own inward necessities ; but there stands Logic, saying, It cannot be so, and he believes Logic rather than God ; not observing, alas ! that Logic, in this case, is only Dr. Bushnell. It may, indeed, be asked, How are we to tell what is a contradiction ? Or what right have we to call a man a Rationalist for rejecting a doctrine which appears to him to contradict reason ? We answer : all real self-contradictions are self-evidently such. Of necessity, the responsibility in such cases is a personal one. If one man denies the existence of a personal God, another the responsibility of man, another divine providence, on the ground that these doc- trines contradict reason, they act at their peril. It is neverthe- less both the right and the duty of all Christians to denounce, as the manifestation of a rationalistic spirit, all rejection of the plain doctrines of the Scripture as self-contradictory and absurd. Such condemnation is involved in their continued faith in the Bible as a revelation of God. If the church doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation are rejected in this volume on the ground that they involve contra- dictions, the doctrine of atonement is no less evidently repu- diated because the author does not like it. It offends his feehngs, or, as he supposes, his "correct moral sentiments ;" just as the scriptural doctrine of future punishment offends the moral sentiments of Universalists. His objections are not derived from Scripture. They are the cavils of the understanding or of offended feeling. When arguments of this sort are exhaust- ed, he is perfectly bankrupt, and, as is too apt to be the case with bankrupts, he then turns dishonest. We hardly know where to look for a more uncandid representation of the church doctrine, than is to be found on pp. 196, 197. This is the more inexcusable, as Dr. B. himself admits that it is under those very forms of sin-offering and propitiation, the work of Christ is set forth in the Scriptures ; and it is to those forms he at- tributes all its power. But it is a contradiction to say that Christ's death under the form of a propitiation, can be effective as an expression of good, if his being an actual propitiation, is offensive. If the reality is horrible, the representation cannot be beauty. As well might the Gorgonian head be used to sub- due the world to love. GOD IN CHRIST. 447 (But if Kationalism is Dr. BushnelVs sword, Mysticism is his shield,] So long as he is attacking, no man makes more of the " constructive logic ;" but as soon as the logic is brought to bear against himself, he turns saint, and is wrapt in contemplation. He wonders people should expect a poem to prove any thing ; or require any thing so beautiful as religion to be true. He is like one of those fighting priests of the middle ages, who, so long as there was any robbing to be done, were always in the saddle ; but as soon as the "day of reckoning came, pleaded loudly their benefit of clergy. There are several kinds of Mysticism ; and as Dr. B. recom- mends both Neander and Madame Guyon, who difl^er toto coelo, it is difficult to say which he means to adopt ; or whether, as is his wont, he means to believe them all. In the general, Mysticism is faith in an immediate, continued, supernatural, divine opera- tion on the soul, effecting a real union with God, and attainable only by a passive waiting or inward abstraction and rest. The divine influence or operation, assumed in Mysticism, differs from the scriptural doctrine concerning the work of the Spirit, as the former is assumed to be a continued, immediate influence, instead of with and by the truth. The Scriptures do indeed teach that, in the moment of regeneration, the Spirit of God acts directly on the soul, but they do not inculcate any such continued direct opera- tion as mysticism supposes. After regeneration, all the operations of the Spirit are in connexion with the word ; and the effects of his influence are always rational — ^. e., they involve an intellect- ual apprehension of the truth revealed in the Scriptures. The whole inward life, thus induced, is therefore dependent on the written word and conformed to it. It is no vague ecstacy of feel- ing, or spiritual inebriation, in which all vision is lost, of which the Spirit of truth is the author ; but a form of life in which the illuminated intellect informs and controls the affections. Neither is Mysticism to be confounded with inspiration. The latter is an influence on the reason, revealing truth or guiding the intellect- ual operations of the mind. Mysticism makes the feelings the immediate subject of this divine impression, and the intellect to be rather indirectly influenced. The idea of an immediate operation of God on the soul is so prominent in Mysticism, that Luther calls the Pope the Great Mystic, because of his claim to 448 GOD IN CHRIST. perpetual inspiration, or supernatural guidance of the Spirit, in- dependent of the word/ A second form of Mysticism is that which places religion entirely in the feelings, excited hy the presence of God, and makes doctrine of very subordinate moment. It is not the intellect that is relied upon to receive truth as presented in the word, but a spiritual insight is assumed, a direct intuition of the things of God. This again is very different from the scriptural doctrine of divine illumination. The latter supposes the Spirit to open the eyes of the mind to see the things freely given to us hy God in the word. It is only the scriptural discernment of the things of the Spirit revealed in the Scriptures, to which this illumination leads. But the intuitions of the mystic are above and apart from the word, and of higher authority. The letter kills him ; the inward sense discerned by a holy instinct, gives him life. Besides the forms above mentioned, there is a philosophical Mys- ticism, which scientifically evolves doctrine out of feeling. In- stead of making the objective in religion control the subjective, it does the reverse. It admits no doctrines but such as are sup- posed to be the intellectual expressions of Christian feeling. To this doubtless Neander, as a friend and pupil of Schleiermacher, the author of this theory, is more or less inclined. The term Mysticism is used in a still wider sense. The assertion, that re- ligion is not a mere matter of the intellect, a mere philosophy, or that there is more in it than a correct creed and moral life, has been, and often is, called Mysticism. This, however, is merely a protest against Kationalism, or formal, traditionary, and lifeless orthodoxy. In this sense all evangelical Christians are mystics. This is a mere abuse of the term. It is obvious that Mysticism, properly so called, in all its forms, makes little of doctrine. It has a source of knowledge higher than the Scriptures. The life of God in the soul is assumed to be as informing now as in the case of the apostles. The Scrip- tures, therefore, are not needed, and they are not regarded, as either the ground or rule of faith. The ordinary means of grace are of still less importance. The church is nothing. The spirit- ^ Quid ? quod etiam Papatus simpliciter est merus enthusiasmus, quo Papa gloria- tur, omnia jura esse in scrinio sui pectoris, et quidquid ipse in ecclesia sua seutit et jubet, id spiritum et justuni esse, etiamsi supra et contra scripturam et vocale verbura aliquid statuat et prascipiat. Articuli Sraalcaldici, p, iii. 8. GOD IN CHRIST. ual life of the soul is not preserved by the ordinances of God, but by isolation and quietism. By this neglect of Scripture the door is opened for all sorts of vagaries to usurp the place of truth. And the kind of religion thus fostered is either a poetic senti- mentalism or a refined sensualism, which becomes less and less refined the longer it is indulged. Dr. Bushnell must remember that he is not the first mystic by a great many thousands, and that this whole tendency, of which he has become the advocate and exemplar, has left its melancholy traces in the history of the church. The position of our author, in reference to this subject, is to be learned, partly from his direct assertions, partly from the general spirit of his book, and partly from the fruits or results of the system, so far as they are here avowed. We can refer to little more than some of his most explicit declarations on the subject. On p. 92, he complains of ^^ the theologic method of New Eng- land" as being essentially rationalistic. " The possibility of reasoning out religion, though denied in words, has been tacitly assumed. * * * It has not been held as a practical, positive, and earnest Christian truth, that there is a Perceptive Power in spiritual life, an unction of the Holy One, which is itself a kind of inspiration — an immediate, experimental knowledge of Grod, by virtue of which, and partly in the degree of which. Chris- tian theology is possible." In opposition to the rationalistic method, as he considers it, '^ The views of language, here offered," he says, " lead to a dif- ferent method. The Scriptures will be more studied than they have been, and in a different manner — not as a magazine of propositions and mere dialectic entities, but as inspirations and poetic forms of life ; requiring, also, divine inbreathings and exaltations in us, that we may ascend into their meaning. Our opinions wiU be less catechetical and definite, using the word as our definers do, but they will be as much broader as they are more divine ; as much truer, as they are more vital and closer to the plastic, undefinable mysteries of spiritual life. We shaU seem to understand less and shall actually receive more. We shaU de- light in truth, more as a concrete, vital nature, incarnated in all fact and symbol round us — a vast, mysterious, incomprehensible power, which best we know, when most we love." " A mystic,*' he says, " is one who finds a secret meaning, both in words and things, back of their common and accepted meaning — some agency 29 4S0 GOD IN CHRIST. of Life or of Living Thought, hid under the forms of words and institutions, and historical events." He quotes Neander as saying that the apostle John " exhibits all the incidents of the outward history of Christ, only as a manifestation of his indwell- ing glory, by which this may be brought home to the heart. * * '^ John is the representative of the truth which lies at the basis of that tendency of the Christian spirit, which sets itself in opposition to a one-sided intellectualism, and ecclesias- tical formality — and is distinguished by the name mysticism." P. 95. " I make no disavowal," adds our author, " that there is a mystic element, as there should be, in what I have represented as the source of language, and, also, in the views of Christian life and doctrine that follow." On p. 347, he recommends to Christians ministers and students of theology " that they make a study, to some extent, of the mystic and quietistic writers." Be- sides these distinct avowals, the main design of the book mani-. fests the writer's position. His great object is to prove that positive doctrines have no authority ; that the revelations of God are addressed to the imagination, and not to the reason ; that their truth lies in what they express. The work of Christ, he says, ^' Is more a poem than a treatise. It classes as a work of art more than as a work of science. It addresses the understanding, in great part, through the feeling or sensibility. In these it has its receptivities, by these it is perceived, or is perceivable." P. 204. It is as a mystic he pourh forth his whole tirade against theology, catechisms, and creeds. It is not by truth, but by merging all differences of doctrine, in aesthetic emotions, that religion is to be revived, and all Christians are to be united. It is not the philo- sophical mysticism of Neander, which makes havoc enough of the doctrines of the Bible, which this volume advocates ; but a mere poetic sentimentalism. The author would provide a crucible in which all Christian truth is to be sublimated. To the mys- tic the Bible is a mere picture-book ; and Christian ordinances absolutely nothing. We have accordingly in this volume a dis- course on the " True reviving of Keligion," in which there is not one word said of the importance of doctrinal truth, or of the means of grace, or of the work of the Holy Spirit. Its whole drift is to show that doctrine, stigmatized as " dogma," is human, and lifeless, and that immediate insight, " the perceptive power" of the inner life, is the true source of all those views of divine GOD IN CHRIST. 451 things, which are really operative, and that the great means of attaining those views, and of bringing the soul into union with God, is Quietism. The main objection to this book, however, has not yet been stated. Some men have been as rationalistic, and others as mys- tical as Dr. Bushnell, who have nevertheless held fast the great doctrines of the gospel ; whereas Dr. Bushnell discards them, and substitutes the phantoms of his own imagination in their place. This is plainly the case with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity. The course which the church has pursued in reference to this, and similar doctrines, is to make a careful collation of all the scriptural facts relating to the subject, and then to frame a statement of those facts, which shall avoid any contradiction, either of itself or of other revealed truths. Such statement is then the church doctrine as to that subject. The doctrine does not profess to be an explanation of the facts, nor a reconciliation of them, but simply a statement of them, free from contradic- tion, which is to be received on the authority of God. The essential facts contained in Scripture concerning the Trinity are : 1. There is but one God ; one divine being, nature, or substance, 2. That to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, divine titles, attributes, works, and worship, are ascribed. 3. That the Father, Son, and Spirit, are so distinguished, the one from the other, that each is the source and the object of action ; the Father loves and sends the Son ; the Son loves and reveals the Father ; the Spirit testifies of the Son and is sent by him. The personal pronouns, I, Thou, He, are used to express this distinc- tion. The Father says Thou, to the Son ; and the Son says Thou, to the Father. Both speaking of the Spirit, says He or Him. All this is done not casually, occasionally, or rhetorically, but uniformly, solemnly, and didactically. 4. The Father, Son, and Spirit are represented as doing, each a specific work, and all co-operating, outwardly and inwardly, in the redemption of man ; and we are required to perform specific duties which terminate on each. We are to look to the Father as our Father, to the Son as our Kedeemer, to the Spirit as our Paraclete. We are bound to acknowledge each ; as we are baptized in the name of the Son and Spirit, as well as in the name of the Father. We believe in the Son, as we do in the Father, and honor the one as we do the other. Christianity, therefore, not merely as a system 452 GOD IN CHRIST. of doctrine, but as a practical religion, is founded on this doc- trine. The God who is the object of all the exercise of Christian piety, is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Such, by common consent, are the scriptural facts on this subject. The summation of these facts, in the form of doctrine, as given by the church, is : " There are three persons in the Godhead : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; and these three are one God, the same in substance, and equal in power and glory.'' This is the sum of the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, the common faith of the Christian world. It is scarcely more than a compendious statement of admitted facts. The word person is only a concise form of expressing the third class of facts above mentioned. It is not intended to explain them. It is intended simply as a denial that the Father, Son, and Spirit are mere modal distinctions, or diiferent revelations of God ; and to affirm that those terms indicate such distinctions, as that each is the agent and object of action, and can say I, and be properly addressed as Thou. The church has never taught that there are three consciousnesses, intelligences, and wills, in God. It has humbly refused to press its definition of person beyond the limits just indicated, and has preferred to leave the nature of these distinctions in that obscurity which must ever overhang the infinite God in the view of his finite creatures. As the Bible does most clearly teach the existence of this threefold personal distinction in the Godhead, the only question is, whether we will renounce its authority, or believe what it asserts. Dr. Bushnell does not attempt to show that the church doctrine on this subject is unscriptural. His only objection is, that he can- not understand it. He sums up his whole argument on the subject, by saying : " Such is the confusion produced by at- tempting to assert a real and metaphysical trinity of persons, in the divine nature. Whether the word is taken at its full import, or diminished away to the mere something called a distinction, there is produced only contrariety, confusion, practical negation, not light/' P. 135. This is all he has to say. If the word per- son has its proper sense, then the church doctrine asserts three consciousnesses, intelligences, and wills, in the divine nature. If it means merely a " distinction," then Trinitarians do not difier from Unitarians. The former he asserts is the meaning of the word, and therefore, " any intermediate doctrine between the ab- GOD IN CHRIST. 453 solute unity of God and a social unity is impossible and incredi- ble." He shuts us up to Tritheism or Unitarianism — no three- fold distinction in the divine nature can be admitted. There can be no doubt, therefore, either as to our author's rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity, or as to the purely rationalistic grounds of that rejection. His own view of the subject is, that the terms Father, Son, and Spirit, refer to the threefold revelation of God. He says, speaking of " Schleiermacher's critique of Sabellius," translated and published in the Biblical Repository : '^ The general view of the Trinity in that article coincides, it will be observed, with the view which I have presented, though the reasonings are not in all points the same." P. 111. With Schleiermacher the absolute God is unknown. It is only the manifested or revealed God of which we can speak. This revelation is threefold. First, the manifestation of the one God in the world ; this is the Father. Second, the manifestation of the one God in Jesus Chri'^' t ; this is the Son. Third, the revelation of the one God in the church ; this is the Spirit. It is hardly necessary to quote particular pas- sages to show how exactly Dr. Bushnell has adopted this system. In language almost Hegelian, he asks, page 129 : What concep- tion shall we form " of God as simply in Himself, and as yet un- revealed ? Only that He is the Absolute being, the Infinite, the I am that I am, giving no sign that he is other than that he is." " But there is in God, taken as the absolute Being, a capacity of self-expression, so to speak, which is peculiar — a gen- erative power of form, a creative imagination, in which, or by the aid of which. He can produce Himself outwardly, or represent himself in the finite." P. 145. In creating worlds, " He only represents, expresses, or outwardly produces himself" This is the first revelation, or the Father. But, " as God has produced himself in all the other finite forms of being," so he appears in the human. This is the second revelation, or the Son. Pp. 146, 147. " But in order to the full and complete apprehension of God, a third personality, the Holy Spirit, needs to appear. By the Logos in the creation, and then by the Logos in the Incarna- tion, assisted or set off by the Father as a relative personality, God's character, feeling, and truth, are expressed. * * * But we want, also, to conceive of Him as in act within us, work- ing in us under the conditions of time and progression, spiritual 454 GOD IN CHRIST. results of quickening, deliverance, and purification from evil. * » -:> Accordingly, the natural image, Spirit, that is, breath, is taken up and clothed with personality." P. 171. This is the third revelation, or the Holy Spirit. This, true enough, is the Sabellianism of Schleiermacher — a threefold revelation of God in the v^rorld, in Christ, and in the church. This is all yqyj fine. But there is one thing that spoils it all. Dr. Bushnell holds the details of a system without holding its fundamental, formative principle. There is nothing in this book to intimate that he is really a Pantheist. On the contrary, there is everything against that assumption. Schleiermacher's whole system, however, rests on the doctrine that there is but one sub- stance in the universe, which substance is God ; and especially that the divine and human natures are identical. It is well enough, therefore, for him to talk of God's producing himself in the world ; for according to his theory, in a very high sense, the world is God. It is well enough for him to say that, though Christ is God, he had but one nature, because, with him the human nature is divine, and a perfect man is God. What, there- fore, in Schleiermacher is consistent and imposing, is in Dr. Bushnell simply absurd. The system of the one is a Doric tem- ple, that of the other is a heap of stones. We will not insult our readers with any argument to show that the Bible does not teach Sabellianism. If any one needs such proof, we refer him to those parts of this book in which Dr. Bushnell attempts to prove that the one divine person, incarnate in Christ, sent himself, obeyed himself, and worshipped himself. The perusal will doubtless excite the reader's pity, but it will effectually convince him he must renounce faith in the Scriptures before he can be a Sabellian. There is another thing to be ob- served. Schleiermacher stands outside of the Bible. He professes to it no manner of allegiance as a rule of faith. He takes out of it what he likes, and combining it with his Pantheistical prin- ciples, constructs a massive system of Theosophical philosophy, which does not pretend to rest on the authority of an objective revelation. It is enough, therefore, to move one to wonder, or to indignation, to see that system, which its author puts forth as human, presented by professed believers in the Bible as scrip- tural and divine. Dr. Bushnell has chosen to enroll himself among the avowed opposers of the church doctrine of the Trinity. GOD IN CHRIST. 455 He fully endorses as conclusive the common Unitarian objections to that doctrine^ and then presents one for which its author claims no divine authority, and which stands in undisguised op- position to the word of Grod. He must stretch his license as a poet a great way, if he can claim to be a Trinitarian, simply be- cause he recognizes a threefold revelation of God. If this be enough to constitute a Trinitarian, the title may be claimed by all the Pantheists of ancient and modern times. They all have a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, of some sort. They all teach that the absolute Being (which they represent very much as Dr. Bushnell does, as nihil), of which nothing can be affirmed and nothing denied, is ever coming to self-consciousness in the world, and returning into himself. Dr. B. affirms with them an eternal creation (page 146), and gives us, for the living and ever-blessed Trinity, nothing but a lifeless God, a world, and humanity. This at least is substantially the system which he professes to adopt, and of which his book, in one aspect, is a feeble and dis- torted image. We say in one aspect, because it is only in one aspect. It is characteristic of these Discourses, as we remarked at the outset, that their elements are incongruous. They teach everything, and of course nothing. Pantheism is only one of the phases in which the manifold system of the author is presented. The book is really theistical, after all. In rejecting the scriptural doctrine of the Trinity, our author of course discards the common doctrine of the Incarnation. That doctrine is arrived at precisely as the doctrine of the Trinity was framed. It is but a comprehensive statement of the facts asserted in the Scriptures concerning the Lord Jesus. The most essential of those facts are : 1. That all the titles, attributes and perfections of God are ascribed to him, and that we are required to render to him all those duties of love, confi- dence, reverence, and obedience, which are due to God alone. 2. That all the distinctive appellations, attributes, and acts, of a man, are ascribed to him. He is called the man Christ Jesus, and the Son of Man. He is said to have been born of a woman, to have hungered and thirsted, to have bled and died. He increased in wisdom, was ignorant of the day of judgment ; he manifested all innocent human affections, and, in dying, com- mitted his soul unto God. 3. He of whom all divine perfections, and all the attributes of our nature, are freely and constantly 456 GOD IN CHRIST. predicated, when speaking of himself, always says, I, Mc, Mine. He is always addressed as Thou ; he is always spoken of as He or Him. There is no where the slightest intimation or manifesta- tion of a tw^ofold personality in Christ. There is not a " divine soul" with a human soul inhabiting the same body — i. e., he was not two persons. There is but one subsistence, suppositum, or person. 4. This one person is often called a man when even divine acts or perfections are attributed to him. It is the Son of Man who is to awake the dead, to summon all nations, and to sit in judgment on all men. It is the Son of Man who was in heaven before his advent, and who, while on earth, was still in heaven. On the other hand, he is often called God when the things predicated of him are human. The Lord of Glory was crucified. He who was in the beginning with God, who was the true God and eternal life, was seen aad handled. Again, the subject does not change though the predicates do. Thus in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is said of the Son : 1. That he is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the ex- press image of his substance. 2. That he upholds all things by the word of his power. 3. That by (the offering of) himself he made purification of sin. 4. That he is set down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Here the possession of a divine nature, the exercise of almighty power, dying as an offering for sin, and exaltation to the right hand of God, are all pre- dicated of one and the same subject. In liie manner, in the second chapter of the Philippians, it is said. He who was in the form of God, and entitled to equality with God, was found in fashion as man, humbled himself so as to become obedient unto death, and is exalted above all creatures in heaven and earth. Here equality with God, humanity, humiliation, and exaltation, are predicated of the same subject. Such representations are not peculiar to the New Testament. In all the Messianic predic- tions, he who is declared to be the mighty God and everlasting Father, is said to be born, and to have a government assigned him. On one page he is called Jehovah, whose glory fills the earth, and on the next a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. In framing a comprehensive statement of these facts, it will not do to say, that Christ was a mere man, for this is inconsist- ent with the divine perfections and honor ascribed to him. It GOD IN CHRIST. 457 will not do to say that he is simply God, for that is inconsistent with his manifest humanity. It will not do to say that he is Q-od and a man as two distinct substances, for he stands forth in the evangelical history as manifestly one person, as does Peter or John. The only thing that can be said is, that " The eternal Son of God became man by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, and so was and continues to be God and man, in two distinct natures, and one person forever." This is the substance of the Nicene and Athanasian creeds so far as they relate to the person of Christ. It will be observed how little this statement includes beyond the undeniable facts of the case. It asserts that there is in Christ a divine nature, because divine perfections, authority, and works of necessity suppose such a nature. It asserts that he has a human nature, because he is not only called a man, but all the attributes of our nature are ascribed to him. And it asserts that he is one person because he always so speaks of himself, and is so spoken of by the sacred writers. The church doctrine, therefore, on this subject, is clearly the doctrine of the Bible. Before adverting for a moment to the objections which Dr. Bushnell urges to this view of the person of Christ, we remark on the unreasonableness of the demand which he makes, when attacking the church doctrine, that all obscurity should be ban- ished from this subject. The union between the soul and body, with all the advantages of its lying within the domain of con- sciousness and the sphere of constant observation, is an impene- trable mystery. Dr. Bushnell can understand it as little as he can understand the relation between the divine and human na- tures of Christ. It is therefore glaringly unreasonable and rebel- lious against God, to reject what he has revealed on this subject because it is a mystery, and pre-eminently the great mystery of the gospel. Our author objects that the doctrine of two natures in Christ " does an affi-ont to the plain language of the Scripture. For the Scripture does not say that a certain human soul called Jesus born as such of Mary, obeyed and suffered, but it says in the boldest manner, that he who was in the form of God humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. A declaration the very point of which is,^not that the man Jesus was a being under human limitations, but that he 458 GOD IN CHEIST. who was in the form of God, the real divinity, came into the finite, and was subject to human conditions." P. 153. In an- swer to this objection we would remark, 1. That it is one of the plainest rules of interpretation that when any thing is predi- cated of a subject inconsistent with its known and admitted nature, such predicate cannot be referred directly to the subject. It must either be understood figuratively, or in reference, not to the subject itself, but to something intimately connected with it. If it is said of a man that he roars, or that he flies, or that he is shabby, these things are necessarily understood in a way con- sistent with the known and admitted nature of man. If it is said he is blind, or deaf, or lame, of necessity, again, this is un- derstood of his body and not of his spirit. In like manner when it is said of God, that he sees, hears, has hands, eyes, or ears, or that he is angry, or that he is aggrieved, or that he enquires and searches out, all these declarations are universally under- stood in consistency with the known and admitted nature of the Supreme Being. By a like necessity, and with as little violence to any correct rule of interpretation, when any thing is affirmed of Christ that implies limitation, whether ignorance, obedience, or suffering, it must be understood, not of " the real divinity,'' but of his limited nature. It is only, therefore, by violating a principle of interpretation universally recognized and admitted, that the objection under consideration can be sustained. 2. It was shown to be a constant usage of Scripture to predicate of Christ, whatever can be predicated of either of the natures united in his person. Of man may be affirmed any thing that is true either of his soul or of his body. He may be said to be mortal or immortal ; to be a spirit created in the image of God, and to be a child of the dust. And still further, he is often designated as a spirit, when what is affirmed of him is true only of his animal nature. We speak of rational and immortal beings as given up to gluttony and drunkenness, without mean- ing to affirm that the immortal soul can eat and drink. Why then, when it is said of the blessed Saviour, that he suffered and obeyed, must it be understood of the " real divinity ?" If Dr. Bushnell means to be consistent, he must not only assert that the deity suffers, but that God can be pierced with nails and spear. It was the Lord of Glory who was crucified. They shall look on me whom they have pierced, said the eternal Jehovah. Does our GOD IN CHRIST. 459 author mean to affirm that it was the " real divinity'' that was nailed to the cross, and thrust through with a spear ? 3. The principle of interpretation on which the objection is founded would prove that human nature is infinite and eternal. If because the Scriptures say that he who was in the form of Grod became obedient unto death, it follows that the " real divinity" died ; then the assertion that the Son of Man was in heaven be- fore his advent, and in heaven while on earth, proves that human nature has the attributes of eternity and omnipresence. The Bible tells us that the Son of God assumed our nature, or took part of flesh and blood, in order that he might be a merciful and faithful high-priest, able to sympathize in the infirmities of his people ; but whence the necessity of his assuming flesh and blood, if the divine nature can suffer and obey ? It is really to deny Grod to affirm of him what is absolutely incompatible with his divine perfections. It is a virtual denial of God, therefore, to affirm that the " real divinity," is ignorant, obeys, and dies. Let the Bible be interpreted on the same principle on which the lan- guage of common life is understood, and there will be no more difficulty in comprehending the declaration that the Lord of Glory was crucified, than the assertion concerning man. Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Is the " Thou" in man, the interior person, dust ? Dr. Bushnell must say, yes, and the affirmation would be as rational as his assertion that the divinity in Christ became subject to the " human conditions" of ignorance and sorrow. Another objection is thus presented. The common doctrine " virtually denies any real unity between the human and the divine, and substitutes collocation or copartnership for unity." " The whole work of Christ, as a subject, suffering Redeemer, is thrown upon the human side of his nature, and the divine side standing thus aloof incommunicably distant, has nothing in fact to do with the transaction, other than to be a spectator." P. 155. There would be as much truth and reason in the assertion, that the spiritual, the rational, and immortal part of a dying martyr, was a mere spectator of the sufferings of his body. It is the martyr who suffers, though the immaterial spirit cannot be burnt or lacerated. With equal truth, it is the Lord of Glory who died upon the cross, and the Son of God who poured out his soul unto death, though we hold it blasphemy to say it was the divine 460 GOD IN CHRIST. nature as such, the " real divinity" in Christ, that was subject to the limitations and sorrows of humanity. Dr. Bushnell says a hypostatical union, i. e., such an union between the human and divine as to constitute one person, is mere collation. Is the union of soul and body in one person, mere collation ? If it is a man who suffers when his body is injured, no less truly was it the Son of God who suffered, when his sacred body was lacerated by the scourge, or pierced with nails. The acts of Christ, for the sake of clearness, are referred to three classes. The purely divine, such as the creation of the world ; the purely human, such as walking or sleeping ; the theanthropical, such as his whole work as media- tor, all he did and suffered for the redemption of the world. It was not the obedience or death of a man, by which our redemp- tion was effected ; but the obedience and sufferings of the Son of God. Christ, be it remembered, is not a human person in- vested with certain divine perfections and prerogatives. Nor was he a human person with whom a divine person dwelt in a manner analogous to God's presence in his prophets or his people ; or to the indwelling of demons in the case of the possessed. He was a divine person with a human nature, and therefore everything true of that nature may be predicated of that divine person, just as freely as every thing true of our material bodies may be predicated of us, whose real personality is an immaterial spirit. In some feeble analogy to the three classes of the acts of Christ, above referred to, is a similar classification of human actions. Some are purely bodily, as the pulsations of the heart ; others are purely mental, as thought ; others are mixed, as sensation, or voluntary muscular action, or the emotions of shame, fear, &c. It is absurd to confound all these, and to assert that the spirit has a pulse. It is no less absurd so to separate them, as to say any one of these kinds of actions is not the activity of the man. In asserting, then, a personal union, between the two natures in Christ, the church asserts a real union, not confounding, but uniting them, so that the acts of the human nature of Christ, are as truly the acts of the Son of God, as the acts of our bodies are our acts. All those objections, therefore, founded on the assumption that the common doctrine provides no explanation of the media- torial work, representing it, after all, as the work of a mere man, are destitute of foundation. It was because the divine nature, as such, could neither suffer nor obey, that the Son of God as- GOD IN CHRIST. 461 sumed a nature capable of such obedieace and suffering, but the assumption of that nature into personal union with himself made the nature His, and therefore the obedience and sufferings were also His. It is right to say, Grod purchased the church with his own blood. A third objection is, that while separate activity is made a proof of the distinct personality of the Son and Spirit, it is not allowed to be a proof of the distinct personality of the human nature of Christ. What in the Godhead is affirmed to be evi- dence of a distinction of persons, is denied to be sufficient evidence of such distinction in the reference to the two natures in Christ. Or, to state the case still more strongly, we ascribe separate intelli- gence and will to the human nature of Christ, and deny it to be a person ; though we dare not say there are three intelligences and wills in God, and still insist there are three persons in the Godhead. The simple and sufficient answer to this objection is that in the Bible, the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinguished as separate persons, and the two natures in Christ are not so distinguished. This is reason enough to justify the church in refusing to consider even separate intelligence and will, in the one case, proof of dis- tinct personality ; while, in the other, identity of intelligence and will is affirmed to be consistent with diversity of person. The fact is plain that the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinguished as persons ; the one sends and another is sent ; the one promises the other engages, the one says I, the other Thou. It is not less plain, that the two natures of Christ are not thus distinguished. The one nature does not address the other ; the one does not .send the other ; neither does the one say I and Thou in reference to the other. There is not only the absence of all evidence of dis- tinct personality, but there is also the direct, manifold, and uniform assertion of unity of person. There is nothing about Christ more perfectly undeniable than this, and, therefore, there never has been even a heresy in the church (the doubtful case of the Nestorians excepted) ascribing a two-fold personality to the Redeemer. It is one and the same person of whom birth, life, death, eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, and all other attributes, human and divine, are predicated. So far, therefore, as the Scriptures are concerned, there is the greatest possible difference between the relation in which the distinctions of the Trinity 462 GOD IN CHRIST. stand to each other, and the mutual relations of the two natures in Christ. In the one case, the distinction is personal, in the other it is not. If there is any contradiction here it is chargeable on the Bible itself. But it may still be said that we must frame a definition of per- son which shall not involve the affirmation and denial of the same proposition. We cannot say separate intelligent agency constitutes or evinces personality, and then ascribe such agency to the human nature of Christ, while we deny it to be a person. Very true. We do not deny that theologians often fail in their definitions ; we should be satisfied with saying, that the distinc- tions in the God-head are such as to lay an adequate founda- tion for the reciprocal use of the pronouns, I, Thou, He ; and that the distinction between the two natures in Christ does not. If asked where lies the difference, since in both cases there is separate activity ? we answer, no one can tell. We may say indeed, that distinct subsistence is essential to personality, and that such subsistence cannot be predicated of the human nature of Christ, but is predicable of the distinctions in the God- head. It is not, therefore, all kinds of separate activity which imply personality, but only such as involves distinct subsistence, show- ing that the source of the activity is an agent, and not merely a power. ^ The following illustration of this subject is not designed to ex- plain it : a mystery is not capable of explanation. It is designed merely to show how much of the same obscurity overhangs other subjects about which we give ourselves very little trouble. We may, for the sake of illustration, assume the truth of the Plato- nic doctrine which ascribes to man a body, an animal soul, and an immortal spirit. This is not a scriptural distinction, though it is not obviously absurd, and, if a matter of revelation, would be cheerfully admitted. What, however, is involved in this doc- trine ? There is a unity of person in man, and yet three dis- tinct activities ; that of the body in the processes of respiration and digestion ; that of the animal soul, in all mere sensations and instincts ; and that of the spirit, in all intellectual and moral ^ Dr. Bushnell has no great right to make a wry face at Trinitarians for asserting that separate intelligence and will do not necessarily infer personality, since he has begun to swallow a philosophy which asserts the single personality of the human race, though each man has his own intelligence, will and consciousness. GOD IN CHRIST. 468 action. The animal soul is not a person, it has no distinct sub- sistence, though it may have its activity and even its own con- sciousness, as in the case of brutes. Now if there is no contradic- tion involved in this view of the nature of man ; if the animal soul may have its activity and life in personal union with the in- telligent spirit, and yet that soul be not a person, then the human nature of Christ may have its activity, in personal union with the Logos, and yet not be a person. We place little stress, how- ever, on any such illustrations. Our faith rests on the plain declarations of Scripture. God is infinite, omniscient, and al- mighty, and therefore of him no limitation can be predicated, whether ignorance or weakness ; of Christ is predicated all the perfections of God and all the attributes of man, and therefore there is in him both a divine and human nature ; and notwith- standing the possession of this twofold nature, he is but one person. It is not necessary to our faith that we should under- stand this. We can understand it just as well as we understand the mysteries of our own nature, or the attributes of God. After all, the difficulty is not in the doctrines of the Trinity or the In- carnation, but in Theism, the most certain and essential, and yet the most incomprehensible of all truths. But if we insist on acknowledging only one nature in Christ, how are we to conceive of his person .? The following would seem to be the only possible modes in which he can bo regarded : 1. That his one nature is human, and that he was a mere man. 2. That his one nature was divine ; then it may be assumed, with the Docetae, that this human appearance is but a phan- tasm ; or, with the Apollinarians, that he had a real body, but not a rational soul. 3. That his one nature was neither divine nor human, but theanthropical, the two united into one, accord- ing to the Eutychean notion. 4. That the human and divine are identical, which is the doctrine of the new philosophy. Every one of these views, incompatible as they obviously are. Dr. Bush- nell adopts by turns, except the first. He adopts, or at least dallies with, the doctrine of the DocetaB, that the whole manifestation of Christ was a mere Theophany. To assert the union of two natures in the Redeemer, or to at- tempt any precise statement of the constitution of his person, he says, is as though Abraham, " after he had entertained as a guest the Jehovah Angel, or Angel of the Lord, instead of receiving his 464 GOD IN CHRIST. message, had fallen to inquiring into the digestive process of the Angel ;" or, " as if Moses, when he saw the burning bush, had fallen to speculating about the fire." Thus those who " live in their logic,'' exclaim : " See Christ obeys and suffers ; how can the subject be supreme — the suffering man the impassible God !" And then, in one of those exquisite illustrations, which, as our Saviour says of another kind of lying wonders, would, if it were possible, deceive the very elect, he adds : " Indeed you may figure this whole tribe of sophisters as a man standing before that most beautiful and wondrous work of art, the ^ Beatified Spirit' of Guido, and there commencing a quarrel with the artist, that he should be so absurd as to think of making a beatified spirit out of mere linseed, ochres and oxides ! Would it not be more dignified to let the pigments go, and take the expression of the canvas ? Just so (!) are the human personality, the obedi- ent, subject, suffering state of Jesus, all to be taken as colors of the divine, and we are not to fool ourselves in practising our logic on the colors, but to seize at once upon the divine import and significance thereof ; ascending thus to the heart of God, there to rest, in the vision of his beatific glory." P. 160. The mean- ing of this is, that as the value and power of a picture is in " the expression of the canvas," so the power of Christ is in " what he expresses." In order to this expression, however, there is no need of a true body and a reasonable soul ; a theophany, as in the case of the Jehovah Angel, is all that is necessary. We ac- cept this illustration as to one point. There is all the difference between the Christ of the Bible and the Christ of Dr. Bushnell, that there is between an Ecce Homo and the living incarnate God. In a few pages further on, the author rejects this view of the subject, and says : " Christ is no such theophany, no such casual, unhistorical being as the Jehovah Angel who visited Abraham." P. 165. So unsteady, however, is his tread, that in a few more steps he falls again into the same mode of representation. On p. 172, he says : ^^Just as the Logos is incarnated in the flesh, so the Spirit makes his advent under physical signs, appropriate to his office, coming in a rushing mighty wind, tipping the heads of an assembly with lambent flames, &c., &c." The Logos, there- fore, was no more really incarnate than the Spirit was incorporate in the dove, the wind, or the tongues of fire — all is appearance, expression. GOD IN CHRIST. 465 But if Dr. Bushnell teaches the doctrine of the Docetae, he still more distinctly avows that of the Apollinarians. The main point in their theory on this subject is, that Christ had a human body, but not a human soul ; the Logos in him taking the place of the intelligent Spirit. The nature of our author's view of the constitution of Christ's person, is best learned from the answers which he gives to the objections which he sees will be made against it. The first objection is, that " the infinite God is represented as dwelling in a finite human person, sub- ject to its limitations and even to its evils ; and this is incredible — an insult to reason." P. 148. His answer is, " It no more follows that a human body measures God, when revealed through it, than that a star, a tree, or an insect, measures him, when he is revealed through that." P. 152. A second objection is, Christ grew in wisdom and knowledge. This he answers by saying : 1. " That the language may well enough be taken as language of external description merely." Or, 2. " If the divine was manifested in the ways of a child, it creates no difiiculty which does not exist when it is manifested in the ways of a man or a world." It is as repugnant, he says, to Christ's proper Deity, to reason and think, as to say he learns or grows in knowledge. P. 153. A third objection is, that Christ obeys, worships, and suffers. He says, the Trinitarian answer to this objection — viz., that these things are to be understood of the human soul of Christ, is an affront to the Scriptures, which assert that " the real divinity came into the finite and was subject to human con- ditions." P. 154. When we see the Absolute Being " under the conditions of increase, obedience, worship, suffering, we have nothing to do but to ask what is here expressed, and, as long as we do that, we shall have no difficulty." P. 156. All is a mockery and show — even the agony in the garden, the calling on God in Getbsemane and on the cross, was, we tremble as we write, a pantomime, in which the infinite God was the actor. To such depths does a man sink when, inflated with self-conceit, he pretends to be wise above that which is written. "Of what 80 great consequence to us," he asks, " are the humanities of a mere human soul ? The very thing we want is to find God is moved by such humanities — touched with a feeling of our infir- mities." P. 165. These passages teach distinctly the Apollinarian doctrine. 30 466 GOD IN CHRIST. They deny that there are two distinct natures in Christ ; and they affirm that ignorance, weakness, obedience, worshipping and suffering, are to be predicated of the Logos, the Deity, the divine nature as such. Thus far the doctrine taught in this book is little more than the re-introduction, with great pomp and cir- cumstance, of an effete and half-forgotten heresy. It is the bring- ing back a dead Napoleon to the Invalides. Dr. Bushnell next teaches the Eutychean doctrine. Eutyches taught that the divine and human were so united in Christ as to become one nature as well as one person. He taught, as Dr. Bushnell does, that two nature simply two persons. ('O dvo Xiyvau^ 6vo Xeyei vlovg) Before the union there were two natures ; after it, only one. He acknowledged, therefore, in Christ, but one life, intelligence, and will. This, after all, ap- pears to be the doctrine which Dr. Bushnell is really aiming at. We have Eutycheanism distinctly asserted, for example, on p. 154. The common doctrine, he says, "virtually denies any real unity between the human and divine, and substitutes col- location, co-partnership for unity." " Instead of a person whose nature is the unity of the divine and the human, we have," he adds, "two distinct persons, between whom our thoughts are constantly alternating ; referring this to one, and that to the other, and imagining, all the while, not a union of the two, in which our possible union with God is signified and sealed forever, but a practical, historical assertion of his incom- municability thrust upon our notice." In these, among other passages, we have the doctrine, not that the divine nature or Logos, was in the place of the human soul, but that the divine and human natures were so united as to make one, neither human nor divine, but, as our author calls it, " the divine human." AU these forms of doctrine respecting the person of Christ, sprang up in the church. They all suppose the doctrine of a personal God distinct from the world. They take for granted a real creation in time. They assume a distinction between God and man, as two different natures, and between matter and mind as two substances. In man, therefore, there are two substances or subjects, spirit and body, united in one person. It was at a later period the heathen doctrine found its way into the church, that there is but one substance, intelligence, and life in the universe (Jv uovov rb 6v ehaC) ; a doctrine which identifies GOD IN CHRIST. 467 God and the world; which denies any extra-mundane deity, any proper creation, any real distinction between Grod and man. This is the Atheistic doctrine which has been revived in our day, and which has been, and still is, taught by deceivers and the deceived, in the church, as the doctrine of the Bible, or at least as consistent with it. The new philosophy teaches, as before stated, that the absolute God is nothing ; he exists only as he is revealed. He produces himself in the world ; or, in the world he becomes objective to himself, and thus self-conscious. The human race is the highest form of the world, and, conse- quently the highest development of God. Men are God as self- conscious. What the Bible says of the Son as being God, one with the Father, his image, &c., is to be understood of the race. God is but the substance or power of which all phenomena are the manifestations. All life is God's life, all action is his acting ; there is no liberty, no sin, no immortality. The race is immortal, but not the individuals ; they succeed each other as the waves of the sea, or the leaves of the forest. This is the worst form of Atheism ; for it not only denies God, but deifies man, and de- stroys all morality in its very principle. Schleiermacher, in his later writings, does not go all these lengths. His system however is founded on the real identity of God and the world, the human and divine.^ It makes creation eternal and necessary. It destroys entirely human liberty and responsibility. It admits nothing as sin except to the con- sciousness and apprehension of the sinner. And the personal immortality of the soul it repudiates ; i. e., his system leads to its rejection ; but out of deference to Christ it is admitted as a fact. With him the divine Being, as such, is the one hidden God ; the Trinity is the manifested God ; the Father is God as manifested in the world ; the Son, God as manifested in Christ ; and the Spirit, God as manifested in the church. With this view of the Trinity a corresponding view of the person of ^ DoRNER, the disciple of Schleiermacher, gives as his reason for associating him with Schelling and Hegel, that " he undoubtedly proceeds on the assumption of the essential unity of God and man, though he did not hold that substantial Panthe- ism in which subjectivity is a mere accident." See his Christologie, p. 487. Schleier- macher was educated a Moravian. His philosophy was pantheistical ; with his philosophy his early religious convictions kept up a continual struggle, and, as it is hoped, ultimately gained the victory. This, however, does not alter the nature of his system. 468 GOD IN CHRIST. Christ is necessarily connected. The world is one manifesta- tion of Grod ; G-od in one form ; the human race a higher mani- festation of God ; which manifestation, imperfect in Adam and his posterity, is perfected in Christ ; the creation begun in the former is completed in the latter. Christ is the ideal man, and, as God and man are one, Christ is God. There are not two natures in Christ, but one only, a divine nature which is truly human. As men are partakers of the imperfect nature of Adam, they are redeemed by partaking of the perfect nature of Christ, and thus the incarnation of God is continued in the church. Hence follows subjective justification, and rejection of the doc- trines of the atonement and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, as majtters of course.^ As Dr. Bushnell adopts Schleiermacher's views of the Trinity, he naturally adopts his doctrine as to the person of ChristJ In Christ there is but one nature ; that nature is divine, " the real divinity f it is also truly human, God in human flesh is a perfect man. He becomes incoi*porated in the history of our race, and thus redemption is effected. All this we have on page 149 and elsewhere. "If God," says our author, "were to inhabit such a vehicle [^. e., a human person,] one so fellow to ourselves aad live himself as a perfect character into the biographic history of the world, a result would follow of as great magnificence as the creation of the world itself, viz. : the incorporation of the divine in the history of the world — so a renovation, at last, of the moral and religious life of the world. If now the human person will express more of God than the whole created uni- verse besides — and it certainly will more of God's feeling and character — and if a motive possessing as great consequence as the creation of the world invites him to do it, is it more extravagant to believe that the Word will become flesh, than that the Word has become, or produced in time a material universe.?" According to this passage : The Word or God be- came a material universe ; {%. e., became objective to himself in the world, we suppose). In the same sense he became flesh and was a " perfect character," or a perfect man. As such he became biographically, historically, or organically (all these expressions are used), connected with our race. The divine was thus ^ Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre §§. 299 — 328. Domer's Christologie (Stuttgart 1839.) pp. 487— 529. GOD IN CHRIST. 469 incorporated in the history of the world ; or in other words, the incarnation of God is continued in the church. This incorpora- tion, or incarnation, is the source of the renovation of the moral and religious life of the world. All this agrees with Schleier- macher to a tittle. In accordance with this same theory are such expressions as the following, which are of frequent occurrence through the work. "The highest glory of the incarnation, viz.: the union signified and historically begun, between God and man." P. 156. Christ is " an integral part, in one view, of the world's history, only bringing into it, and setting into organic union with it, the Eter- nal Life." "God manifested in the flesh — historically united with our race." P. 165 ; and all the other cant phrases of the day, which are designed and adapted to ensnare silly women, male and female. We think we have made out our case. Dr. Bushnell's book, in our poor judgment, is a failure. It pulls down, but does not erect. He attacks and argues against the doctrines of the Trin- ity, Incarnation, and Atonement, and after all acknowledges not only that they are taught in Scripture, but that we are forced by the constitution or necessities of our nature, to conceive of them in their scriptural form. He mixes up in his volume the most incongruous materials. He is Rationalist, Mystic, Pantheist, Christian, by turns, just as the emergency demands. He is ex- travagant to the extreme of paradox. He adopts, on aU the subjects he discusses, the long exploded heresies of fonner centu- ries, and endeavors to cover them all with the gaudy mantle of the new philosophy. His mysticism spoils his rationalism, and his philosophy spoils his mysticism, and is then, in its turn spoiled by having its essential element left out. Instead of a real Trin- ity he gives us a threefold appearance. Instead of Emmanuel, God manifest in the flesh, he gives us a Christ which is either a mere expression thrown on the dark canvas of history, or a be- ing who is neither God nor man. Instead of a true propitiation, he bids us behold a splendid work of art ! These are the doc- trines which, he says, " live in their own majesty," and for which he predicts a triumph which finds its appropriate prefiguration in nothing short of the resurrection of the Son of God ! P. 116. For the honor of our race we hope that such a book as this is not about to turn the world upside down. 470 GODINCHRISr. We have reserved to the close of our review a remark, which was the first to occur to us on a perusal of these Discourses. Dr. Bushnell forgets that there are certain doctrines so settled by the faith of the Church, that they are no longer open questions. They are finally adjudged and determined. If men set aside the Bible, and choose to speak or write as philosophers, tlien of course the way is open for them to teach what they please. But for Christians, who acknowledge the Scriptures as their rule of faith, there are doctrines which they are bound to take as settled beyond all rational or innocent dispute. This may be regarded as a popish sentiment ; as a denial of the right of private judg- ment, or an assertion of the infallibility of the church. It is very far from being either. Does, however, the objector think that the errors of Komanism rest on the thin air, or are mere grotesque forms of unsubstantial vapor ? If this were so, they could have neither permanence nor import. They are aU sustained by an inward truth, which gives them life and power, despite of their deformities. It is as though a perfect statue had been left un- der the calcareous dripping of a cavern, until deformed by in- crustations ; or, as if some exquisite work of art, in church or convent, had been so daubed over by the annual whitewasher, or covered by the dust of centuries, as to escape recognition ; but which, when the superincumbent filth is removed, appears in all its truth and beauty. The truth which underlies and sustains the Komish doctrine as to the authority of the church in matters of faith, is this : The Holy Spirit dwells in the people of God, and leads them to the saving knowledge of divine things : so that those who depart from the faith of God's people, depart from the teachings of the Spirit, and from the source of life. The Romish distortion of this truth is, that the Holy Ghost dwells in the Pope, as the ultramontanists say ; or in the bishops, as the GaUican theologians say, and guides him or them into the infal- lible knowledge of all matters pertaining to faith and practice. They err both as to the subjects and object of this divine guid- ance. They make the rulers of the external church to be its re- cipients, and its object to render them infallible as judges and teachers. Its true subjects are all the sincere people of God, and its object is to make them wise unto salvation. The promise of divine teaching no more secures infallibility than the promise of holiness secures perfection in this hfe. There is, however, such GOD IN CHRIST. 471 a divine teaching, and its eflfect is to bring the children of God, in all parts of the world, and in all ages of the church, to unity of faith. As an historical fact, they have always and every- where agreed in all points of necessary doctrine. And therefore to depart from their faith, in such matters of agreement, is to renounce the gospel. In some cases it may be difficult to deter- mine what the true people of God have in all ages believed. This is an historical fact, which evinces itself more or less dis- tinctly, as all other facts of history do. In many cases, however, there is and can be no reasonable doubt about the matter ; and the doctrines which Dr. Bushnell discusses and discards, viz.: the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, are precisely those in which their agreement is most certain and complete. It is high time, therefore, it should be universally agreed among Christians, that the rejection of these doctrines, as determined by the faith of the church, is the rejection- of Christianity, and should be so regarded and treated. Let sceptics and philosophers teach what they please, or what they dare, but it is surely time to have some certain ground in Christianity ; and to put the brand of universal reprobation on the hypocritical and wicked device of preaching infidelity in a cassock. Dr. Bushnell is like a man who, wearied with the obscurity or monotony of a crowded ship, jumps overboard, determined to scull single-handed his little boat across the ocean. Or, he is like a man who should leave the ark to ride out the deluge on a slimy log. Such madness excites nothing but commiseration, lit is evident Dr. Bushnell does not fully understand himself. He is lost, and therefore, often crosses his own path ; and it is to be hoped that much of the error contained in his book has not got real or permanent possession of his mind. He is a poet, and neither a philosopher nor theologian ; a bright star, which has wandered from its orbit, and which must continue to wander, unless it return and obey the attraction of the great central orb — God's everlasting word. XIV. SLAVERY.^ Every one must be sensible that a very great change has, within a few years, been produced in the feelings, if not in the opinions of the public, in relation to slavery. It is not long since the acknowledgment was frequent at the South and universal at the North, that it was a great evil. It was spoken of in the slaveholding States, as a sad inheritance fixed upon them by the cupidity of the mother-country in spite of their repeated remon- strances. The known sentiments of Jefferson were reiterated again and again in every part of his native State ; and some of the strongest denunciations of this evil, and some of the most ardent aspirations for deliverance from it ever uttered in the country, were pronounced, but a few years since, in the legislature of Virginia. A proposition to call a convention, with the purpose of so amending the constitution of the State as to admit of the general emancipation of the slaves, is said to have failed in the legislature of Kentucky by a single vote.'' The sentiments of the northern States had long since been clearly expressed by the abolition of slave»ry within their limits. That the same opinions and the same feelings continued to prevail among them, may be inferred, not only from the absence of all evidence to the contrary, but from various decisive indications of a positive character. In the year 1828 a resolution was passed by an almost unanimous vote in the legislature of Pennsylvania, instructing their Senators in Congress to endeavor to procure the passage of a law abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. ' Slavery. By "William E. Changing. Boston : James Munroe and Company ; 1835. pp. 166. 2 It is probable that many reasons combined to make a convention desirable to those who voted for it. But to get rid of slavery was said to be one of the most prominent. 474 SLAVERY. In 1829 a similar resolution was adopted by the assembly of New York. In 1828 a petition to this effect was presented to Congress, signed by one thousand inhabitants of the District itself ; and the House of Representatives instructed the proper committee, in 1829, to inquire into the expediency of the measure.' How altered is the present state of the country ! Instead of lamenta- tions and acknowledgments, we hear from the South the strong- est language of justification. And at the North, opposition to the proceedings of the anti-slavery societies seems to be rapidly producing a public feeling in favor of slavery itself. The free- dom of discussion, the liberty of the press, and the right of assembling for consultation, have in some cases been assailed, and in others trampled under foot by popular violence. What has produced this lamentable change ? No doubt, many circum- stances have combined in its production. We think, however, that all impartial observers must acknowledge, that by far the most prominent cause is the conduct of the abolitionists. They, indeed, naturally resist this imputation and endeavor to show its injustice by appealing to the fact that their opinions of slavery have been entertained and expressed by many of the best men of former days. This appeal, however, is by no means satisfac- tory. The evil in question has been produced by no mere ex- pression of opinion. Had the abolitionists confined themselves to their professed object, and endeavored to effect their purpose by arguments addressed to the understandings and consciences of their fellow- citizens, no man could have had any reason to com- plain. Under ordinary circumstances, such arguments as those presented on this subject in Dr. Wayland's Elements of Moral Science, and in Dr. Channing's recent publication, would have been received with respect and kindness in every part of the country. We make this assertion, because the same sentiments, more offensively, and less ably urged, have heretofore been thus received. It is not by argument that the abolitionists have produced the present unhappy excitement. Argument has not been the cha- racteristic of their publications. Denunciations of slaveholding, as man-stealing, robbery, piracy, and worse than murder ; conse- quent vituperation of slaveholders as knowingly guilty of the worst of crimes ; passionate appeals to the feelings of the inhabi- * Jay's Inquiry, pp. 167, 161. SLAVERY. 475 tants of the northern States ; gross exaggeration of the moral and physical condition of the slaves, have formed the staple of their addresses to the public. We do not mean to say that there has been no calm and Christian discussion on the subject. We mean merely to state what has, to the best of our knowledge, been the predominant character of the anti-slavery publications. There is one circumstance which renders the error and guilt of this course of conduct chargeable, in a great measure, on the abolitionists as a body, and even upon those of their number who have pursued a different course. We refer to the fact that they have upheld the most extreme publications, and made common cause with the most reckless declaimers. The wildest ravings of the Liberator have been constantly lauded ; agents have been commissioned whose great distinction was a talent for eloquent vituperation ; coincidence of opinion as to the single point of im- mediate emancipation has been sufficient to unite men of the most discordant character. There is in this conduct such a strange want of adaptation of the means to the end which they profess to have in view, as to stagger the faith of most persons in the sincerity of their professions, who do not consider the ex- tremes to which even good men may be carried, when they allow one subject to take exclusive possession of their minds. We do not doubt their sincerity ; but we marvel at their delusion. They seem to have been led by the mere impulse of feeling, and a blind imitation of their pred(5cessors in England, to a course of mea- sures, which, though rational under one set of circumstances, is the height of infatuation under another. The English abolition- ists addressed themselves to a community, which, though it owned no slaves, had the power to abolish slavery, and was there- fore responsible for its continuance. Their object was to rouse that community to immediate action. For this purpose they ad- dressed themselves to the feelings of the people ; they portrayed in the strongest colors the misery of the slaves ; they dilated on the gratuitous crime of which England was guilty in perpetuating slavery, and did all they could to excite the passions of the pub- lic. This was the very course most likely to succeed, and it did succeed. Suppose, however, that the British parliament had no power over the subject ; that it rested entirely with the colonial assemblies to decide whether slavery should be abolished or not. Does any man believe the abolitionists would have gained their 476 SLAVERY. object ? Did they, in fact, make converts of the planters ? Did they even pretend that such was their design ? Every one knows that their conduct produced a state of ahnost frantic excitement in the West India Islands ; that so far from the public feeling in England producing a moral impression upon the planters favor- able to the condition of the slaves, its eifect was directly the reverse. It excited them to drive away the missionaries, to tear down the chapels, to manifest a determination to rivet still more firmly the chains on their helpless captives, and to resist to the utmost all attempts for their emancipation or even improvement. All this was natural, though it was all, under the circumstances, of no avail, except to rouse the spirit of the mother-country, and to endanger the result of the experiment of emancipation, by exasperating the feelings of the slaves. Precisely similar has been the result of the efforts of the American abolitionists as it regards the slaveholders of America. They have produced a state of alarming exasperation at the South, injurious to the slave and dangerous to the country, while they have failed to enlist the feelings of the North. This failure has resulted, not so much from diversity of opinion on the abstract question of slavery, or from want of sympathy among northern men in the cause of human rights, as from the fact that the common sense of the public has been shocked by the incongruity and folly of hoping to effect the abolition of slavery in one country by addressing the people of another. We do not expect to abolish despotism in Kussia, by getting up indignation meetings in New York. Yet, for all the purposes of legislation on this subject, Russia is not more a foreign country to us than South Carolina. The idea of inducing the southern slaveholder to emancipate his slaves by denuncia- tion, is about as rational as to expect the sovereigns of Europe to grant free institutions, by calling them tyrants and robbers. Could we send our denunciations of despotism among the subjects of those monarchs, and rouse the people to a sense of their wrongs and a determination to redress them, there would be some prospect of success. But our northern abolitionists disclaim, with great earnestness, all intention of allowing their appeals to reach the ears of the slaves. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at, that the course pursued by the anti-slavery societies, should produce exasperation at the South, without conciliating sympathy at the North. The impolicy of their conduct is so obvious, that SLAVERY. 477 men who agree with them as to all their leading principles, not only stand aloof from their measures, but unhesitatingly condemn their conduct. This is the case with Dr. Channing. Although his book was written rather to repress the feehng of opposition to these societies, than to encourage it, yet he fully admits the justice of the principal charges brought against them. We extract a few passages on this subject. " The abolitionists have done wrong, I believe ; nor is their wrong to be winked at, because done fanatically, or with good intentions ; for how much mischief may be wrought with good designs ! They have fallen into the common error of enthusiasts, that of exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt could be compared with that of countenancing and upholding it. The tone of their newspapers, as far as I have seen them, has often been fierce, bitter, and abusive." P. 133. " Another objection to their movement is, that they have sought to accomplish their object by a system or agitation ; that is, by a system of affiliated societies gathered, and held together, and extended, by passionate eloquence." " The abolitionists might have formed an association ; but it should have been an elective one. Men of strong principles, judiciousness, sobriety, should have been carefully sought as members. Much good might have been accomplished by the co-operation of such philanthropists. Instead of this, the abolitionists sent forth their orators, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound the alarm against slavery through the land, to gather together young and old, pupils from schools, female^ hardly arrived at years of discretion, the ignorant, the excitable, the impetuous, and to organize these into associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhappily they preached their doctrine to the colored people, and collected" these into societies. To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute, heart-rending, descriptions of slavery were given in the ])iercing tones of passion ; and slaveholders were held up as monsters of cruelty and crime." P. 136. " The abolitionists often speak of Luther's vehemence as a model to future reform- ers. But who, that has read history, does not know that Luther's reformation was accompanied by tremendous miseries and crimes, and that its progress was soon arrested .^ and is there not reason to fear, that the fierce, bitter, persecuting spirit, which he breathed into the work, not only tarnished its glory, but limited its power ? 478 ' SLAVERY. One great principle which we should lay down as immovably true, is, that if a good work cannot be carried on by the calm, self-controlled, benevolent spirit of Christianity, then the time for doing it has not come. God asks not the aid of our vices. He can overrule them for good, but they are not the chosen in- struments of human happiness/' P. 138. " The adoption of the common system of agitation by the abolitionists has proved signally unsuccessful. From the beginning it created alarm in the considerate, and strengthened the sympathies of the free States with the slaveholder. It made converts of a few individ- uals, but alienated multitudes. Its influence at the South has been evil without mixture. It has stirred up bitter passions and a fierce fanaticism, which has shut every ear and every heart against its arguments and persuasions. These efibrts are the more to be deplored, because the hope of freedom to the slaves lies chiefly in the disposition of his master. The abolitionist indeed proposed to convert the slaveholders ; and for this end he approached them with vituperation and exhausted on them the vocabulary of abuse ! And he has reaped as he sowed." P. 142. Unmixed good or evil, however, in such a world as ours, is a very rare thing. Though the course pursued by the abolitionists has produced a great preponderance of mischief, it may incident- ally occasion no little good. It has rendered it incumbent on every man to endeavor to obtain, and, as far as he can, communi- cate definite opinions and correct principles on the whole subject. The community are very apt to sink down into indifierence to a state of things of long continuance, and to content themselves with vague impressions as to right and wrong on important points, when there is no call for immediate action. From this state the abolitionists have effectually roused the public mind. The sub- ject of slavery is no longer one on which men are allowed to be of no mind at all. The question is brought up before all of our public bodies, civil and religious. Almost every ecclesiastical society has in some way been called to express an opinion on the subject ; and these calls are constantly repeated. Under these circumstances, it is the duty of all in their appropriate sphere, to seek for truth, and to utter it in love. " The first question," says Dr. Channing, " to be proposed by a rational being, is not what is profitable, but what is right. SLAVERY. 479 Duty must be primary, prominent, most conspicuous, among the objects of human thought and pursuit. If we cast it down from its supremacy, if we inquire first for our interests and then for our duties, we shall certainly err. We can never see the right clearly and fully, but by making it our first concern. *^ * * Eight is the supreme good, and includes all other goods. In seeking and adhering to it, we secure our true and only happi- ness. All prosperity, not founded on it, is built on sand. II human affairs are controlled, as we believe, by almighty rectitude and impartial goodness, then to hope for happiness from wrong doing is as insane as to seek health and" prosperity by rebelling against the law of nature, by sowing our seed on the ocean, or making poison our common food. There is but one unfailing good ; and that is, fidelity to the everlasting law written on the heart, and re-written and re-published in God's word. " Whoever places this faith in the everlasting law of rectitude must, of course, regard the question of slavery, first, and chiefly, as a moral question. All other considerations will weigh little with him compared with its moral character and moral influences. The following remarks, therefore, are designed to aid the reader in forming a just moral judgment of slavery. Great truths, inalienable rights, everlasting duties, these will form the chief subjects of this discussion. There are times when the assertion of great principles is the best service a man can render society. The present is a moment of bewildering excitement, when men's minds are stormed and darkened by strong passions and fierce conflicts ; and also a moment of absorbing worldliness, when the moral law is madp to bow to expediency, and its high and strict requirements are decried or dismissed as metaphysical abstractions, or impracticable theories. At such a season to utter great princi- ples without passion, and in the spirit of unfeigned and universal good will, and to engrave them deeply and durably on men's minds, is to do more for the world, than to open mines of wealth, or to frame the most successful schemes of policy." No man can refuse assent to these principles. The great question, therefore, in relation to slavery is, what is right ? What are the moral principles which should control our opinions and conduct in regard to it ? Before attempting an answer to this question, it is proper to remark, that we recognize no authorita- tive rule of truth and duty but the word of God. Plausible as 480 SLAVERY. may be the arguments deduced from general principles to prove a thing to be true or false, right and wrong, there is almost always room for doubt and honest diversity of opinion. Clear as we may think the arguments against despotism, there ever have been thousands of enlightened and good men, who honestly be- lieve it to be of all forms of government the best and most acceptable to God. Unless we can approach the consciences of men, clothed with some more imposing authority than that of our own opinions and arguments, we shall gain little permanent influ- ence. Men are too nearly upon a par as to their powers of reasoning, and ability to discover truth, to make the conclusions of one mind an authoritative rule for others. It is our object, therefore, not to discuss the subject of slavery upon abstract prin- ciples, but to ascertain the scriptural rule of judgment and con- duct in relation to it. We do not intend to enter upon any minute or extended examination of scriptural passages, because all that we wish to assume, as to the meaning of the word of God, is so generally admitted as to render the labored proof of it unnecessary. It is on all hands acknowledged that, at the time of the advent of Jesus Christ, slavery in its worst forms prevailed over the whole world. The Saviour found it around him in Judea ; the apostles met with it in Asia, Greece, and Italy. How did they treat it ? Not by the denunciation of slaveholding as necessarily and universally sinful. Not by declaring that all slaveholders were men- stealers and robbers, and consequently to be excluded from the church and the kingdom of heaven. Not by insisting on imme- diate emancipation. Not by appeals to the passions of men on the evils of slavery, or by the adoption of a system of universal agitation. On the contrary, it was by teaching the true nature, dignity, equality, and destiny of men ; by inculcating the princi- ples of justice and love ; and by leaving these principles to produce their legitimate effects in ameliorating the condition of all classes of society. We need not stop to prove that such was the course pursued by our Saviour and his apostles, because the fact is in general acknowledged, and various reasons are assigned, by abolitionists and others, to account for it. The subject is hardly alluded to by Christ in any of his personal instructions. The apostles refer to it, not to pronounce upon it as a question of morals, but to prescribe the relative duties of masters and SLAVERY. 481 slaves. They caution those slaves who have believmg or Chris- tian masters, not to despise them because they were on a perfect religious equality with them, but to consider the fact that their masters were their brethren, as an additional reason for obedi- ence. It is remarkable that there is not even an exhortation to masters to liberate their slaves, much less is it urged as an im- perative and immediate duty. They are commanded to be kind, merciful, and just ; and to remember that they have a Master in heaven. Paul represents this relation as of comparatively little account, " Let every man abide in the same calHng wherein he wassailed. Art thou called being a servant (or slave) care not for it ; though, should the opportunity of freedom be presented, embrace it. These external relations, however, are of little im- portance, for every Christian is a freeman in the highest and best sense of the word, and at the same time is under the strongest bonds to Christ." 1 Cor. vii. 20-22. It is not worth while to shut our eyes to these facts. They will remain, whether we refuse to see them and be instructed by them or not. If we are wiser, better, more courageous than Christ and his apostles, let us say so ; but it will do no good, under a paroxysm of benevolence, to attempt to tear the Bible to pieces, or to extort by violent exe- gesis, a meaning foreign to its obvious sense. Whatever inferences may be fairly deducible from the fact, the fact itself cannot be denied that Christ and his inspired followers did treat the subject of slavery in the manner stated above. This being the case, we ought carefully to consider their conduct in this respect, and in- quire what lessons that conduct should teach us. We think no one wiU deny that the plan adopted by the Saviour and his immediate followers must be the correct plan, and therefore obligatory upon us, unless it can be shown that their circumstances were so different from ours, as to make the rule of duty different in the two cases. The obligation to point out and establish this difference, rests of course upon those who have adopted a course diametrically the reverse of that which Christ pursued. They have not acquitted themselves of this obligation. They do not seem to have felt it necessary to reconcile their con- duct with his ; nor does it appear to have occurred to them, that their violent denunciations of slaveholding, and of slaveholders, is an indirect reflection on his wisdom, virtue, or courage. If the present course of the abolitionists is right, then the course of 31 ^i82 SLAVERY. Christ and the apostles was wrong. For the circumstances of the two cases are, as far as we can see, in all essential particulars, the same. They appeared as teachers of morality and religion, not politicians. The same is the fact with our abolitionists. They found slavery authorized by the laws of the land. So do we. They were called upon to receive into the communion of the Christian church, both slaveholders and slaves. So are we. They instructed these different classes of persons as to their re- spective duties. So do we. Where, then, is the difference between the two cases ? If we are right in insisting that slave- holding is one of the greatest of all sins ; that it should be immediately and universally abandoned as a condition of church communion, or admission into heaven, how comes it that Christ and his apostles did not pursue the same course ? We see no way of escape from the conclusion that the conduct of the modern abolitionists, being directly opposed to that of the authors of our religion, must be wrong and ought to be modified or abandoned. An equally obvious deduction from the fact above referred to, is, that slaveholding is not necessarily sinful. The assumption of the contrary is the great reason why the modern abolitionists have adopted their peculiar course. They argue thus : Slavehold- ing is, under all circumstances sinful, it must, therefore, under all circumstances, and at all hazards, be immediately abandoned. This reasoning is perfectly conclusive. If there is error any where, it is in the premises, and not in the conclusion. It re- quires no argument to show that sin ought to be at once abandoned. Every thing, therefore, is conceded which the abolitionists need require, when it is granted that slaveholding is itself a crime. But how can this assumption be reconciled with the conduct of Christ and the apostles ? Did they shut their eyes to the enormities of a great offence against God and man ? Did they temporize with a heinous evil, because it was common and popular ? Did they abstain from even exhorting masters to emancipate their slaves, though an imperative duty, from fear of consequences ? Did they admit the perpetrators of the greatest crimes to the Chris- tian communion ? Who will undertake to charge the blessed Kedeemer, and his inspired followers, with such connivance at sin, and such fellowship with iniquity .? Were drunkards, murderers, liars, and adulterers thus treated ? Were they passed over without 1 SLAVERY. 483 even an exhortation to forsake their sins ? Were they recognized as Christians ? It cannot be that slaveholding belongs to the same category with these crimes ; and to assert the contrary is ta...- assert that Christ is the minister of sin. > This is a poiiitDf so much importance, lying as it does at the \ very foundation of the whole subject, that it deserves to be at- tentively considered. The grand mistake, as we apprehend, of those who maintain that slaveholding is itself a crime, is, that they do not discriminate between slaveholding in itself consid- ered, and its accessories at any particular time or place. Because masters may treat their slaves unjustly, or governments make oppressive laws in relation to them, is no more a valid argument against the lawfulness of slaveholding, than the abuse of parental authority, or the unjust political laws of certain States, is an argument against the lawfulness of the parental relation, or of civil government. This confusion of points so widely distinct, appears to us to run through almost all the popular publications on slavery, and to vitiate their arguments. Mr. Jay, for example, quotes the second article of the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which declares that " slavery is a heinous crime in the sight of God," and then, to justify this declaration, makes large citations from the laws of the several southern States, to show what the system of slavery is in this country, and con- cludes by saying, " This is the system which the American Anti- Slavery Society declares to be sinful, and ought therefore to be immediately abolished." There is, however, no necessary con- nexion between his premises and conclusion. We may admit all those laws which forbid the instruction of slaves ; which inter- fere with their marital or parental rights ; which subject them to the insults and oppression of the whites, to be in the highest de- gree unjust, without at all admitting that slaveholding itself is a crime. Slavery may exist without any one of these concomitants. In pronouncing on the moral character of an act, it is obviously necessary to have a clear idea of what it is ; yet how few of those who denounce slavery, have any well defined conception of its nature. They have a confused idea of chains and whips, of degra- dation and misery, of ignorance and vice, and to this complex conception they apply the name slavery, and denounce it as the aggregate of all moral and physical evil. Do such persons sup- pose that slavery, as it existed in the family of Abraham, was 484 SLAVERY. such as their imagination thus pictures to themselves ? Might not that patriarch have had men purchased with his silver, who were well clothed, well instructed, well compensated for their labor, and in all respects treated with parental kindness ? Neither inadequate remuneration, physical discomfort, intellectual ignorance, nor moral degradation, is essential to the condition of a slave. Yet if all these ideas are removed from the commonly re- ceived notion of slavery, how little will remain. Alt the ideas which necessarily enter into the definition of slavery are depriva- tion of personal liberty, obligation of service at the discretion of another, and the transferable character of the authority and claim of service of the master.^ The manner in which men are brought into this condition ; its continuance, and the means adopted for securing the authority and claims of masters, are all incidental and variable. They may be reasonable or unreason- able, just or unjust, at different times and places. The question, therefore, which the abolitionists have undertaken to decide, is not whether the laws enacted in the slaveholding States, in re- lation to this subject, are just or not, but whether slaveholding, in itself considered, is a crime. The confusion of these two points, has not only brought the abolitionists into conflict with the Scriptures, but it has, as a necessary consequence, prevented their gaining the confidence of the North, or power over the conscience of the South. When southern Christians are told that they are guilty of a heinous crime, worse than piracy, robbery, or murder, because they hold slaves, when they know that Christ and his apostles never denounced slaveholding as a crime, never called upon men to renounce it as a condition of admission into the church, they are shocked and offended, without being con- vinced. They are sure that their accusers cannot be wiser or better than their divine Master, and their consciences are un- touched by denunciations which they know, if well founded, must affect not them only, but the authors of the religion of the Bible. The argument from the conduct of Christ and his immediate followers seems to us decisive on the point, that slaveholding, in itself considered, is not a crime. Let us see how this argument ' Paley's definition is still more simple, "I define," he says, "slavery to be an obligation to labor'for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant." — Moral Philosophy, Book III., ch. 3. SLAVERY. 485 has been answered. In the able " Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky, proposing a plan for the instruction and emancipa- tion of their slaves, by a committee of the Synod of Kentucky/' there is a strong and extended argument to prove the sinfulness of slavery as it exists among us, to which we have little to object. When, however, the distinguished drafter of that address comes to answer the objection, " God's word sanctions slavery, and it cannot therefore be sinful," he forgets the essential limita- tion of the proposition which he had undertaken to establish, and proceeds to prove that the Bible condemns slaveholding, and not merely the kind or system of slavery which prevails in this country. The argument drawn from the Scriptures, he says, needs no elaborate reply. If the Bible sanctions slavery, it sanc- tions the kind of slavery which then prevailed ; the atrocious system which authorized masters to starve their slaves, to torture them, to beat them, to put them to death, and to throw them into their fish ponds. And he justly asks, whether a man could insult the God of heaven worse than by saying he does not disapprove of such a system ? Dr. Channing presents strongly the same view, and says, that an infidel would be laboring in his vocation in asserting that the Bible does not condemn slavery. These gentlemen, however, are far too clear-sighted not to discover, on a moment's reflection, that they have allowed their benevolent feel- ings to blind them to the real point at issue. No one denies that the Bible condemns all injustice, cruelty, oppression and violence. And just so far as the laws tlien existing authorized these crimes,^ the Bible condemned them. But what stronger argument can be / presented to prove that the sacred writers did not regard slave- holding as in itself sinful, than that while they condemn all unjust or unkind treatment (even threatening) on the part of masters towards their slaves, they did not condemn slavery itself ? ^ While they required the master to treat his slave according to? the law of love, they did not command him to set him free. The very atrocity, therefore, of the system which then prevailed, in- stead of weakening the argument, gives it tenfold strength. Then, if ever, when the institution was so fearfully abused, we might expect to hear the interpreters of the divine will saying that a system which leads to such results is the concentrated es- sence of aU crimes, and must be instantly abandoned on pain of eternal condemnation. This, however, they did not say, and we 486 SLAVERY. cannot now force them to say it. They treated the subject pre- cisely as they did the cruel despotism of the Koman emperors. The licentiousness, the injustice, the rapine and murders of those wicked men, they condemned with the full force of divine author- ity ; but the mere extent of their power, though so liable to abuse, they left unnoticed. Another answer to the argument in question is, that "the New Testament does not condemn slaveholding as practiced among us, in the most explicit terms furnished by the language in which the sacred penmen wrote."' This assertion is supported by saying that God has condemned slavery, because he has speci- fied the parts which compose it and condemned them, one by one, in the most ample and unequivocal form.^ It is to be remarked that the saving clause " slaveholding as it exists among us," is introduced into the statement, though it seems to be lost sight of in the illustration and confirmation of it which follow. We readily admit, that if God does condemn all the parts of which slavery consists, he condemns slavery itself But the drafter of the address has made no attempt to prove that this is actually done in the sacred Scriptures. That many of the attributes of the system, as established by law in this country, are condemned, is indeed very plain ; but that slaveholding in itself is condemned, has not been and cannot be proved. The writer, indeed, says, " The Greek language had a word corresponding exactly, in signification with our word servant, but it had none which answered precisely to our term slave. How then was an apostle, writing in Greek, to condemn our slavery ? How can we expect to find in Scripture, the words ^ slavery is sinful,' when the lan- guage in which it is written contained no term which expressed the tneaning of our word slavery ?" Does the gentleman mean to say the Greek language could not express the idea that slave- holding is sinful ? Could not the apostles have communicated the thought that it was the duty of masters to set their slaves free ? Were they obliged from paucity of words to admit slave- holders into the church ? We have no doubt the writer himself could, with all ease, pen a declaration in the Greek language void of all ambiguity, proclaiming freedom to every slave upon earth, and denouncing the vengeance of heaven upon every man who dared to hold a fellow-creature in bondage. It is not words we * Address, &c., p. 20. SLAVERY. 487 care for. We want evidence that the sacred writers taught that it was incumbent on every slaveholder, as a matter of duty, to emancipate his slaves (which no Roman or Greek law forbade), and that his refusing to do so was a heinous crime in the sight of God. The Greek language must be poor indeed if it cannot con- vey such ideas. Another answer is given by Dr. Channing. " Slavery," he says, " in the age of the apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately interwoven with it, and the materials of servile war were so abundant, that a religion, preaching freedom to its vic- tims, would have armed against itself the whole power of the State. Of consequence Paul did not assail it. He satisfied him- self with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its destruction." To the same effect. Dr. Wayland says, " The gospel was designed, not for one race or one time, but for all men and for all times. It looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for this age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence the important object of its author was to gain it a lodge- ment in every part of the known world ; so that, by its universal diffusion among all classes of society, it might quietly and peace- fully modify and subdue the evil passions of men ; and thus, without violence, work a revolution in the whole mass of man- kind. In this manner alone could its object, a universal moral revolution, be accomplished. For if it had forbidden the evil with- out subduing the principle, if it had proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught slaves to resist the oppression of their masters, it would instantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized world ; its announcement would have been the signal of a servile war ; and the very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the agitations of universal bloodshed. The fact, under these circum- stances, that the gospel does not forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose that it does not mean to prohibit it, much less does it afford ground for belief that Jesus Christ intended to autho- rize it."^ Before considering the force of this reasoning, it may be well to notice one or two important admissions contained in these ex- tracts. First, then, it is admitted by these distinguished moralists, that the apostles did not preach a religion proclaiming freedom * Elements of Moral Science, p. 225. 4ftf^ SLAVEBY. to slaves ; that Paul did not assail slaveiy ; that the gospel did not proclaim the unlawfulness of slaveholding ; it did not forbid it. This is going the whole length that we have gone in our state- ment of the conduct of Christ and his apostles. Secondly, these writers admit that the course adopted by the authors of our re- ligion was the only wise and proper one. Paul satisfied himself, says Dr. Channing, with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its destruction. Dr. Wa viand says, that if the apostles had pursued the opposite plan of denouncing slavery as a crime, the Christian religion would have been ruined ; its very name would have been forgotten. Then how can the course of the modern abolitionists, under circumstances so nearly similar, or even that of these reverend gentlemen themselves, be right ? Why do not they content themselves with doing what Christ and his apostles did ? Why must they proclaim the un- lawfulness of slavery ? Is human nature so much altered, that a course, which would have produced universal bloodshed, and led to the very destruction of the Christian religion, in one age, is wise and Christian in another ? Let us, however, consider the force of the argument as stated above. It amounts to this. Christ and his apostles thought slaveholding a great crime, but they abstained from saying so for fear of the consequences. The very statement of the argument, in its naked form, is its refutation. The apostles did not refrain from condenming sin from a regard to consequences. They did not hesitate to array against the reHgion which they taught, the strongest passions of men. Nor did they content themselves with denouncing the general principles of evil ; they condemned its special manifestations. They did not simply forbid intemper- ate sensual indulgence, and leave it to their hearers to decide what did or what did not come under that name. They declared that no fornicator, no adulterer, no drunkard, could be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. They did not hesitate, even when a lit- tle band, a hundred and twenty souls, to place themselves in direct and irreconcilable opposition to the whole polity, civil and religious, of the Jewish state. It will hardly be maintained that slavery was, at that time, more intimately interwoven with the institutions of society, than idolatry was. It entered into the wrangements of every family ; of every city and province, and of the whole Roman empire. The emperor was the Pontifex SLAVERY. 489 Maximus ; every department of the state, civil and military, was pervaded by it. It was so united with the fabric of the gov- ernment that it could not be removed without effecting a revolu- tion in all its parts. The apostles knew this. They knew that to denounce polytheism was to array against them the whole power of the State. Their divine Master had distinctly apprized them of the result. He told them that it would set the father against the son, and the son against the father ; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, and that a man's enemies should be those of his own household. He said that he came not to bring peace but a sword, and that such would be the opposition to his followers, that whosoever killed them, would think he did God service. Yet in view of these certain consequences, the apostles did denounce idolatry, not merely in principle, but by name. The result was precisely what Christ had foretold. The Romans, tolerant of every other re- ligion, bent the whole force of their wisdom and arms to extirpate Christianity. The scenes of bloodshed, which century after cen- tury followed the introduction of the gospel, did not induce the fol- lowers of Christ to keep back or modify the truth. They adhered to their declaration that idolatry was a heinous crime. And they were right. We expect similar conduct of our missionaries. We do not expect them to refrain from denouncing the institu- tions of the heathen, as sinful, because they are popular, or intimately interwoven with society. The Jesuits, who adopted this plan, forfeited the confidence of Christendom, without making converts of the heathen. It is, therefore, perfectly evident that the authors of our religion were not withheld by these considera- tions, from declaring slavery to be unlawful. If they did abstain from this declaration, as is admitted, it must have been because they did not consider it as in itself a crime. No other solution of their conduct is consistent with their truth or fidehty. Another answer to the argument from Scripture is given by Dr. Channing and others. It is said that it proves too much ; that it makes the Bible sanction despotism, even the despotism of Nero. Our reply to this objection shall be very brief. We have already pointed out the fallacy of confounding slaveholding itself with the particular system of slavery prevalent at the time of Christ, and shown that the recognition of slaveholders as Christians, though irreconcilable with the assumption that slavery 490 SLAVERY. is a heinous crime, gives no manner of sanction to the atrocious laws and customs of that age in relation to that subject. Be- cause the apostles admitted the masters of slaves to the com- munion of the church, it would be a strange inference that they would have given this testimony to the Christian character' of the master who oppressed, starved, or murdered his slaves. Such a master would have been rejected as an oppressor, or mur- derer, however, not as a slaveholder. In like manner, the decla- ration that government is an ordinance of God, that magistrates are to be obeyed within the sphere of their lawful authority ; that resistance to them, when in the exercise of that authority, is sinful,' gives no sanction to the oppression of the Koman em- perors, or to the petty vexations of provincial officers. The argu- ment urged from Scripture in favor of passive submission, is not so exactly parallel with the argument for slavery, as Dr. Chan- ning supposes. They agree in some points, but they differ in others. The former is founded upon a false interpretation of Rom. xiii. 1-3 ; it supposes that passage to mean what it does not mean, whereas the latter is founded upon the sense which Dr. C. and other opponents of slavery, admit to be the true sense. This must be allowed to alter the case materially. Again, the argument for the lawfulness of slaveholding, is not founded on the mere injunction, " Slaves, obey your masters," analogous to the command, " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers," but on the fact that the apostles did not condemn slavery ; that they did not require emancipation, and that they recognized slaveholders as Christian brethren. To make Dr. Channing's argument of any force, it must be shown that Paul not only en- joined obedience to a despotic monarch, but that he recognized Nero as a Christian. When this is done, then we shall admit that our argument is fairly rnet, and that it is just as true that he sanctioned the conduct of Nero as that he acknowledged the law- fulness of slavery. * It need hardly be remarked that the command to obey magistrates, as given in Rom xiii. 1-3, is subject to the limitation stated above. They are to be obeyed as magistrates ; precisely as parents are to be obeyed as parents, husbands as husbands. The command of obedience is expressed as generally, in the last two cases, as in the first. A magistrate beyond the limits of his lawful authority (whatever that may be) has, in virtue of this text, no more claim to obedience, than a parent who, on the strength of the passage " Children obey your parents in all things," should command his son to obey him as a monarch or a pope. SLAVERY. 491 The two cases, however, are analogous as to one important point. The fact that Paul enjoins obedience under a despotic government, is a valid argument to prove, not that he sanctioned^ the conduct of the reigning Koman emperor, but that he did not >\^ consider the possession of despotic power a crime. The argument ^ of Dr. C. would be far stronger, and the two cases more exactly parallel, had one of the emperors become a penitent believer during the apostolic age, and been admitted to the Christian church by inspired men, notwithstanding the fact that he retained his office and authority. But even without this latter decisive circum- stance, we acknowledge that the mere holding of despotic power is proved not to be a crime by the fact that the apostles enjoined obedience to those who exercised it. Thus far the arguments are analogous ; and they prove that both political despotism and domestic slavery, belong in morals to the adiaphora, to things indifferent. They may be expedient or inexpedient, right or wrong according to circumstances. Belonging to the same class, they should be treated in the same way. Neither is to be denounced as necessarily sinful, and to be abolished immediately under all circumstances and at all hazards. Both should be left to the operation of those general principles of the gospel, which have peacefully ameliorated political institutions, and destroyed domestic slavery throughout the greater part of Christendom. The truth on this subject is so obvious that it sometimes escapes unconsciously from the lips of the most strenuous abolition- ists. Mr. Birney says, " He would have retained the power and authority of an emperor ; yet his oppressions, his cruelties would have ceased ; the very temper that prompted them would have been suppressed ; his power would have been put forth for good and not for evil."^ Here everything is conceded. The possession of despotic power is thus admitted not to be a crime, even when it extends over millions of men, and subjects their lives as well as their property and services to the will of an individual. What becomes then of the arguments and denunciation of slavehold- ing, which is despotism on a small scale ? Would Mr. Birney continue in the deliberate practice of a crime worse than rob- bery, piracy, or murder ? When he penned the above sentiment, he must have seen that neither by the law of God nor of reason is it necessarily sinful to sustain the relation of master over our * Quoted by President Young, p. 45 of the Address, &c. xt \ ^ SLAVERY. fellow- creatures ; that if this unlimited authority be used for the good of those over whom it extends and for the glory of God, its possessor may be one of the best and most useful of men. It is the abuse of this power for base and selfish purposes which con- stitutes criminality, and not its simple possession. He may say that the tendency to abuse absolute power is so great that it ought never to be confided to the hands of men. This, as a general rule, is no doubt true, and establishes the inexpediency of all despotic governments whether for the state or the family. But it leaves the morality of the question just where it was, and where it was seen to be, when Mr. Birney said he could with a good conscience be a Eoman emperor, i. e., the master of millions of slaves. The consideration of the Old Testament economy leads us to the same conclusion on this subject. It is not denied that slavery was tolerated among the ancient people of God. Abraham had servants in his family who were " bought with his money." Gen. xvii. 13. " Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men servants, and maid servants, and gave them unto Abraham." Moses, find- ing this institution among the Hebrews and all surrounding nations, did not abolish it. He enacted laws directing how slaves were to be treated, on what conditions they were to be liberated, under what circumstances they might and might not be sold ; he recognizes the distinction between slaves and hired servants. (Deut. XV. 18) ; he speaks of the way by which these bondmen might be procured ; as by war, by purchase, by the right of creditorship, by the sentence of a judge, by birth ; but not by seizing on those who were free, an offence punished by death.' The fact that the Mosaic institutions recognized the lawfulness of slavery is a point too plain to need proof, and is almost univer- sally admitted. Our argument from this acknowledged fact is, that if God allowed slavery to exist, if he directed how slaves might be lawfully acquired, and how they were to be treated, it is in vain to contend that slaveholding is a sin, and yet profess reverence for the Scriptures. Every one must feel that if perjury, * On the maimer in which slaves were acquired, compare Deut. xx. 14 ; xxi. 10, 11. Ex. xxii. 3. Neh. V. 4, 5. Gen.xiv. 14; xv. 3 ; xvii. 23. Num. xxxi. 18, 35. Deut. xxv. 44-46. As to the manner in which they were to be treated, see Lev. xxv. 39-<53. Ex. xx. 10; xxii. 2-8. Deut xxv. 4-6, &c., &C. SLAVERY. murder, oi idolatry had been thus authorized, it would bring the Mosaic institutions into conflict with the eternal principles of morals, and that our faith in the divine origin of one or the other must be given up. Dr. Cbanning says of this argument also, that it proves too much. " If usages, sanctioned under the Old Testament, and not forbidden under the New, are right, than our moral code will undergo a sad deterioration. Polygamy was allowed to the Israelites, was the practice of the holiest men, and was common and licensed in the age of the apostles. But the apostles no where condemn it, nor was the renunciation of it made an essen- tial condition of admission into the Christian church." To this we answer, that so far as polygamy and divorce were permitted under the old dispensation, they were lawful, and became so by that permission ; and they ceased to be lawful when the permis- sion was withdrawn, and a new law given. That Christ did give a new law on this subject is abundantly evident.^ With regard to divorce, it is as explicit as language can make it ; and with regard to polygamy it is so plain as to have secured the assent of every portion of the Christian church in all ages. The very fact that there has been no diversity of opinion or practice among Chris- tians with regard to polygamy, is itself decisive evidence that the will of Christ was clearly revealed on the subject. The tempta- tion to continue the practice was as strong, both from the passions of men, and the sanction of prior ages, as in regard to slavery. Yet we find no traces of the toleration of polygamy in the Chris- tian church, though slavery long continued to prevail. There is no evidence that the apostles admitted to the fellowship of Chris- tians, those who were guilty of this infraction of the law of marriage. It is indeed possible that in cases where the converts had already more than one wife, the connexion was not broken off. It is evident this must have occasioned great evil. It would * " The words of Christ (Matt. xix. 9) may be construed by an easy implication to prohibit polygamy : for if * whoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another committeth adultery/ he who marrieth another, without putting away the first, is no less guilty of adultery : because the adultery does not consist in the repudiation of the first wife (for, however unjust and cruel that may be, it is not adultery), but en- tering into a second marriage during the legal existence and obHgation of the first The several passages in St. Paul's writings, which speak of marriage, always suppose it to signify the union of one man with one woman." — Paley's Moral Philosophy, Book III. Chap. 6. 494 SLAVERY. lead to the breaking up of families, the separation of parents and children, as well as husbands and wives. Under these circum- stances the connexion may have been allowed to continue. It is, however, very doubtful whether even this was permitted.* It is remarkable that among the numerous cases of conscience con- nected with marriage, submitted to the apostles, this never OCCHIB. Dr. Channing uses language much too strong when he says that polygamy was common and licensed in the days of the apostles. It was contrary both to Roman and Grecian laws and usages until the most degenerate periods of the history of those nations. It was very far from being customary among the Jews, though it might have been allowed. It is probable that it was, therefore, comparatively extremely rare in the apostolic age. This accounts for the fact that scarcely any notice is taken of the practice in the New Testament. Wherever marriage is spoken of, it seems to be taken for granted, as a well understood fact, that it was a contract for Life between one man and one woman ; compare Rom. vii. 2, 3 ; 1 Cor. vii. 1, 2, 29. It is further to be remarked on this subject, that marriage is a positive institution. If God had ordained that every man should have two or more wives, instead of one, polygamy would have been lawful. But slaveholding is denounced as a Tnalum in se; as essentially unjust and wicked. This being the case, it could at no period of the world receive the divine sanction, much less could it have con- tinued in the Christian church under the direction of inspired men, when there was nothing to prevent its immediate abolition. The answer, then, of Dr. Channing is unsatisfactory, first, be- cause polygamy does not belong to the same category in morals as that to which slaveholding is aflS.rmed to belong ; and secondly, because it was so plainly prohibited by Christ and his apostles as to secure the assent of all Christians in all ages of the church. It is, however, argued that slavery must be sinful because it interferes with the inalienable rights of men. We have already remarked, that slavery, in itself considered, is a state of bondage, * As monogamy waa the original law of marriage, as it was expressly enjoined by Christ, as every man who entered the Christian church promised to obey the law of Christ, it is to us inconceivable that the apostles admitted polygamists to their com- Humion. Neither the New Testament nor ecclesiastical history furnishes any evidence that they did so. SLAVERY. 495 and nothing more. It is the condition of an individual who is deprived of his personal liberty, and is obliged to labor for another, who has the right to transfer this claim of service, at pleasure. That this condition involves the loss of many of the rights which are commonly and property called natural, because belonging to men, as men, is readily admitted. It is, however, incumbent on those who maiutain that slavery is, on that account, necessarily sinful, to show that it is criminal, imder aU circumstances, to de- prive any set of men of a portion of their natural rights. That t^iTlbroad proposition cannot be maintained is evident. The very constitution of society supposes the forfeiture of a greater or less amount of these rights, according to its pecuHar organiza- tion. That it is not only the privilege, but the duty of men to live together in a regularly organized society, is evident from the nature which Grod has given us ; from the impossibility of every man living by and for himself, and from the express declarations of the word of Grod. The object of the formation of society is the promotion of human virtue and happiness ; and the form in wlucli it should be organized, is that which will best secure the attainment of that object. As, however, the condition of men is so very various, it is impossible that the same form should be equally conducive to happiness and virtue under all circumstan- ces. No one form, therefore, is prescribed in the Bible, or is universally obligatory. The question, which form is, under given circumstances, to be adopted, is one of great practical difficulty, and must be left to the decision of those who have the power to decide on their own responsibility. The question, however, does not depend upon the degree in which these several forms may en- croach on the natural rights of men. In the patriarchal age, the most natural, the most feasible, and perhaps the most beneficial form of government was by the head of the family. His power by the law of nature, and the necessity of the case, extended without any other limit than the general principles of morals, over his children, and in the absence of other regular authority, would not terminate when the children arrived at a particular age, but be continued dming life. He was the natural umpire between his adult offspring, he was their lawgiver and leader. His authority would naturally extend over his more remote de- scendants, as they continued to increase, and on his death, might devolve on the next oldest of the family. There is surely noth- 496 SLAVERY. ing in thi» mode of constituting society which is necessarily immoral. If found to be conducive to the general good, it might be indefinitely continued. It would not suffice to render its abrogation obligatory, to say that all men are born free and equal ; that the youth of twenty-one had as good a right to have a voice in the affairs of the family as the aged patriarch ; that the right of self-government is indefeasible, &c. Unless it could be shown that the great end of society was not attainable by this mode of organization, and that it would be more securely pro- moted by some other, it would be an immorality to require or to effect the change. And if a change became, in the course of time, obviously desirable, its nature and extent would be ques- tions to be determined by the peculiar circumstances of the case, and not by the rule of abstract right. Under some circum- stances it might be requisite to confine the legislative power to a single individual ; under others to the hands of a few ; and un- der others to commit it to the whole community. It would be absurd to maintain, on the ground of the natural equality of men, that a horde of ignorant and vicious savages, should be organized as a pure democracy, if experience taught that such a form of government was destructive to themselves and others. These different modes of constituting civil society are not neces- sarily either just or unjust, but become the one or the other according'to circumstances ; and their morality is not determined by the degree in which they encroach upon the natural rights of men, but on the degree in which they promote or retard the prog- ress of human happiness and virtue. In this country we believe that the general good requires us to deprive the whole female sex of the right of self-government. They have no voice in the for- mation of the laws which dispose of their persons and property. When married, we despoil them almost entirely of a legal exist- ence, and deny them some of the most essential rights of property. We treat all minors much in the same way, depriving them of many personal and almost all political rights, and that too though they may be far more competent to exercise them aright than many adults. We, moreover, decide that a majority of one may make laws for the whole community, no matter whether the numerical majority have more wisdom or virtue than the minor- ity or not. Our plea for all this is, that the good of the whole is thereby most effectually promoted. This plea, if made out, SLAVERY. 497 justifies the case. In England and France they believe that the good of the whole requires that the right of governing, instead of being restricted to all adult males, as we arbitrarily deter- mine, should be confined to that portion of the male population who hold a given amount of property. In Prussia and Russia, they believe, with equal confidence, that public security and hap- piness demand that aU power should be in the hands of the king. If they are right in their opinion, they are right in their practice. The principle that social and political organizations are designed for the general good, of course requires they should be allowed to change, as the progress of society may demand. It is very possible that the feudal system may have been well adapted to the state of Europe in the middle ages. The change in the condition of the world, however, has gradually obliterated almost all its features. The villain has become the independent farmer ; the lord of the manor, the simple landlord ; and the sovereign liege, in whom, according to the fiction of the system, the fee of the whole country vested, has become a constitutional monarch. It may be that another series of changes may convert the tenant into an owner, the lord into a rich commoner, and the monarch into a president. Though these changes have resulted in giving the people the enjoyment of a larger portion of their rights than they formerly possessed, it is not hence to be inferred that they ought centuries ago to have been introduced suddenly or by vio- lence. Christianity " operates as an alterative." It was never designed to tear up the institutions of society by the roots. It produces equality not by prostrating trees of all sizes to the ground, but by securing to all the opportunity of growing, and by causing all to grow, until the original disparity is no longer perceptible. All attempts, by human wisdom, to frame society, of a sudden, after a pattern cut by the rule of abstract rights, have failed ; and whether they had failed or not, they can never be urged as a matter of moral obligation. It is not enough there- fore, in order to prove the sinfulness of slaveholding, to show that it interferes with the natural rights of a portion of the commu- nity. It is in this respect analogous to all other social institu- tions. They are all of them encroachments on human rights, from the freest democracy to the most absolute despotism. It is further to be remarked that all these rights suppose cor- responding duties, and where there is an incompetence for the 32 498 SLAVERY. duty they claim to exercise, the light ceases. No man can justly claim the exercise of any right to the injury of the community of which he is a member. It is because females and minors are / judged (though for different reasons), incompetent to the proper i/ discharge of the duties of citizenship, that they are deprived of the right of suffrage. It is on the same principle that a large portion of the inhabitants of France and England are deprived of the same privilege. As it is acknowledged that the slaves may be justly deprived of political rights on the ground of their incompetency to exercise them without injury to the community, it must be admitted, by parity of reason, that they may be justly deprived of personal freedom, if incompetent to exercise it with safety to society. If this be so, then slavery is a question of cir- cumstances, and not a malum in se. It must be borne in mind that the object of these remarks is not to prove that the Ameri- can, the British, or the Russian form of society is expedient or otherwise ; much less to show that the slaves in this country are actually unfit for freedom, but simply to prove that the mere fact that slaveholding interferes with natural rights is not enough to justify the conclusion that it is necessarily and universally sinful. Another very common and plausible argument on this subject is, that a man cannot be made a matter of property. He cannot be degraded into a brute or chattel without the grossest violation of duty and propriety ; and that as slavery confers this right of property in human beings, it must, from its very nature, be a crime. We acknowledge the correctness of the principle on which this argument is founded, but deny that it is applicable to the case in hand. We admit that it is not only an enormity, but an impossibility, that a man should be made a thing as distin- guished from a rational and moral being. It is not within the compass of human law to alter the nature of God's creatures. A man must be regarded and treated as a rational being even in his greatest degradation. That he is, in some countries, and under some institutions, deprived of many of the rights and privileges of such a being, does not alter his nature. He must be viewed as a man under the most atrocious system of slavery that ever existed. Men do not arraign and try on evidence, and punish on conviction either things or brutes. Yet slaves are under a regu- lar system of laws which, however unjust they may be, recognize their character as accountable beings. When it is inferred from ( SLAVERY. 499 the fact that the slave is called the property of his master, that he is thereby degraded from his rank as a human being, the argu- ment rests on the vagueness of the term property. Property is the right of possession and use, and must of necessity vary ac- cording to the nature of the objects to which it attaches. A man has property in his wife, in his children, in his domestic ani- mals, in his fields, and in his forests. That is, he has the right to the possession and use of these several objects according to their nature. He has no more right to use a brute as a log of wood, in virtue of the right of property, than he has the right to use a man as a brute. There are general principles of recti- tude obligatory on all men, which require them to treat all the creatures of God according to the nature which he has given them. The man who should burn his horse because he was his property, would find no justification in that plea either before God or man. When therefore it is said that one man is the property of another, it can only mean that the one has a right to use the other as a mojU, but not as a brute or as a thing. He has no right to treat him as he may lawfully treat his ox, or a tree. He can convert his person to no use to which a human being may not, by the law^s of God and nature, be properly applied. When this idea of property comes to be analyzed, it is found to be noth- ing more than a claim of service either for life or for a term of years. This claim is transferable, and is of the nature of prop- erty, and is consequently liable for the debts of the owner, and subject to his disposal by will or otherwise. It is probable that the slave is called the property of his master in the statute books, for the same reason that children are called the servants of their parents, or that wives are said to be the same person with their husbands and to have no separate existence of their own. These are mere technicalities designed to facilitate certain legal proceedings. Calling a child a servant does not alter his relation to his father ; and a wife is still a woman though the courts may rule her out of existence. In like manner, where the law declares that the slave shall be deemed and adjudged to be a chattel per- sonal in the hands of his master, it does not alter his nature, nor does it confer on the master any right to use him in a manner inconsistent with that, nature. As there are certain moral prin- ciples which direct how brutes are to be used by those to whom they belong, so there are fixed principles which determine how a 500 SLAVERY. man may be used. These legal enactments, therefore, are not intended to legislate away the nature of the slave as a human being ; they serve to facilitate the transfer of the master's claim of service, and to render that claim the more readily liable for his debts. The transfer of authority and claim of service from one master to another, is, in principle, analogous to transfer of subjects from one sovereign to another. This is a matter of fre- quent occurrence. By the treaty of Vienna, for example, a large part of the inhabitants of central Europe changed masters. Nearly half of Saxony was transferred to Prussia ;» Belgium was annexed to Holland. In like manner Louisiana was transferred from France to the United States. In none of these cases were the people consulted. Yet in all a claim of service more or less extended was made over from one power to another. There was a change of masters. The mere transferable character of the master's claim to the slave does not convert the latter into a thing, or degrade him from his rank as a human being. Nor does the fact that he is bound to serve for life produce this effect. It is only property in his time for life, instead of for a term of years. The nature of the relation is not determined by the period of its continuance. It has, however, been argued that the slave is the property of his master, not only in the sense admitted above, but in the sense assumed in the objection, because his children are under the same obligation of service as the parent. The hereditary character of slavery, however, does not arise out of the idea of the slave as a chattel or thing, a mere matter of property, it de- pends on the organization of society. In England one man is born a peer, another a commoner ; in Russia one is bom a noble, another a serf ; here one is born a free citzen, another a disfran- chised outcast (the free colored man), and a third a slave. These forms of society, as before remarked, are not necessarily, or in themselves, either just or unjust ; but become the one or the other, according to circumstances. Under a state of things in which the best interests of the community would be promoted by the Britisli or Russian organization, they would be just and acceptable to God ; but under circumstances in which they would be injurious, they would be unjust. It is absolutely necessary,ho we ver, to discriminate between an organization essentially vicious, and one which, being in itself indifferent, may be right or wrong according to circum- SLAVERY. 501 stances. On the same principle, therefore, that a human heing in England is deprived, by the mere accident of birth, of the right of suffrage ; and in Kussia has the small portion of liberty which belongs to a commoner, or the still smaller belonging to a serf, in this country one class is by birth invested with all the rights of citizenship, another (females) is deprived of all political and many personal rights, and a third of even their personal lib- erty. Whether this organization be right or wrong is not now the question. We are simply showing that the fact that the children of slaves become by birth slaves, is not to be referred to the idea of the master's property in the body and soul of the parent, but results from the form of society, and is analogous to other social institutions, as far as the principle is concerned, that children take the rank, or the political, or social, condition of the parent. We prefer being charged with the sin of wearisome repetition, to leaving any room, for the misapprehension of our meaning. We, therefore, again remark, that we are discussing the mere ab- stract morality of these forms of social organization, and not their expediency. We have in view the vindication of the character of the inspired writings, and inspired men, from the charge of having overlooked the blackest of human crimes, and of having recognized the worst of human beings as Christians. We say, therefore, that an institution which deprives a certain portion of the community of their personal liberty, places them under obli- gation oT service to another portion, is no more necessarily sinful than one which invests an individual with despotic power (such as Mr. Birney would consent to hold) ; or than one which limits the right of government to a small portion of the people, or re- stricts it to the male part of the community. However inexpe- dient, under certain circumstances, any one of these arrangements may be, they are not necessarily immoral, nor do they become such, from the fact that the accident of birth determines the re- lation in which one part of the community is to stand to the other. In ancient Egypt, as in modern India, birth decided the position and profession of every individual. One was bom a priest, another a merchant, another a laborer, another a soldier. As there must'^always be these classes, it is no more necessarily immoral, to have them all determined by hereditary descent, than it was among the Israelites to have ^11 the officers of re- 502 SLAVERY. ligion, from generation to generation, tlius determined ; or that birtii should determine the individual who is to fill a throne, or occupy a seat in parliament. Again, Dr. Wayland argues, if the right to hold slaves be con- ceded, '^ there is of course conceded all other rights necessary to insure its possession. Hence, inasmuch as the slave can be held in this condition only while he remains in the lowest state of mental imbecility, it supposes the master to have the right to control his intellectual development just as far as may be neces- sary to secure entire subjection.'" He reasons in the same way, to show that the religious knowledge and even eternal happiness of the slave, are as a matter of right conceded to the power of the master, if the right of slaveholding is admitted. The utmost force that can be allowed to this argument is, that the right to hold slaves includes the right to exercise all proper means to insure its possession. It is in this respect on a par with all other rights of the same kind. The right of parents to the service of their children, of husbands to the obedience of their wives, of masters over their apprentices, of creditors over their debtors, of rulers over their subjects, all suppose the right to adopt proper means for its secure enjoyment. This, however, gives no sanc- tion to the employment of any and every means which cruelty, suspicion, or jealousy may choose to deem necessary, nor of any which would be productive of greater general evil than the for- feiture of the rights themselves. According to the ancieot law, even among the Jews, the power of life and death was granted to the parent ; we concede only the power of correction. The old law gave the same power to the husband over the wife. The Roman law confided the person and even life of the debtor to the mercy of the creditor. According to the reasoning of Dr. Way- land, all these laws must be sanctioned if the rights which they were deemed necessary to secure are acknowledged. It is clear, however, that the most unrighteous means maybe adopted to secure a proper end, under the plea of necessity. The justice of the plea must be made out on its own grounds, and cannot be assumed on the mere admission of the propriety of the end aimed at. Whether the slaves in this country may be safely admitted to the enjoyment of personal liberty, is a matter of dispute ; but that they could not, consistently with the public welfare, be entrusted ^ Elements of Moral Science, p. 221. SLAVERY. 503 with the exercise of political power, is on all hands admitted. It is, then, the acknowledged right of the State to govern them bj laws in the formation of which they have no voice. But it is the universal plea of the depositaries of irresponsible power, sus- tained too by almost universal experience, that men can be brought to submit to political despotism only by being kept in ignorance and poverty. Dr. Wayland, then, if he concedes thg right of the State to legislate for the slaves, must, according to his own reasoning, acknowledge the right to adopt all the means necessary for the security of this irresponsible power, and of con- sequence that the State has the right to keep the blacks in the lowest state of degradation. If he denies the validity of this argument in favor of political despotism, he must renounce his own argument against the lawfulness of domestic slavery. Dr. Wayland himself would admit the right of the Emperor of Eus- sia to exercise a degree of power over his present half civilized subjects, which could not be maintained over an enlightened people, though he would be loath to acknowledge his right to adopt all the means necessary to keep them in their present con- dition. The acknowledgment, therefore, of the right to hold slaves, does not involve the acknowledgment of the right to adopt measures adapted and intended to perpetuate their present men- tal and physical degradation. We have entered much more at length into the abstract argu- ment on this subject than we intended. It was our purpose to confine our remarks to the scriptural view of the question. But the considerations of the objections derived from the general prin- ciples of morals, rendered it necessary to enlarge our plan. As it appears to us too clear to admit of either denial or doubt, that the Scriptures do sanction slaveholding ; that under the old dis^ pensation it was expressly permitted by divine command, andj under the New Testament is nowhere forbidden or denounced, but on the contrary, acknowledged to be consistent with the Christian character and profession (that is, consistent with justice, mercy, holiness, love to God and love to man), to declare jt to be a heinous crime, is a direct impeachment of the word of God. We, therefore, felt it incumbent upon us to prove, that the sacrecL Scriptures are not in conflict with the first principles of morals ; that what they sanction is not the blackest and basest of all of- ences in the sight of God. To do this, it was necessary to show 504 SLAVERY. what slavery is, to clistinguish between the relation itself, and the various cruel or unjust laws which may be made either to bring men into it, or to secure its continuance ; to show that it no more follows from the admission that the Scripture sanctions the right of slaveholding, that it, therefore, sanctions all the oppressive slave laws of any community, than it follows from the admission of the propriety of parental, conjugal, or political re- lations, that it sanctions all the conflicting codes by which these relations have at different periods, and in different countries, been regulated. We have had another motive in the preparation of this arti- cle. The assumption that slaveholding is itself a crime, is not only an error, but it is an error fraught with evil consequences. It not merely brings its advocates into conflict with the Scrip- tures, but it does much to retard the progress of freedom ; it embitters and divides the members of the community, and dis- tracts the Christian church. Its operation in retarding the progress of freedom is obvious and manifold. In the first place, it directs the battery of the enemies of slavery to the wrong point. It might be easy for them to establish the injustice or cruelty of certain slave laws, where it is not in their power to establish the sinfulness of slavery itself. They, therefore, waste their strength. Nor is this the least evil. They promote the cause of their opponents. If they do not discriminate between slaveholding and the slave laws, it gives the slaveholder not merely an excuse but an occasion and a reason for making no such distinction. He is thus led to feel the same conviction in the propriety of the one that he does in that of the other. His mind and conscience may be satisfied that the mere act of lidd- ing slaves is not a crime. This is the point, however, to which the abolitionist directs his attention. He examines their argu- ments, and becomes convinced of their inconclusiveness, and is not only thus rendered impervious to their attacks, but is exasper- ated by what he considers their unmerited abuse. In the mean- time his attention is withdrawn from far more important points ; the manner in which he treats his slaves, and the laws enacted for the security of his possession. These are points on which his judgment might be much more readily convinced of error, and his conscience of sin. In the second place, besides fortifying the position and strength- SLAVERY. 505 ening the purpose of the slaveholder, the error in question divides and weakens the friends of freedom. To secure any valuable re- sult by public sentiment, you must satisfy the public mind and rouse the public conscience. Their passions had better be allowed to rest in peace. As the anti-slavery societies declare it to be their object to convince their fellow- citizens that slaveholding is necessarily a heinous crime in the sight of God, we consider their attempt as desperate, so long as the Bible is regarded as the rule of right and wrong. They can hardly secure either the verdict of the public mind or of the public conscience in behalf of this proposition. Their success hitherto has not been very encouraging, and is certainly not very flattering, if Dr. Channing^s account of the class of persons to whom they have principally addressed their arguments, is correct. The tendency of their exertions, be their success great or small, is not to unite, but to divide. They do not carry the judgment or conscience of the people with them. They form, therefore, a class by themselves. Thousands who earnestly desire to see the South convinced of the injustice and consequent impolicy of their slave laws, and under this conviction, of their own accord, adopting those principles which the Bible enjoins, and which tend to produce universal intelligence, virtue, liberty and equality, without violence and sudden change, and which thus secure private and public prosperity, stand aloof from the abolitionists, not merely because they disapprove of their spirit and mode of action, but because they do not admit their fundamental principle. In the third place, the error in question prevents the adoption of the most effectual means of extinguishing the evil. These means are not the opinions or feelings of the non-slaveholding States, nor the denunciations of the holders of slaves, but the improvement, intellectual and moral, of the slaves themselves. Slavery has but two natural and peaceful modes of death. The one is the increase of the slave population until it reaches the point of being unproductive. When the number of slaves be- comes so great that the master cannot profitably employ them, he manumits them in self-defence. This point would probably have been reached long ago, in many of the southern States, had not the boundless extent of the south-western section of the Union presented a constant demand for the surplus hands Many planters in Virginia and Maryland, whose principles or 500 SLAVERY. feelings revolt at the idea of selling their slaves to the South, find that their servants are gradually reducing them to poverty, by consuming more than they produce. The number, however, of slaveholders who entertain these scruples is comparatively small. And as the demand for slave-labor in the still unoccupied regions of the extreme south-west is so great, and is likely to be 80 long continued, it is hopeless to think of slavery dying out b^ becoming a public burden. The other natural and peaceful mode of extinction, is the gradual elevation of the slaves in knowledge, virtue and property to the point at which it is no longer desirable or possible to keep them in bondage. Their chains thus gradu- ally relax, until they fall oif entirely. It is in this way that Chris- tianity has abolished both political and domestic bondage, when- ever it has had free scope. It enjoins a fair compensation for labor ;' it insists on the moral and intellectual improvement of all classes of men ; it condemns all infractions of marital or parental rights ; in short, it requires not only that free sco|)e should be allowed to human improvement, but that all suitable means should be employed for the attainment of that end. The feudal system, as before remarked, has, in a great measure, been thus outgrown in all European states. The third estate, formerly hardly recognized as having an existence, is becoming the con- trolling power in most of those ancient communities. The gradual improvement of the people rendered it impossible and undesirable to deprive themof their just share in the government. And it is precisely in those countries where this improvement is most advanced, that the feudal institutions are the most completely obliterated, and the general prosperity the greatest. In like man- ner the gospel method of extinguishing slavery is by improving the condition of the slave. The grand question is, How is this to be done .? The abolitionist answers, by immediate emancipation. Perhaps he is right, perhaps he is wrong ; but, whether right or wrong, it is not the practical question for the North. Among a com- munity which have the power to emancipate, it would be perfectly proper to urge that measure on the ground of its being the best means of promoting the great object of the advancement of human happiness and virtue. But the error of the abolitionists is, that they urge this measure from the wrong quarter^ and upon the wrong ground. They insist upon immediate abolition because slavery is a sin, and its extinction a duty. If, however, slave- SLAVERY. 5te holding is . not Juitself sinful, its abolition is not necessarily a . diity. . The question of duty depends upon the effects of the measure, about which men may honestly differ. Those who be- lieve that it would advance the general good, are bound to pro- mote it ; while those who believe the reverse, are equally bound to resist it. The abolitionists, by insisting upon one means of improvement, and that on untenable ground, are most effectually working against the adoption of any other means, by destroying the disposition and the power to employ them. It is in this way that the error to which we have referred throughout this article, is operating most disadvantageously for the cause of human liberty and happiness. The fact is, that the great duty of the South^ is not emancipation, but improvement. The former is obligatory only as a means to an end, and, therefore, only under circumstances where it would promote that end. In like manner the great duty of despotic governments is not the immediate granting of free institutions, but the constant and assiduous cul- tivation of the best interests (knowledge, virtue, and happiness) of the people. Where free institutions would conduce to this object, they should be granted, and just so far and so fast as this becomes apparent. Again, the opinion that slaveholding is itself a crime, must operate to produce the disunion of the States, and the division of all ecclesiastical societies in this country. The feelings of the people may be excited violently for a time, but the transport soon passes away. But if the conscience is enlisted in the cause, and becomes the controlling principle, the alienation betw^een the North and the South must become permanent. The opposition to southern institutions will be calm, constant, and unappeasable. Just so far as this opinion operates, it will lead those who enter- tain it to submit to any sacrifice to carry it out, and give it effect. We shall become two nations in feeling, which must soon render us two nations in fact. With regard to the church, its operation will be much more summary. If slaveholding is a heinous crime, slaveholders must be excluded from the church. Several of our judicatories have already taken this position. Should the Gen- eral Assembly adopt it, the church is, ipso facto, divided. If the opinion in question is correct, it must be maintained, whatever are the consequences. We are no advocates of expediency in morals. We have no more right to teach error in order to pre- 508 SLAVERY. vent evil, than we have a right to do evil to promote good. On the other hand, if the opinion is incorrect, its evil consequences render it a duty to prove and exhibit its unsoundness. It is under the deep impression that the primary assumption of the abolitionist is an error, that its adoption tends to the distraction of the country, and the division of the church ; and that it will lead to the longer continuance and greater severity of slavery, that we have felt constrained to do what little we could towards its correction. We have little apprehension that any one can so far mistake our object, or the purport of our remarks, as to suppose either that we regard slavery as a desirable institution, or that we ap- prove of the slave laws of the southern States. So far from this being the case, the extinction of slavery, and the amelioration of those laws are as sincerely desired by us, as by any of the abo- litionists. The question is not about the continuance of slavery, and of the present system, but about the proper method of effect- ing the removal of the evil. We maintain, that it is not by denouncing slaveholding as a sin, or by universal agitation at the North, but by the improvement of the slaves. It no more fol- lows that because the master has a right to hold slaves, he has a right to keep them in a state of degradation in order to per- petuate their bondage, than that the Emperor of Russia has a right to keep his subjects in ignorance and poverty, in order to secure the permanence and quiet possession of his power. We hold it to be the grand principle, of the gospel, that every man is bound to promote the moral, intellectual, and physical improvement of his fellow men. Their civil or political relations are in themselves matters of indifference. Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, do- mestic slavery, are right or wrong as they are, for the time being, conducive to this great end, or the reverse. They are not objects to which the improvement of society is to be sacrificed ; nor are they strait-jackets to be placed upon the public body to prevent its free development. We think, therefore, that the true method for Christians to treat this subject, is to follow the example of Christ and his apostles in relation both to despotism and slavery. Let them enforce as moral duties the great principles of justice and mercy, and all the specific commands and precepts of the Scriptures. If any set of men have servants, bond or free, to whom they refuse a proper compensation for their labor, they SLAVERY. 509 violate a moral duty and an express command of Scripture. What that compensation should be, depends on a variety of cir- cumstances. In some cases the slaveholder would be glad to compound for the support of his slaves by giving the third or half of the proceeds of his estate. Yet this at the North would be regarded as a full remuneration for the mere labor of produc- tion. Under other circumstances, however, a mere support would be very inadequate compensation ; and when inadequate, it is unjust. If the compensation be more than a support the surplus is the property of the laborer, and cannot morally, whatever the laws may say, be taken from him. The right to accumulate property is an incident to the right of reward for labor. And we believe there are few slaveholding countries in which the right is not practically acknowledged, since we hear so frequently of slaves purchasing their own freedom. It is very common for a certain moderate task' to be assigned as a day's work, which may be regarded as the compensation rendered by the slave for his support. The residue of the day is at his own disposal, and may be employed for his own profit. We are not, however, concerned about details. The principle that " the laborer is worthy of his , hire" and should enjoy it, is a plain principle of morals and com- mand of the Bible, and cannot be violated with impunity. Again, if any man has servants or others whom he forbids to marry, or whom he separates after marriage, he breaks as clearly a revealed law as any written on the pages of inspiration, or on the human heart. If he interfere unnecessarily with the author- ^ ity of parents over their children, he again brings himself into collision with his Maker. If any man has under his charge, children, apprentices, servants, or slaves, and does not teach them, or cause them to be taught, the will of God ; if he deliberately opposes their intellectual, moral, or religious improvement, he makes himself a transgressor. That many of the laws of the slaveholding States are opposed to these simple principles of morals, we fully believe ; and we do not doubt that they are sin- ful and ought to be rescinded. If it be asked what would be the consequence of thus acting on the principles of the gospel, of following the example and obeying the precepts of Christ ? We ^ We heard the late Dr. Wisner, after his long visit to the South, say, that the usual task of a slave, in South Carolina and Georgia, was about the third of a day's work for a northern laborer. 510 SLAVERY. ; answer, the gradual elevation of the slaves in intelligence, virtue, A and wealth ; the peaceable and speedy extinction of slavery : the '' ' improvement in general prosperity of all classes of society, and the consequent increase in the sum of human happiness and vir- ^, tue. This has been the result of acting on these principles in all past ages ; and just in proportion as they have been faithfully observed. The degradation of most eastern nations, and of Italy, Spain, and Ireland, are not more striking examples of the conse- quences of their violation, than Scotland, England, and the non- slaveholding States are of the benefits of their being even im- perfectly obeyed. Men cannot alter the laws of God. It would be as easy for them to arrest the action of the force of gravity, as to prevent the systematic violation of the principles of morals being productive of evil, i JBesides the two methods mentioned above, in which slavery J dies a natural and easy death, there are two others by which, as history teaches us, it may be brought to an end.. The one is by the non-slaveholders, in virtue of their authority in the State to which the slaves and their masters belonged, passing laws for its extinction. Of this, the northern States, and Great Britain, are examples. The other is by servile insurrections. The former of these two methods is of course out of the question, as it re- gards most of the southern States ; for in almost all of them the slaveowners have the legislative power in their own hands. _The South, therefore, has to choose between emancipation by the silent and holy influence of the gospel, securing the elevation of the slaves to the stature and character of freemen, or to abide the issue of a long continued conflict against the laws of God. That the issue will be disastrous there can be no doubt. But whether it will come in the form of a desolating servile insurrec- tion, or in some other shape, it is not for us to say. The choice, however, is between rapidly increasing millions of human beings educated under moral and religious restraints, and attached to the soil by the proceeds of their own labor, or hordes of unenlightened barbarians.. If the South deliberately keep these millions in this state of degradation, they must prepare themselves for the natural consequences, whatever they may be. It may be objected that if the slaves are allowed so to improve as to become freemen, the next step in their progress is that they should become citizens. We admit that it is so. The feudal u^ SLAVERY. 611 serf first became a tenant, then a proprietor invested with polit- ical power. This is the natural progress of society, and it should be allowed thus freely to expand itself, or it will work its own de- struction. If a tree be not allowed to grow erect and in its natural shape, it will become crooked, knotted, and worthless, but grow it must. This objection would not be considered of any force, if the slaves in this country were not of a different race from their masters. 'Still they are men ; their color does not place them be- yond the operation of the principles of the gospel, or from under the protection of God. We cannot too frequently remember^ that it is our province to do right, it is God's to overrule results.' Let, then, the North remember that they are bound to follow the / / example of Christ in the manner of treating slavery, and the / / South, that they are bound to follow the precepts of Christ in / their manner of treating their slaves. If both parties follow the Saviour of men, both will contribute to the promotion of human excellence and happiness, and both will have reason to rejoice in the result. * If the fact that the master and slave belong to different races, precludes the / possibility of their living together on equal terms, the inference is, not that the one • has a right to oppress the other, but that they should separate. Whether this should be done by dividing the land between them and giving rise to distinct communities, or by the removal of the inferior class on just and wise conditions, it is not for us to say. We have undertaken only to express an opinion as to the manner in which the Bible directs those, who look to it for guidance, to treat this difficult subject, and not to trace out a plan to provide for ulterior results. It is for this reason we have said nothing of African colonization, though we regard it as one o f the noblest enterprizes of modern benevolence. / i-^ XV. EMANCIPATIOiV The legislature of Kentucky having submitted the question to the people whether a convention should be called to revise the constitution of the State, and the people having decided that question in the affirmative, the character of that convention be- came a matter of absorbing interest to the inhabitants of that important commonwealth. The point about which the people were most divided, and to which public attention was princi- pally directed, was negro slavery. The question in debate was, What provision shall be engrafted in the new constitution in relation to that subject ? Shall the constitution make provision for the permanent existence and indefinite increase of slavery .^ or shall it prohibit the introduction of slaves from abroad, and provide for the gradual emancipation of those already within the borders of the State, or at least leave the subject open for the action of the legislature and of the people, untrammelled by any constitutional provisions .^ The question at issue was no less than this. Whether Kentucky was to remain for an in- definite period a slaveholding State, or whether it was to be allowed to take its place among the free commonwealths of this great confederation. This is a momentous question, involving the interests, for generations, of the State itself, and aifecting in no small measure the whole Union. No wonder, therefore, that the public mind in Kentucky was deeply agitated by this dis- cussion, and no wonder that the eyes of the whole country watched the progress of the struggle with the liveliest interest. For months previous to the election of members of the conven- ' Th& Question of Negro Slavery and the New Constitution of Kentucky. By Robeet J. Breckinridge, D.D. Princeton Review, October, 1849. 33 514 EMANCIPATION. tion to frame a new constitution, the press teemed with argu- ments and appeals, public lecturers and orators traveled over the State to address the people, and county and State conventions were held to embody and express the sentiments of the contend- ing parties. In Fayette county, including the city of Lexington, and em- bracing a larger number of extensive slave-owners than almost any other county of the State, a convention was held on the 14th of April last. " The object of the meeting having been explain- ed in a few eloquent remarks by the Hon. Henry Clay and Rev. R. J. Breckinridge, on motion of the latter gentleman, the follow- ing resolutions were unanimously adopted : 1st, That this meet- ing, composed of citizens of the county of Fayette, met in pursu- ance of public notice, to consider the question of the perpetuation of slavery in this commonwealth, considering that hereditary slavery as it exists amongst us, I. Is contrary to the natural rights of mankind ; II. Is opposed to the fundamental principles of free govern- ment ; III. Is inconsistent with a state of sound morality ; IV. Is hostile to the prosperity of the commonwealth ; We are therefore of opinion, that it ought not to be made perpetual, and that the convention about to meet to amend the constitution of this State affords a proper occasion, on which steps should be taken to ameliorate the condition of slavery, in such a way as shall be found practicable in itself, just as it gards the masters of slaves, and beneficial to the slaves the 2d. That in order to concert with those who agree with us,' throughout the State, a plan of action suitable to be adopted on this occasion, and to agree with them upon a common platform of principles, this meeting appoints the following citizens, and recommends as many others as are of similar sentiments and can conveniently attend, to meet at Frankfort on the 25th inst., delegates from other parts of the State, similarly appointed, for the purpose herein expressed." Then follow the names of thirty gentlemen appointed as delegates to the State convention. ^ When the convention met at Frankfort, the Rev. Dr. R. J.' Breckinridge submitted a document, which after being amended with his concurrence, was adopted, and is as follows : viz. 1 EMANCIPATION. 515 *• This convention, composed of citizens of the commonwealth of Kentucky, and representing the opinions and wishes of a large number of our fellow-citizens through- out the commonwealth, met in the capitol on the 25th of April, 1849, to consider what course it becomes those who are opposed to the increase and to the perpetuity of slavery in this State to pursue in the approaching canvass for members of the conven- tion, called to amend the constitution, adopts the propositions which follow, as ex- pressing its judgment in the premises : "1. Beheving that involuntary hereditary slavery, as it exists by law in tMs State, is injurious to the prosperity of the commonwealth, inconsistent with the fundamental principles of free government, contrary to the natural rights of man- kmd, and injurious to a pure state of morals, we are of opinion that it ought not to be increased, and that it ought not to be perpetuated in this common- wealth. " 2. That any scheme of emancipation ought to be prospective, operating exclusive- ly upon negroes born after the adoption of the scheme, and connected with coloniza- tion. '* 3. That we recommend the following points as those to be insisted on in the new constitution, and that candidates be run in every county in the State, favorable to these or similar constitutional provisions. 1. The absolute prohibition of the im- portation of any more slaves into Kentucky. 2. The complete power in the people of Kentucky to enforce and perfect in or under the new constitution, a system of gradual prospective emancipation of slaves. " 4. This convention confines its recommendation to the question of negro slavery, and makes no expression of opinion on any other topia HENRY CLAY, of Bourbon, President. Henry Wingate, ) y .^ ^ ^ ... Presidents. W. P. Boon, Bland Ballard, ) 0. S. Poston, Ussistant Secretaries. Samuel Shy, ) Such is the standard raised by the friends of emancipation in Kentucky. The struggle maintained with so much vigor around it has for the present ended. The members for the convention to revise the constitution of the State have been elected, and not more than one or two emancipationists if any, according to the pubUc papers, have been elected. It may be difficult for those out of the State to discern all the causes of this lamentable de- feat. There are, however, some things connected with the sub- ject patent to every observer. In the first place, the failure of the cause of emancipation is not to be referred to any want of ability on the part of its advocates. Those advocates comprise Bome of the most distinguished men not only of Kentucky but of the Union ; men who have no superiors in the power to con- trol public sentiment. If the cause of freedom could have been 516 EMANCIPATION. carried, it must have been carried by such men. If any appeals could produce conviction, it would have been pro- duced by the addresses mentioned at the head of this article. Self-interest, ignorance, and prejudice are proof against any thing, but the human mind, when unbiassed and sufficiently enlightened to comprehend their import, cannot resist such arguments nor harden itself against such sentiments as are here presented. It must be conceded then, that the cause of eman- cipation in Kentucky has failed for the present, in spite of the exertions of men of the highest order of talents of which the country can boast. Again, some seem disposed to refer this failure to the luke- warmness of the churches in Kentucky. We are not prepared to speak on this subject for other churches, but surely this re- proach cannot fairly be brought against our own church. The Presbyterians have taken the lead in this struggle. There is not a prominent man in the Synod of Kentucky, who has not been conspicuous for his zeal and efforts in behalf of emancipation. No names in connection with this subject, are more prominent than those of Drs. K. J. Breckinridge, John C. Young, William L. Breckinridge, and of the Kev. Mr. Kobinson of Frankfort. As far as we know, there is not a single Presbyterian minister, whose name is found among the advocates of slavery. We ad- vert to this fact with the more satisfaction because the steady opposition of our General Assembly to the principles of the abolitionists, has subjected our church to the reproach or mis- construction of fanatical parties both at home and abroad. It is now seen that the principles which our church has always avowed on this subject, are as much opposed to the doctrine that slavery is a good institution, which ought to be perpetuated, as to the opposite dogma, that slaveholding is in itself sinful, and a bar to Christian communion. With perfect consistency our church has borne its testimony against the doctrine that immediate and universal emancipation was the imperative duty of all slave- holders ; and the no less fanatical opinion that one class of men may rightfully keep another in ignorance and degradation, in order to keep them in bondage. It has steadily inculcated on the one hand, that the holding of slaves is analogous to political despotism, and is therefore right or wrong according to circum- stances ; and, on the other, that neither the slave owner nor des- EMANCIPATION. 517 pot have a right to use his power to prevent the intellectual, moral, and social improvement of its subjects, in order that his authority may be undisturbed and perpetuated. The old school Presbyterians have been the great conservative body, in reference to this subject in our country. They have stood up as a wall against the flood of abolitionism, which would have overwhelmed the Church and riven asunder the State. But at the same time they have been the truest friends of the slaves and the most ef- fectual advocates of emancipation. Their failure in Kentucky is in a great measure due to the unhealthy state of the public mind produced by the abolition controversy, and to the want of prepa- ration on the part of the people. We sincerely rejoice that Pres- byterians as a body, were found on the right side in this great conflict, and that the failure deplored, is not to be imputed to their remissness or indifference. Again, the impression seems very general that the emancipa- tionists have been defeated by the slaveholders. This is a great mistake. A large and most influential class of the slaveholders are themselves emancipationists. The struggle was not between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding part of the com- munity. Had such been the case, the issue would have been very different. It is probable, indeed, that a majority of the slaveholders are opposed to emancipation, but they form numer- ically too small a portion of the State to determine its action. Dr. Breckinridge estimates the slaveholders in Kentucky, as only one- eighth of the population. The State has about 600,000 white inhabitants, and 200,000 slaves. There are 140,000 per- sons entitled to vote, and of these not more than 20,000 are owners of slaves. Here then we have 120,000 non-slaveholding voters, and 20,000 voters owning slaves, and yet the State has gone for slavery by an overwhelming majority. This is not the work of the slaveholders. If any suppose that though numer- ically a small portion of the people, by their superior wealth they influence the votes of their poorer neighbors, they evince a great ignorance of the real state of feeling in this country. Office- holders and actual subordinates whose bread is dependent on the favor of superiors, may be under their political control. But in the great majority of cases, there is an antagonism between the rich and the poor. The whole tendency of our system is not only to throw the actual power into the hands of the masses, but to 518 EMANCIPATION. make tliem jealous of any appearance of control. They almost uniformly assert their independence by going, on mere questions of politics, in opposition to the wealthier portion of the com- munity. The fact therefore that the non-slaveholders in Ken- tucky have voted against emancipation, is not to be attributed to the influence of the slave owners. Their conduct in this matter is to be attributed to various causes. There is a natural opposition between the free whites and the slaves, both as a race and as a class. Without for a moment admitting that there is any essential difference between the different races of men, it must be acknowledged there is the same difference between races that there is between individuals of the same race. We do not deny the name of brother to a man of the Caucasian race who may happen to be intellectually and physically inferior to the majority of the members of the same great family ; nor is there any doubt as to the essential equality of those particular fam- ilies, who from one generation to another exhibit marked inferi- ority to others of the same nation. This diversity is observable in every department of creation. All oaks of the same species are not alike, much less are the several species of the same stand- ard. In like manner all men are not equally endowed with the gifts of God, neither are the several races of men on a perfect equality. There is a marked difference, physical, intellectual and social, between the Caucasian and the Malay. They are indeed of one blood. They are the children of the same parents. They are brethren having the same nature in all its essential attri- butes, but separation and the protracted operation of physical and moral causes, have given each its pecuhar and indelible type. And where there is diversity there is sure to be superiority and inferiority. While therefore we joyfully- admit the negro race to be bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, to be brethren of the same great family to which we ourselves belong, it would be j folly to deny that the blacks are as a race inferior to the whites. This is a fact which the history of the world places beyond dis- pute. Whether under a process of culture, extending through generations, they might rise to an equality with their more favored brethren, is a question which we need not discuss. It is probable that in their highest developement they would retain their distinctive characteristics, and be our superiors in some attributes of our common nature, and our inferiors in others. EMANCIPATION. 519 However this might be, it is indisputable that at present, in all parts of the world, the blacks as a race are inferior to the whites. This is a fact which cannot fail to have its effects on the minds of men. It leads too naturally to contempt and disregard of the rights and feelings of the inferior race. The more ignorant the whites are, the more violent and unreasonable are their prejudices on this subject. When therefore the question is presented to a community whether an inferior race, hitherto held as slaves, shall be emancipated, one of the strongest sources of opposition to such a measure is sure to be found in this pride of race. The whites, and especially the less cultivated portion of them, revolt at the idea that the distinction between themselves and those whom they have always looked upon as their inferiors, should be done away. They regard it as an insult, or as robbing them of a privilege. To this is to be added the prejudice of class. The negroes are the laboring class. That portion of the whites who sustain themselves by manual employment, have a great jealousy of the interference of the blacks. They will not associate with them, and they dread the idea of their competing with them as me- chanics or laborers. While slaves, the blacks are confined to the plantations of their masters ; when emancipated they go where they please, and enter into whatever employment they find open to them. To this association and competition the laboring whites have everywhere the strongest repugnance. We are not surprised, therefore, at the vote of the non-slaveholders in Ken- tucky. It would be the same to-morrow in New York or Phila- delphia. The laboring whites of those cities would doubtless vote to set free slaves at a distance, but if the question was about the emancipation of thousands of negroes to be their own associates and competitors in labor, we doubt not nine out of ten would vote against it. And this was the light in which the question most probably presented itself to the majority of the people of Kentucky. That emancipation was to be gradual, and attended with the expatriation of the blacks, would not produce much im- pression on their minds. They took the matter up in gross as a simple question of freedom or slavery for the blacks. There is another consideration, mistaken indeed, but still effective, which is apt to operate on the minds of whites against the emancipation of the blacks. While the latter are slaves 520 EMANCIPATION. their masters are obliged to provide for them when disabled by- age, siclmess, or dissolute habits. If emancipated, they are thrown on the community. This is a burden which the non- slaveholding whites are not disposed to assume. They are wont to say, Let the masters take care of their own blacks. They have had the good of them, let them retain the burden of their support. Perhaps a still more operative feeling is that of antagonism to the free States. The recent discussions on abolitionism have generated a state of morbid excitement in the public mind. The unreasonableness of a part of the people in the northern States, has produced a corresponding unreasonableness in a portion of the South. The free and slave States have been placed in a very undesirable position in relation to each other. They are assumed to have opposing interests, if not mutually hostile in- tentions. The consequence is, we find the whole population of southern States going together on questions relating solely to the supposed interest of slaveholders. The great majority of the inhabitants of those States own no slaves. They have no in- terest in what enhances or depresses the value of that species of property. Yet all their sympathies are with the slaveholders, and against their non-slaveholding brethren at the North. This is not to be referred to any fondness for the institution of slavery, nor to the predominant influence of slaveholders, but to State pride and State feeling. It is easy to see how this feeling must operate. Whatever identifies or characterizes a community, determines the form which its common life or spirit assumes. If a State is monarchical or aristocratical in its constitution, it will be so in its spirit. It is not only the privileged classes who contend for its peculiar institutions, but the majority of the people are pervaded by the same spirit. It requires a great amount of real oppression to destroy in the middle and lower classes this sympathy with the characteristic constitution of their country. Nine Englishmen out of ten will be found to defend hereditary nobility and a princely hierarchy, especially in antagonism with republicanism. In like manner the non- slaveholders of the South, though almost as numerous in com- parison to the owners of slaves as the commons of England in comparison to the aristocratical classes, stand up with fervent zeal in behalf of their peculiar institution. This is the reason why a few thousand slaveholders wield the authority of a EMANCIPATION. 621 whole State, and make the majority of the people think they are contending for their own rights and interests, while in fact they are contending for the exclusive advantage of a small minority. All these causes to which we have adverted as tending to ac- count for the non-slaveholders of Kentucky voting to perpetuate slavery, owe their force, it must be admitted, in a great measure to ignorance. If the people were duly enlightened, they would rise above their influence. This is obvious for two reasons — first, that the most enlightened class of the population in our slave- holding States, unless personally interested in slavery, are op- posed to its being perpetuated. The advocates of perpetual slavery are a certain portion of slaveowners, and the uneducated portion of the people. The great body of enlightened and dis- interested men even in slave States, groan under the institution of slavery as an incubus, and long for deliverance. Second, it is easy to see that the reasons referred to have no real force, and that they could not control the action of men capable of estimat- ing the real merits of the case. It is a mistake founded in igno- rance that emancipation would operate injuriously on the inter- ests of the laboring portion of the whites. It is capable of demonstration, as indeed Dr. Breckinridge has demonstrated, that freeing the blacks, according to the plan proposed in Ken- tucky, would greatly improve the condition of the working class among the whites. To see this, however, requires both knowledge and attention. It is therefore overlooked or disbelieved by that large class who are too ignorant to calculate remote consequen- ces, and are governed by the mere appearance of things. We fear therefore that the cause of emancipation cannot be carried in those States in which the blacks are generally diffused among the whites, until education has done its proper work among the latter. In order to the proper understanding of this subject, it is ne- cessary to consider the distinctive features of the plan proposed by the friends of emancipation in Kentucky. It differs essen- tially from that of the abolitionists. It was, in the first place, to be progressive and not immediate. Against the plan of set- ting the whole slave population free at once, the objections are so great that it has never been adopted by a slaveholding com- munity. People at a distance, who do not see, and who do not 522 EMANCIPATION. expect to suffer from the evils attending sucli a measure, under the control of abstract ideas, may clamor for immediate emanci- pation, but those who are to bear the burden of hundreds of thousands of ignorant and generally indolent blacks, content to live in the lowest condition, will be slow to believe that any principle of duty calls for such a sacrifice. It is not a matter of right as it concerns the slaves. No man has a right to any privilege which he is incompetent to exercise — ^be he white or black. And even if personally competent, his exercise or enjoy- ment of such privilege may be rightfully restrained by a regard to the best interests of the community. Minors, as a class, are not competent to exercise the elective franchise ; they have therefore no right to exercise it. Individual minors may be as competent as any other men, and yet the good of the whole justi- fies their being deprived of the privilege. On the same princi- ple the right of voting is denied to females, though personally competent to exercise it with wisdom. If therefore the blacks as a class are incompetent to exercise, with benefit to themselves or others, the privileges of personal or political liberty, then, as long as that incompetency continues, they have no right to those privileges. This argument of course supposes the incompetency to be real. And it furnishes no justification of measures, the de- sign or tendency of which is to produce and perpetuate such in- competency. All we contend for is that there is no foundation in morals for the reckless application of " the doctrine of inalien- able rights'' to the case of slaves, who from their physical, intel- lectual, or moral condition, are incompetent to exercise the rights of freemen. It is, therefore, no valid objection to the Kentucky plan of emancipation that it conflicts with the inalienable right of men to personal freedom. Whether it was not too slow in its proposed operation, whether it did not unnecessarily prolong the* period of bondage, and unfairly exclude all the existing genera- tion of blacks from its benefits, are questions of detail into which we do not feel competent to enter. The advantages of any plan must depend in a great measure, not only on its radical principles, but on its special provisions. And the question which the friends • of freedom may have to decide, is not what plan is best, but what is feasible. It would certainly be unwise to refuse everything, because unable to carry the measure they might consider most desirable. EMANCIPATION. 523 It strikes us that it would be a great improvement on the plan which contemplates the liberation only of those slaves yet to be born, to engraft some provision for the emancipation of a portion at least of those now in existence. There are many obvious advantages connected with the Spanish system which has been adverted to before in our pages. The essential fea- tures of that plan are these. It assumes, what we believe is universally true, that the slaves are allowed and have the op- portunity to make money for themselves. This is done by working at extra hours, by raising produce for the market, and by executing errands and commissions of various kinds. The money thus earned they are in all slave countries permitted to use as they please. In the next place, this plan provides for the appointment of a public officer who, on application of the slave, is required to set a value on his services, which the master is bound to accept. As soon as the slave has accumu- lated one-sixth of the sum at which he has been valued, and paid it to his master, he has Monday free. When he has gained another sixth, he has Tuesday free ; and so on until his whole time becomes his own. In this way he is trained to habits of industry and self-control, and prepared to provide for himself. If with this system could be connected some provision for liberating the wives and children of those who had worked out their own freedom, the plan of progressive emancipation would be relieved of much of its apparent injustice. It is un- doubtedly hard, that the whole existing generation of slaves should be excluded from the benefit of any plan of emancipation that may be adopted. Another provision of this plan is that it proposed to secure compensation to the owners of slaves. This has been resisted on two grounds, first that the claim to the service of the slaves is an unrighteous claim, and therefore the loss of those services is not a proper ground of compensation ; and second, that the master must ultimately even in a pecuniary point of view, be a gainer by emancipation. As to the former of these grounds, it is enough to say that the claim of the master is not necessarily unrighteous. The objection has its foundation in the assump- tion that all slaveholding is sinful. If that principle is false, then the conclusion drawn from it is vitiated. Besides it is to be remembered that slavery is the work not of the individual, 524 EMANCIPATION. but of the community. It could not exist without positive ;^ enactments. The community is responsible for its existence. If the people, in their capacity as a commonwealth, have made laws sanctioning the existence of slavery, they have entered into a tacit but binding contract with their fellow-citizens to respect the right of property in slaves. If they come to think that such right ought to be abolished, or that the interests of the commonwealth demanded the emancipation of the slaves, it would be unjust to make the loss fall exclusively on the owners. The fault or error was that of the community ; it was for the common good the laws establishing slavery were enacted, and therefore the whole community, should share in the loss attend- ing the repeal of those laws. If by laws of the State men have been authorized and induced to invest their capital in any species of property, be it roads, manufactories, mines, or slaves, it would be obviously unjust to take such property from them without a compensation. In the eye of the law it makes no difference wherein such property may consist, if the law has sanctioned it. The injustice lies in visiting upon the individual the sin of the community. If therefore the State has authorized the holding of slaves, the State must bear the expense of recti- fying its own mistakes when it comes to see that slavery is a public burden. The other ground of opposing all compensation to the owners of slaves, is perfectly valid, if it really exists. If the master suffers no loss, he is entitled to no compensation. If emancipa- tion makes him richer, he has no claim to be paid for it. There may be circumstances, in isolated communities, where slavery is such a burden on the master, that to liberate his slaves would be equivalent to cancelling a mortgage on his estate. Such, however, is evidently not the case in this country. Slavery is everywhere, in some form, profitable to the masters. To de- prive them of their slaves would be not only to take from them their capital, but to render unavailable their estates in land. Even if eventually from the rise of real estate, and the general prosperity induced by the abolition of slavery, the slaveowner should find his condition improved, the immediate effect of emancipation would be greatly to limit his resources. The re- sulting benefit would come in most cases too late to be a real compensation to the present owners. On every principle, there- EMANCIPATION. 525 fore, we think the friends of emancipation acted wisely and justly in engrafting the principle of compensation on their pro- posed plan. Another feature of that plan was the expatriation of the lib- erated blacks. This also when feasible is wise. There are_ natural laws which forbid the union of distinct races in the same commonwealth. Where the difference is slight, as between Saxons and Celts, or the Teutonic and Komaic families, the different elements are soon fused. But even here we find that they often refuse to combine and remain apart for ages, the weaker constantly sinking, and the stronger constantly advanc- ing. We have examples of this in the French paysans of Canada, and Louisiana. The effect of the amalgamation of distinct races is seen in the physically, intellectually and socially degraded mongrel inhabitants of Mexico and South America. In these cases the chief elements were the Spanish and Indians, elements less widely separated than the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro. The amalgamation of these races must inevitably lead to the deterioration of both. It would fill the country with a feeble and degraded population, which must ultimately perish. For it is a well ascertained fact that the mulatto is far more frail than either the white man or the Negro. We read in the disas- trous physical effects of the amalgamation of the blacks and whites, a clear intimation that such amalgamation is contrary to the will of God, and therefore is not an end which statesmen ought in any way to facilitate. If amalgamation would be productive of the most lamentable evils to the country, it is no less undesirable that the two races should live together as distinct. This again is forbid by natural laws which we can neither abrogate nor counteract. It is a law that the stronger and more numerous race should displace the weaker. The weaker may be absorbed and assimilated, where the difference is slight, but if the difference is so great as to keep the races apart, one of two results seems invariably to follow, either the weaker race dies out, or it is reduced to a state of bondage, and is then kept in a good physical condition as an instrument of labor, at the expense of its intellectual and social improvement. The former of these results we see exemplified in the disappearance of the aborigines of this country. The same process is rapidly going on in the islands of the Pacific 626 EMANCIPATION. Ocean. It is very likely that the blacks will prove the stronger race in the West Indian Islands, and in some other places still nearer the equator. In some of those islands the lowest class of the population, is a race of white men. Whether white or black be in the ascendancy, the law is that the weaker sinks and perishes in the presence of the stronger. There can be no ques- tion that in this country the blacks are the weaker race, and therefore if emancipated and kept distinct, they must sink and gradually perish. Such has been the experience of the world. Individual instances of excellence and prosperity will doubtless occur, but all experience shows that the only chance for any race radically distinct from another, to arrive at general prosperity, is that it must be kept separate and placed in circumstances favor- able to its development. Expatriation, therefore, when practicable, is an essential fea- ture of any wise plan of emancipation. It is best for the blacks themselves by removing them from circumstances hostile to their improvement, and placing them in a situation where an unob- structed career is opened before them. It is best for the country, for the places occupied by an inferior race, incapable of general improvement so long as they remain among whites, will soon be filled up by Europeans and Americans. The State, freed from its black population, would soon find itself peopled with intelli- gent and prosperous farmers and mechanics from other portions of the Union and from the old world. That this would be an advantage, no man in his senses can doubt. The only thing that would be lost by such a change would be the race of mas- ters. There would no longer be a class of men owners of their fellow-men, and exalted by such ownership, in their own concep- tion into a superior class of beings. Few will be disposed to contend, unless slaveholders themselves, that slavery is really de- sirable frpm its influence on the masters. It is indeed an argu- ment which privileged classes are accustomed to use, that the in- stitution of nobility is necessary to the highest development of otir nature. The robber barons of the middle ages, who could neither read or write, looked with contempt, not only on their serfs, but on the merchants, citizens, and learned men of their generation, and regarded all measures which tended to break down the distinction between themselves and others, as fraught with danger to the true nobility of man. With the progress of EMANCIPATION. 527 civilization, these ideas are fast disappearing from the old world, and they are not likely to find a permanent abode among our planters. Our republican institutions are not favorable to the notion, that free men, though farmers or mechanics, are inferior either to slaves or to their owners. The comparison between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding portions of the Union, as to everything which constitutes national prosperity, must at once settle the question whether slavery be conducive to the general good. The number of men in our country is very small, who deliberately maintain that a State, with a population one-fourth whites and three-fourths blacks, is in a more desirable situation than are those whose inhabitants are free white men. The latter is immeasurably stronger for all the purposes of good, and is more capable of progress in agriculture, commerce, and in all that is desirable. It is, however, labor lost to attempt to prove that a free white population is more to be desired than either slaves, or liberated blacks. It cannot, therefore, be rationally disputed that freeing a State from its colored people, would be the great- est of all temporal blessings that could be conferred upon it. On this subject, all the great men of our history have been of one opinion, whether living at the North or at the South. The advantages of expatriation or of colonization, however, are confined neither to the blacks nor to the commonwealth from which they are removed. Transported to the rising republic of Liberia, the free negroes carry with them the seeds of religion, civilization, and of liberty to an entire continent. They perform for Africa the high mission which our forefathers have performed for America ; and make Africa for the black race what the United States now are for Europe and the world. The designs of Providence are already so far unfolded as to be deciphered with no small confidence. God seems to have brought the negroes to our land that, after sustaining a state of pupilage in this house of bondage, they may return to their land of promise, to the habitation assigned them in the general apportionment of our globe. To this feature of the Kentucky plan of emancipation several serious objections, however, have been made. It is said to be a violation of the rights of the blacks. This country, it is main- tained, is as much theirs as ours ; and consequently that we have no more right to send them away than they have to send us. We 528 EMANCIPATION. admit the force of this objection, under existing circumstances, as far as it concerns those blacks who are already free. But the case is very different in regard to those who are now in bondage. To render their present condition permanent would be a great injury to them and to the community. To free them is to con- fer upon them a great boon, and that gift may rightfully be con- nected with any conditions which their own benefits and the public good may demand. It is a great fallacy to suppose that the abstract rights of men can be enforced at all times and under all circumstances. The right to choose our own place of abode, as the right of property, is necessarily subject to many limita- tions. The parent has the right to take with him his minor children when he leaves the crowded provinces of Great Britain or Germany, and seeks a wider and more hospitable home in America or Australia. No injury is inflicted on his children, and their right to remain in their native country is subordinate to the right of the parent. The slaves in this country are in a state of pupilage. They are minors. They stand in that relation of dependence and inferiority in which a state of minority essen- tially consists. They may, therefore, be rightfully treated as minors and disposed of without their consent in any way consist- ent with benevolence and justice. If a great good to them, as well as to those they leave behind, be designed in their removal, there is no principle of right violated in their expatriation. The expense attending any extended scheme of colonization is another objection to the plan. The expense, however, of any scheme is not to be measured by its actual cost, but by the im- portance of the object and the resources at command for carry- ing it into effect. Measured by this standard, the expense of colonization is inconsiderable. It is too great for individuals, but not too great for a commonwealth. Fifty dollars a head are said to be sufficient to meet the cost, not only of transferring the emigrants to Africa, but also of sustaining them for the first six months after their arrival in their new home. There are many ways in which such a sum could be procured. It is less than the clear profit of one year's labor of an emancipated slave. It would be more generous for the State to provide for the expense of re- moval from her general resources, but there would be no injustice in requiring the slave to labor for his own outfit. A much more serious objection arises from the danger of over- EMANCIPATION. 529 whelming the infant colonies in Africa with an unprepared and therefore reckless population. This danger is great. The history of the world teaches us that civilization does not spring up within tiny community, it must be introduced from abroad. The orig- inal state of man was a state of high civilization, in the truest sense of the term, and savagism is an apostacy perfectly hopeless, so far as the inherent recuperative powers of the race are con- cerned. If, therefore, we colonize a country with savages, or im- perfectly civilized men, they will continue barbarians or soon lapse into a savage state. We have in St. Domingo an illustra- tion of this general truth. The negroes of that island were not advanced to such a condition of moral and social improvement, when they expelled their European masters, as to enable them to make progress in civilization. They are, in most parts of the island, but little in advance of their condition when slaves. And they will remain, in all probability, in their present degraded state, unless the influence of Christianity is brought to bear upon them from without. There is, therefore, great danger that un- educated colonists introduced into Africa, instead of raising the natives should sink into barbarism themselves. To guard against this danger it is essential that the foundations of a colony should consist of truly enlightened and religious men, in such numbers and in such a state of advancement, as to give the community its character, to create its life, so that all new accessions should be mastered and assimilated. This is the first and most import- ant condition for successful colonization, more important even than abundance of land and salubrity of climate. It should never be forgotten that the character of nations is formed in their cradles. It depends mainly upon the germ which is first planted. The character of these United States is distinctly traceable to the character of the first colonists. So is that of Mexico and South America, and it will take ages to counteract the strength of this original impulse. We can never be suffi- ciently thankful as a nation that the original settlers of this country were pious and enlightened men and true Protestants ; and that they were numerous enough to give character to its in- stitutions, and create a public spirit, before the floods of ignor- ance and Romanism were opened upon us. Except in Maryland, there were scarcely any other than Protestants among the emi- grants to this country for nearly a century and a half. Had the 34 530 EMANCIPATION. annual thousands of Eomanists which for the last twenty or thirty- years have been pouring in upon us, commenced their flow in the infancy of our country, we should have been overwhelmed, and become an Ireland or Austria on a larger scale. Next then in importance to the original character of a colony, is the charac- ter of the annual accessions to their numbers from abroad. The new colonists should not be so numerous as to oppress the re- sources, and choke the avenues of life in these recent settle- ments, and they should be sufficiently enhghtened to fall in with the spirit of the community of which they become members. As the colony advances in strength it wiU be able to bear more — to receive and dispose of larger accessions, and even to master un- congenial materials, which at an earlier period of its history would master it. It is true, then, that if the colony of Liberia was to be flooded with thousands of uneducated negroes, just released from bond- age, they would be in imminent danger of relapsing into barbar- ism, and the light of civilization and Christianity just kindled on the dark coast of Africa would be extinguished. The plan in contemplation, however, does not propose to send out new colo- nists either in such numbers or of such a character, as to incur the danger of which we have spoken. It proposes to send an- nually only that class which year by year attains a certain age, and which has been in a long course of training for their new responsibilities. Instead of being a burden to the colony, such men would be to it what the annual accessions from Europe were to our country during the first fifty years of its history. The colony would thus be enlarged and strengthened just in propor- tion as its strength would be taxed. In a few years it would be prepared to receive increasing numbers, until at length it would feel as little burdened by any probable amount of immi- gration, as we now are by the hundreds of thousands of Euro- peans, who annually seek among as an asylum from want or oppression. There is no reason why the colonies on the coast of Africa may not in time exhibit the same cheering spectacle of rising republics, which is now afforded by the almost annual birth of new States in our own happy country. Africa affords a wide field of fertile, unoccupied land, a climate suited to the black race ; and the native neighboring population belonging to the same groat division of the human family, instead of melting I EMANCIPATION. 531 away before the colonists, as the Indians have here disappeared before the whites, will gradually be assimilated and absorbed. This is one of the brightest prospects now open for our world. It^. is the great hope of Africa. We fully agree with Dr. Breckin- ridge, when he says that the plan of African colonization ^^ is one of the greatest, most fruitful, and most sublime events of any age. The great necessity of the world at this moment, is a free, civilized, Christian, and powerful State within the tropics ; a necessity felt through every period of the world's history, and now about to be realized. The western coast of Africa, is, in every point of view, the most effective for such a State to occupy ; the black race, of which there cannot be less than 150,000,000 upon earth, is pre-eminently the race needing such a develop- ment, and prepared for it ; and the United States are exactly in a condition to found such a commonwealth with this race, under circumstances most glorious to ourselves, the most hopeful to the world, and the most beneficial to the blacks." P. 14. This glori- ous prospect never can be realized, or at least very imperfectly, without a large system of emancipation m this country. This is the source whence the materials for this Christian commonwealth on the coast of Africa, must be principally derived. It would, therefore, be a great calamity to the world, if, in our blindness, we should dam up this current, and instead of allowing it to flow out as a healthful stream, force it to become a stagnant pool, converting our own land, in some of its fairest portions, into malarious swamps. Let us, however, remember it is not simply men that Africa needs, but enlightened and Cliristian men, who shall carry with them religion and knowledge, the minister and the schoolmaster. The radical principles of the plan of emancipation, then, as proposed in Kentucky, we believe meet the cordial approbation of the enlightened friends of the negro and of the country ; a plan which contemplated a gradual emancipation, consistent with the rights of the slaveholder, and providing for the coloni- zation of the liberated blacks. Though this plan, notwithstand- ing its merits, and the ability with which it was advocated, has failed for the present, we are persuaded it must ultimately succeed. In the first place, it is demanded by the eternal principles of right. We have ever maintained that slaveholding is not in itself 532 EMANCIPATION. sinful, that the right to personal liberty is conditioned by the ability to exercise beneficially that right. We have ever been opposed therefore to the abolitionists, who demand immediate and universal emancipation, and who would exclude slave- holders as such from the communion of the church. But the right to hold slaves does not imply the right to treat them as brutes, or as mere chattels. It does not justify laws which con- flict with the great principles of benevolence or justice, or with any of the enactments of the word of God. Men on all sides are apt to confound things essentially distinct. Because the Scriptures allow slaveholding, just as they allow aristocratical or despotic forms of government, slaveholders arc wont to appeal to the word of Grod in defence of slave laws which violate every scriptural principle. On the other hand, those who maintain that slaveholding is not sinful, are represented as sanctioning all the atrocities by which the system is any where or at any time attended. Both of these proceedings are illogical and un- just. Slaveholding may be justifiable, and yet the laws made by slaveholders be atrociously unjust. Slaveholding may be justified, and yet such slave laws be consistently condemned. No Christian has ever raised his voice in defence of the actual slave system as it exists in many parts of this country. Slavery in Kentucky, says Dr. Breckinridge, " presents this aspect : 1st. The rights of property are absolutely and universally abolished as to slaves. 2d. The rights of person and character are un- known, as to them, except as the interest of the master and of the public peace may demand their recognition. 3d. The in- stitution of marriage between slaves, has no legal recognition, nor do marital rights exist as to them. 4th. The relation of parent and child, as between slaves, is not recognized by law, except in determining questions of property." P. 13. Is it not monstrous to suppose that the Bible sanctions such laws as these ? It might as well be said that the Bible sanctions all the cruelty and injustice ever committed by civil rulers, be- cause it sanctions civil government. Every good man must respond to the indignant eloquence of Dr. Breckinridge, when he says, in reference to the rights just enumerated, that every one of them "is inherent in human nature,. and that their exist- ence and their protection lie at the foundation of human society, which could not exist for a day, under any form, if these rights EMANCIPATION. 533 were universally abolished. Moreover, they are all of divine authority; and as the state itself — that is, human society — is ordained of Grod, we have one of God's institutions abolishing as to an immense number of his rational creatures, the very foundations on which he has erected that institution, and ren- dered possible the social state he ordained for those creatures. This is a condition of things for whose increase there can be no justification ; and w;hose everlasting continuance can be de- fended only on grounds which subvert the order of nature, the ordination of heaven, and the foundations of the social state." It is, therefore, no fair inference from the doctrine that slave- holding is not in itself sinful, that the Bible sanctions the actual system of slavery, or the slave laws now in force in this country. Much less can it be fairly inferred from the abstract lawfulness of slavery, that laws may be enacted and enforced to extend and perpetuate it. It is one thing to treat savages as savages, and another to endeavor to keep them in a state of barbarism. It is one thing to deny to minors the rights of adults, another to de- base them that they may never exercise those rights. It is one thing to keep felons in prison, and another to force men to be- come or to remain felons that we may get their labor for noth- ing. Admitting, therefore, that a Christian may, with a good conscience be a slaveholder, he cannot be a Christian and delib- erately endeavor to keep his slaves in a state of ignorance and degradation in order to perpetuate their bondage. Nothing can be more distinct than the right to hold slaves, in certain circum- stances, and the right to render slavery perpetual. Perpetual slavery implies perpetual ignorance and perpetual degradation. This the mass of slaveholders intuitively perceive, and hence in almost all slave States there are enactments, the design of which is to prevent the intellectual and social improvement of the blacks. It is everywhere seen and admitted that gradual im- provement must lead to gradual emancipation, and therefore the former is strenuously resisted by those who are determined not to grant the latter. But as it is one of the clearest and highest duties of man to promote the improvement of his fellow men, as this duty is specially binding on parents and masters., in regard to their children and servants, and as the right to in- tellectual culture and moral and religious education is the most precious of all human rights, it follows that one of the greatest 534 EMANCIPATION. sins a man can commit against his fellows, is to endeavor to keep them ignorant and degraded that he may keep them in bondage. If then it is the duty of a community in which slavery exists to provide for the education and social improvement of the slaves, which we presume no Christian will deny, then it is the duty of such community to adopt some system for emancipa- tion. It is certainly not less clear, that improvement must lead to liberation, than that degradation is necessary to slavery. No man for a moment believes that if the slaves of the South were as well educated as the people of New York or Massachusetts, slavery could continue a month. Unless therefore men are pre- pared to adopt the monstrous doctrine that they have a right to keep millions of their fellow-creatures in ignorance and debase- ment, they must admit that emancipation is a moral duty. Conscience is the only principle capable of competing with self- interest. It is therefore of great importance that slaveholders should be brought to see what God demands of them in this matter ; that they cannot without violating his laws and forfeit- ing his favor, refuse to their slaves the benefits of education and the enjoyment of those rights as parents and husbands which are guaranteed to them by God himself In other words, they should be brought to see that slavery cannot be perpetuated without doing violence to the most obvious imperative moral principles. Still more important is it that non-slaveholders should be brought to see that they are committing a sin against God, as well as inflicting a grievous injury on their fellow- men, in contending for the increase or indefinite continuance of slavery. We have great faith in the self-evidencing light of moral truth, and in its power over the conscience, we therefore believe that the / advocates of emancipation, will yet succeed, if they can but keep ; up before the minds of the people, the great principle of Duty. / This will do more than all arguments drawn from political econ- omy, however just those arguments may be, or however power- fully they may be presented. In the second place, emancipation is not only a duty, but it is unavoidable. The question which our slaveholding States have to decide is not, whether they will now adopt a system of emancipation, or remain indefinitely as they now are ; but, whether they will prepare for emancipation while the evil is EMANCIPATION. 635 manageable, or have it forced upon them when every condition of the problem is a hundred fold more complicg,ted. We believe it to be the intimate conviction of ninety-nine hundredths of the intelligent j)eople in the United States that slavery in this coun- try must come to an end. This conviction is as common at the South as it is at the North. The great effort is to procrastinate the crisis ; to throw the decision and the trial on the coming generation. By this selfish policy the evils to be encountered are fearfully increased. Fifty years ago, with a slave population of seven or eight hundred thousand, emancipation and colonization would have been an easy work compared to what it now is, with three millions of slaves. It is an easy work now compared to what it will be fifty years hence. " Kentucky," says Dr. Breck- inridge, "with six hundred thousand white persons, and two hundred thousand slaves, and the whole South wanting slave labor, presents a problem widely different from Kentucky with seven hundred thousand white persons, and five hundred thou- sand slaves, and the whole South fully supplied with slave labor. The one is a question easily solved, compared with the other ; and all the increased difficulty must lie at the door of the non- slaveholder, if his vote produces it." P. 10. One reason, then, why slavery cannot be perpetual is that the slaves increase in a more rapid ratio than the whites, and by the mere force of num- bers must occupy the land. The non-slaveholding whites will rapidly withdraw from a community overstocked with slaves. This is a process which has already been going on for years. Thousands of the best portion of the population of Kentucky have sought homes in the free States of the West. Their places have been occupied by the blacks. Congregations once large and flourishing have, from this cause, dwindled down to insignificance. The natural tendency of this state of things is to render the disproportion between the whites and blacks constantly greater. And the unavoidable result must be that the negro race will come to possess the land. They will be too numerous to be profitable, and the time predicted by John Kandolph (as we believe), must come, when the mas- ters will run away from the slaves. This period may be more or less remote, but it is not the less certain, and the responsi- bility of bringing about this result will rest on those who vainly 536 EMANCIPATION. attempt to fight against God, in fighting against the laws which he has ordained. But there is another reason why slavery cannot be perpetuated. It is from its nature a transition state. It supposes a low form of civilization, and must disappear as society advances and the "slaves rise in intelligence and power. Urider eastern despotism and the debasing systems of Paganism, the people may be kept in such degradation as to be perpetual bondmen ; but in such a country, and in such an age as this, and under the all-penetrat- ing light of the gospel, this is impossible. The state of our slave population is now immeasurably above that of the negroes under the dominion of the Portuguese in Brazil. Their condition m-ust continue to improve under the controlling influence of a Chris- tian public sentiment. It will be out of the power of slavehold- ers to make laws to keep out the light and warmth of Christian truth ; and they themselves will not have the heart to persevere in the attempt. In this way^ if in no other, slavery must cease. The slaves will cease to be minors ; they will outgrow their state of pupillage, and their bonds will either drop from their limbs or be shaken off. We consider nothing more certain, under those laws which God has established, than that all attempts to per- petuate slavery in these United States must fail. The attempt, however, to render it permanent will, for this very reason, be all the more disastrous. It is an attempt to counteract the laws of nature and ordinances of God, and must of necessity overwhelm in hopeless ruin those who engage in so insane an enterprise. The only safe course, as it is the only one consistent with Chris- tian duty, is to improve the slaves, and to emancipate and re- move them as rapidly as they are prepared for freedom. And as this can now be done without loss to the masters, or with full compensation for such loss, and with the prospect of removing the liberated blacks from the country, it is infatuation to resist the proposed plan. Hereafter emancipation must be granted, without compensation, and without the possibility of removal. There is another consideration involved in what we have said, but which deserves separate mention. If slavery is founded on ignorance and degradation, if it is contrary to the will of God that such ignorance and degradation should be rendered perma- nent, then every attempt to perpetuate such a state is a direct violation of his will. It is a national sin, as it must be commit- EMANCIPATION. 537 ted by the people in their capacity as a commonwealth, and, therefore, will inevitably lead to national calamity. The history of the world is one continued proof that God visits the iniquities of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generation of those who hate him. Nations never sin with impunity. If they are guilty of habitual injustice towards their own dependent members, or against others, they are but laying up for them- selves wrath against the day of wrath. So sure, therefore, as a righteous God rules among the nations, so certainly must the attempt to perpetuate slavery by keeping the slaves ignorant and degraded, work out a fearful retribution for the descendants of those by whom such attempt is made. When to the considerations that emancipation is a duty, and that it is ultimately unavoidable, is added the obvious and weighty benefits which it must confer on all concerned, it is won- derful that a plan so fraught with blessings should not command universal favor. It will raise the black race from the degrada- tion of uneducated bondmen, into enlightened freemen, the founders of a new empire for a continent. It will substitute white free men for negro slaves, as inhabitants of the fairest portions of our own country. It will give thousands of hands to guard our hearths, in place of thousands to be guarded against. It will give us the materials for flourishing schools and churches, instead of moral desolation. It will multiply many fold the re- sources of the State, and secure its progress in all the arts and comforts of life. It will benefit all classes of the people, the slaveowner as well as others. They must reap the advantage of increasing prosperity. If emancipation be attended, as in the West Indies, by circumstances which depress all the resources of the country, then the slaveowners become the chief sufierers. But if for the slave population removed from the land, is substi- tuted an enterprising race of free white men, then the slaveown- ers are the greatest gainers. No class of men in England has gained so much by the abolition of vassalage, and by the pros- perity of the country, as the nobility. Instead of serfs and hovels their estates are covered with free men and cities. And if to-morrow the blacks of Kentucky coiilA be transmuted into such men as make cities and villages spring up like cornfields, through the State of New York, the former slaveowners would find themselves princes. They are striving against their own 538 EMANCIPATION. best interests, as well as the interests of the whole common- wealth in clinging to an institution which must die, and which must poison the air where its disjected members lie. We hope the friends of emancipation in Kentucky will not give up all for lost. Let such addresses as that of Dr. Breckin- ridge be spread over the State, and kept permanently in contact with the minds of the people. Though this is the only argument in favor of emancipation we have had the good fortune to meet with, we are sure, from the character of Dr. Breckinridge's asso- ciates, that there are many other addresses of a like kind, which ought to be preserved, and kept constantly in circulation. With the blessing of God on what is right and true, the people must ultimately be convinced that emancipation is a duty and a ne- cessity. XVI. THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS.^ The normal authority of the Scripture is one of the subjects about which, at the present time, the mind of the church is most seriously agitated. The old doctrine of the plenary inspiration, and consequent infallibility of the written word, is still held by the great body of believers. It is assailed, however, from various quarters and in different ways. Some of these assaults are from avowed enemies ; some, from pretended friends ; and others, from those who are sincere in thinking they are doing God service in making his word more phant, so that it may accommodate itself the more readily, not to science, but to the theories of scientific men ; not to philosophy, but to the speculations of philosophers. The form of these attacks is constantly varying. The age of naked rationalism is almost over. That system is dying of a want of heart. Its dissolution is being hastened by the contempt even of the world. It is no longer the mode to make " common sense" the standard of all truth. Since the discovery of the Anschauungs Vermogen men see things in their essence. The intuitional consciousness has superseded the discursive under- standing ; and Kationalists have given place to Transcendental- ists. In the hands of many of the latter, the Scriptures share the same fate which has overtaken the outward world. As the ma- terial is but the manifestation of the spiritual — so the facts and doctrines of the Bible are the mere forms of the spirit of Chris- ^ T?ie Theology of the Intellect and that of the Feelings. A Discourse hefore the Con- verdion of the Congregational Ministers of New England, in Brattle-street Meeting House, Boston, May 30th, 1850. By Edwards A. Park, Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. Princeton Review, October, 1850. 540 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT tianity ; and if you have tlie spirit, it matters not wliat form it takes. These gifted ones, therefore, can afford to be very liberal. They see in Christianity, as in all things else, a manifestation of what is real. They pity, but can bear with, those who lay stress on the historical facts and doctrinal assertions of the Scriptures. They look on them as occupying a lower position, and as belong- ing to a receding period. Still men can have the substance in that form as well as in another. The misfortune is that they persist in considering the form to be the substance, or at least inseparable from it. They do not see that as the principle of vegetable life is as vigorous now, as when it was expressed in forms extant only as fossils, and would continue unimpaired though the whole existing flora should perish ; so Christianity would flourish uninjured, though the New Testament should turn out to be a fable. This theory has more forms than one ; and has many advo- cates who are not prepared to take it in its full results. Neither is it confined to Germany. With most of the productions of that teeming soil, it is in the process of transplanting. Shoots have been set out, and assiduously watered in England and America, which bid fair to live and bear fruit. The doctrine that ^^ Chris- tianity consists not in propositions — it is life in the soul,^'' and a life independent of the propositions, of necessity supersedes the authority, if not the necessity of the Scriptures. This doctrine, variously modified, is one of the forms in which the word of God is made of none effect. Another theory, intimately related to one just referred to, is the doctrine that inspiration differs in degree, but not in nature, from the spiritual illumination which ordinary men enjoy. Just in proportion as the religious consciousness is elevated, the intui- tion of divine things is enlarged and rendered more distinct. If sanctification were perfect, religious knowledge would be perfect. " Let there be a due purification of the moral nature," says Morell, " a perfect harmony of the spiritual being with the mind of God — a removal of all inward disturbances from the breast, and what is to prevent or disturb this immediate intuition of divine things ?" P. ll^J" The inspiration of the sacred writings, * Morell's Philosophy of Religion, p. 172. 2 MoEELL is a very superior man. He stands among the first rank of reproducing, as distinguished from producing minds. His book is a simple reproduction of the AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 541 resembles^ he tells us, that of men of genius. The natural phi- losopher is so in harmony with nature that he has a sort of intu- ition of her laws ; the poet from sympathy with his fellow-men, can unfold the workings of the human breast ; and so good men, from congeniality with God, can see the things of Grod. Of course the trustworthiness of the sacred writers differs with their goodness. Those of the Old Testament, standing on a much lower level of moral culture than those of the New, are propor- tionately below them in authority. The weight due to what these writers say, depends not only on their relative goodness, but also on the subjects of which they treat. Beyond the sphere of moral and religious truths, they can have no peculiar author- ity, because to that sj)here the intuitions of the religious con- sciousness are of necessity confined. The greater part of the Bible, therefore, is not inspired, even in this low sense of the term ; and as to the rest, it is not the word of God. It is merely the word of good men. It has at best but a human, and not a divine authority ; except, indeed, for those who repudiate the distinction between human and divine, which is the case with the real authors of this system. We are, however, speaking of this theory as it is presented by professed theists. It has ap- peared under three forms, according to the three different views entertained of the Holy Spirit, to whom this inspiration is re- ferred. If by that term is understood the universal efficiency of God, then all men are inspired, who, under the influence of the general providence of God, have their religious consciousness specially elevated. This is the kind of revelation and inspiration which many claim for heathen sages, and concede to Christian apostles. But if the Holy Spirit be regarded as " the forming, animating, and governing principle of the Christian church," then inspiration is confined to those within the church, and be- longs to all its members in proportion to their susceptibility to this pervading principle. Again, if the Holy Spirit be recog- nized as a divine person, dispensing his gifts to each one severally doctrines of the German school to which he is addicted ; but it is remarkably clear, well digested, and consistent. He understands himself and his masters. This is a great deal. Still he is but an intelligent pupil , and those who wish to understand the theory which he presents, would do well to study it in the writings of its authors. They will find it there in its nakedness, freed from those delicate concealments which a traditionary faith has imposed on Mr. Morell. 542 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT as he wills, inspiration may be a still more restricted gift, but its essential nature remains the same. It is that purifying in- fluence of the Spirit upon the mind which enables it to see the things of Grod. It is simply spiritual illumination granted to all believers, to each according to his measure ; to the apostles, it may be conceded in greater fullness than to any others, but to none perfectly. The Bible is not the word of God, though it contains the aspirations, the convictions, the out-goings of heart of mfen worthy of all reverence for their piety. The distinction between the Scriptures and uncanonical writings of pious men, is simply as to the degree of their piety, or their relative advan- tages of knowledge. It is not our business to discuss this theory of inspiration ; we speak of it as one of the modes in which the authority of the Bible is, in the present age, assailed. Under the same general category must be classed the beautiful solo of Dr. Bushnell. He endeavored to seduce us from cleaving to the letter of the Scriptures, by telling us the Bible was but a picture or a poem ; that we need as little to know its dogmas, as the pigments of an artist ; the a3sthetic impression was the end designed, which was to be reached, not through the logical un- derstanding, but the imagination. It was not a creed men needed, or about which they should contend. All creeds are ultimately alike. It is of no use however to score the notes of a dying swan, as the strain cannot be repeated, except by another swan in ar- ticulo mortis. Dr. Bushnell has had his predecessors. A friend of ours, when in Germaijy, had Schleiermacher^s Eeden liber die Religion put into his hands. When asked what he thought of those celebrated discourses, he modestly confessed he could not understand them. " Understand them !" said his friend, " that is not the point. Did you not feel them ?" We are sincerely sorry to be obliged to speak of Professor Park's sermon, which was listened to with unbounded admira- tion, and the fame of which has gone through the land,' as inimical to the proper authority of the word of Grod. But if it is right in him to publish such an attack on doctrines long held sacred, it must be right in those who believe those doctrines, to raise their protest against it. We are far from supposing that the author regards his th6ory as subversive of the authority of the ^ While writing, we have received a copy of the " third thousand" of this dis- course. , ANDTHATOFTHEFEELINGS. 643 Bible. He has obviously adopted it as a convenient way of get- ting rid of certain doctrines, which stand out far too prominently in Scripture and are too deeply impressed on the hearts of God's people, to allow of their being denied. It must be conceded that they are in the Bible. To reconcile this concession with their re- jection, he proposes the distinction between the theology of feel- ing and that of the intellect. There are two modes of apprehend- ing and presenting truth. The one by the logical consciousness (to use the convenient nomenclature of the day) that it may be understood ; the other by the intuitional consciousness, that it may be felt. These modes do not necessarily agree : they may often conflict, so that what is true in the one, may be false in the other. If an assertion of Scripture commends itself to our reason, we refer it to the theology of the intellect, and admit its truth. If it clashes with any of our preconceived opinions, we can refer it to the theology of the feelings, and deny its truth for the in- tellect. In this way, it is obvious any unpalatable doctrine may be got rid of, but no less obviously at the expense of the author- ity of the word of God. There is another advantage of this theory of which the Professor probably did not think. It enables a man to profess his faith in doctrines which he does not believe. Dr. Bushnell could sign any creed by help of that chemistry of thought which makes all creeds alike. L-Professor Park's theory will allow a man to assert contradictory propositions. If asked. Do you believe that Christ satisfied the justice of God ? he can say, yes, for it is true to his feelings ; and he can say, no, because it is false to his intellect. A judicious use of this method will carry a man a great way. This whole discourse, we think, will strike the reader, as a set of variations on the old theme, "What is true in rehgion is false in philosophy :" and the " tearful Ger- man," of whom our author speaks, who said : " In my heart I am Christian, while in my head I am a philosopher," might find great comfort in the doctrine here propounded. He might learn that his condition instead of a morbid, was in fact the normal one ; as what is true to the feelings is often false to the intellect. We propose to give a brief analysis of this sermon, and then, in as few words as possible, endeavor to estimate its character. The sermon is founded upon Gen. vi. 6, and 1 Sam. xv. 29. In the former passage it is said, " It repented the Lord ;" and in the latter, God — " is not a man that he should repent." Here 544 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT are two assertions in direct conflict^ Grod repented and God can- not repent. Both must be true. But how are they to be recon- ciled ? The sermon proposes to give the answer, and to show how the same proposition may be both affirmed and denied. Our author begins by teUing us of a father who, in teaching astron- omy to his child, produced a false impression by presenting the truth ; while the mother produced a correct impression by teaching error. This, if it means anything to the purpose, is rather omin- ous as a commencement. A right impression is the end to be aimed at in all instruction ; and, if the principle implied in this illustration be correct, we must discard the fundamental maxim in religion, " Truth is in order to holiness,''* and assume that error is better adapted to that purpose : a principle on which Koman- ists have for ages acted in their crass misrepresentations of divine things in order to impress the minds of the people. But we must proceed with our analysis. '' The theology of the intellect," we are told, " conforms to the laws, subserves the wants, and secures the approval of our intuitive and deductive powers. It includes the decisions of the judgment, of the per- ceptive part of conscience and taste, indeed of all the faculties which are essential to the reasoning process. It is the theology of speculation, and therefore comprehends the truth just as it is, unmodified by excitements of feeling. It is received as accurate not in its spirit only, but in its letter also." P. 534. » It de- mands evidence. It prefers general to individual statements, the abstract to the concrete, the literal to the figurative. Its aim is not to be impressive, but intelligible and defensible. For example, it affirms " that he who united in his person a human body, a human soul, and a divine spirit, expired on the cross, but it does not originate the phrase that the soul expired, nor that ^Grod, the mighty Maker, died.'" '^It would never suggest the unqualified remark that Christ has fully paid the debt of sinners, for it declares that this debt may be justly claimed from them ; nor that he sufiered the whole punishment which they deserve, for it teaches that this punishment may still be righteously in- flicted on themselves ; nor that he has entirely satisfied the law, for it insists that the demands of the law are yet in force." It gives origin to "no metaphor so bold, and so liable to disfigure * Our references are to the reprint of the Sermon m the Bibhotheca Sacra, for Julj, 1850. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 546 OUT idea of the divine equity as that Heaven imputes the crime of one man to millions of his descendants, and then imputes their myriad sins to him who was harmless and undefiled/' " It is suited not for eloquent appeals, but for calm controversial treatises and bodies of divinity ; not so well for the hymn-book as for the catechism ; not so well for the liturgy as for the creed." P. 535. We must pause here for a moment. It so happens that all the illustrations which our author gives of modes of expression which the theology of the intellect would not adopt, are the pro- ducts of that theology. They are the language of speculation, of theory, of the intellect, as distinguished from the feelings — that Christ bore our punishment ; that he satisfied the law ; that Adam's sin is imputed to us, and our sins to Christ, are all generalizations of the intellect ; they are summations of the mani- fold and diversified representations of Scripture ; they are ab- stract propositions embodying the truth presented in the figures, facts, and didactic assertions found in the sacred writing. It would be impossible to pick out of the whole range of theological statements, any which are less impassioned, or which are more purely addressed to the intellect. They have been framed for the very purpose of being " intelligible and defensible.'" They answer every criterion the author himself proposes for distin- guishing the language of the intellect from that of the feeling. Accordingly, these are the precise representations given in cate- chisms, in calm controversial treatises and bodies of divinity for strictly didactic purposes. They are found in the accurately worded and carefully balanced confessions of faith, designed to state with all possible precision the intellectual propositions to bCMieceived as true. These are the very representations, more- over, which have been held up to reproach as " theoretical," as '' philosophy" introduced into the Bible, Whether they are cor- rect or incorrect, is not now the question. What we assert is, that if there be any such thing as the theology of the intellect ; any propositions framed for the purpose of satisfying the demands of the intelligence ; any purely abstract and didactic formulas, these are they. Yet Professor Park, simply because he does not recog- nize them as true, puts them under the category of feeling, and represents them as passionate expressions designed not to be in- telligible, but impressive ; addressed not to the intellect but to the emotions ! 35 546 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT The theology of the feelings is declared to be the form of be- lief which is suggested by, and adapted to the wants of the well- trained heart. It is embraced as involving the substance of truth, although, when literally interpreted, it may, or may not be false. It studies not the exact proportions of doctrine, but gives special prominence to those features which are thought to be most grateful to the sensibilities. It insists not on dialectical argument, but receives whatever the healthy aifections crave. P. 535. It sacrifices abstract remarks to visible and tangible images. It is satisfied with vague, indefinite representations. P. 536. For example, instead of saying God can do all things which are the objects of power, it says. He spake and it was done. Instead of saying that the providence of God comprehends all events ; it says, " The children of men put their trust under the cover of Jehovah's wings." To keep back the Jews from the vices and idolatry of their neighbors, it plied them with a stem theology which represented God as jealous and angry, and armed with bow, arrows, and glittering sword. But when they needed a soothing influence, they were told that " the Lord feedeth his flock like a shepherd." It represents Christians as united to their Lord as the branch to the vine, or the members to the head ; but it does not mean to have these endearing words meta- morphosed into an intellectual theory of our oneness with Christ, for with another end in view it teaches that he is distinct from us, as a captain from his soldiers. The free theology of the feel- ings is ill-fitted for didactic or controversial treatises or doctrinal standards. Anything, everything can be proved from the writ- ings of those addicted to its use, because they indite sen tences congenial 'with an excited heart, but false as expressions of deliberate opinion. P. 537. This is the theology of and for our sensitive nature, of and for the normal emotion, affection, passion. It* is, moreover, permanent. Ancient philosophy has perished, ancient poetry is as fresh as ever. So the theology of reason changes, theory chases theory, " but the theology of the heart, letting the minor accuracies go for the sake of holding strongly upon the substance of doctrine, need not always accom- modate itself to scientific changes, but may often use its old state- ments, even if, when literally understood, they be incorrect,' and ' This IS a rather dangerous principle. Rhor, superintendent of "Weimar, though a pure Deist, admitting nothing but the doctrinea of natural religion, still insisted oa AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 647 it thus abides permanent as are the main impressions of the truth." P. 539. We must again pause in our analysis. If there be any such thing as the theology of the feeling as distinct from that of the intel- lect, the passages cited above neither prove nor illustrate it. Our author represents the feelings as expressing themselves in figures, and demanding " visible and tangible images." We question the correctness of this statement. The highest language of emotion is generally simple. Nothing satisfies the mind when under great excitement but literal or perfectly intelligible expressions. Then is not the time for rhetorical phrases. There is a lower state of feeling, a placid calmness, which delights in poetic im- agery, which at once satisfies the feelings and excites the imag- ination, and thus becomes the vehicle of moral and aesthetic emotions combined. The emotions of terror and sublimity also, as they are commonly excited through the imagination, naturally clothe themselves in imaginative language. But the moral, re- ligious, and social afi'ections, when strongly moved, commonly demand the simplest form of utterance. " Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts," is the language of seraphic devotion, yet what more simple ! " The loving kindness of the Lord is over all his works," is surely as much the language of feeling, and tends as directly to excite gratitude and confidence, as saying, "The Lord is my shepherd." The most pathetic lamentation upon record is that of David over his son Absalom, which is indeed, an apostrophe, but nothing can be freer from tropical expression. How simple, also, is the language of penitence as recorded in the Bible. " God be merciful to me a sinner !" " Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight." '' Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee .?" " my God ! I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee my God." Admitting, however, that figurative language is the usual vehicle of emotion, this affords no foundation for the distinction the propriety of retaining the language and current representations of orthodox Chris- tians, and telling the people in his public ministrations that Christ was the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world ; that men are saved by his blood. He did not think it necessary that the language designed to move the people " should accommodate itself to scientific changes," even, when, if literally understood (^. e., if understood according to its true import) it was incorrect. It is easy to see what lat- itude in sajang one thing and meaning another, this principle will allow. 548 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT between the theology of feeling and the theology of the intellect — the one vague and inaccurate, the other precise and exact. For, in the first place, figurative language is just as definite in its meaning and just as intelligible as the most literal. After the church had been struggling for centuries to find language sufficiently precise to express distinctly its consciousness respect- ing the person of Christ, it adopted the figurative language of the Athanasian creed, " God of God, Light of Light, Begotten, and not made." Calling God our shepherd presents as definite an idea to the mind as the most literal form of expression. To say that God is angry, or jealous, expresses as clearly the truth that his nature is opposed to sin, as the most abstract terms could no. We have here no evidence of two kinds of theology, the one afiirming what the other denies ; the one true to the feelings and false to the intellect, and the reverse. The two passages on which this sermon is founded, chosen for the purpose of illustrating this theory, might be selected to show that it is without foundation. The declarations, " God repented," and " God cannot repent," do not belong to difierent categories ; the one is not the language of feeling and the other of the intelli- gence ; the one does not affirm what the other denies. Both are figurative. Both are intelligible. The one, in its connection, expresses God's disapprobation of sin, the other, his immuta- bility. The one addresscis the sensibilities as much as the other ; and the one is as much directed to the intellect as the other. To found two conflicting kinds of theology on such passages as these, is as unreasonable as it would be to build two systems of anthro- pology on the verbally contradictory propositions constantly used about men. We say a man is a lion, and we say, he is not a quadruped. Do these assertions require a new theory of psychol- ogy, or even a new theory of interpretation in order to bring them into harmony ? Figurative language, when interpreted liter- ally, will of course express what is false to the intellect ; but it will in that case, be no less false to the taste and to the feelings. Such language, when interpreted according to established usage, and made to mean what it was intended to express, is not only definite in its import, but it never expresses what is false to the intellect. The feelings demand truth in their object ; and no utterance is natural or efiiective as the language of emo- tion, which does not satisfy the understanding. Saying God re- AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 549 pents, that he is jealous ; that he is our shepherd ; that men hide under the shadow of his wings, are true to the intelligence in the precise sense in which they are true to the feelings ; and it is only so far as they are true to the former that they are effec- tive or appropriate for the latter. It is because calling God our shepherd presents the idea of a person exercising a kind care over us, that it has power to move the affections. If it presented any conception inconsistent with the truth it would grate on the feelings, as much as it would offend the intellect. We object, therefore, to our author's exposition of his doctrine, first, because much that he cites as the language of feeling is incorrectly cited ; and secondly, because, granting his premises, his conclusion does not follow. A third objection is, that he is perfectly arbitrary in the application of his theory. Because figurative language is not to be interpreted literally, the Socinian infers that all that is said in Scripture in reference to the sacrificial nature of Christ's death, is to be understood as expressing nothing more than the truth that he died for the benefit of others. When the patriot dies for his country ; or a mother wears herself out in the service of her child, we are wont to say, they sacrifice themselves for the object of their affection. This deceives no one. It expresses the simple truth that they died for the good of others. Whether this is aU that the Scriptures mean when they call Christ a sac- rifice, is not to be determined by settling the general principle that figures are not to be interj)reted according to the letter. That is conceded. But figures have a meaning which is not to be explained away at pleasure. Professor Park would object to this exposition of the design of Christ's death, not by insisting that figurative language is to be interpreted literally, but by showing that these figures are designed to teach more than the Socinian is willing to admit. In like manner we say, that if we were disposed to admit the distinction between the theology of the feelings and that of the intellect, as equivalent to that be- tween figurative and literal language, or, as our author says, be- tween poetry and prose, we should still object to his application of his principle. He is just as arbitrary in explaining away the scriptural representations of original sin, of the satisfaction of divine justice by the sacrifice of Christ, as the Socinian is in the application of his principle. He just as obviously violates the established laws of language, and just as plainly substitutes 560 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT the speculations of his own mind for the teachings of the word of God. Entirely irrespective, therefore, of the validity of our author's theory, we object to this sermon that it discards, as the language of emotion, historical, didactic, argumentative state- ments, and in short, everything he is not willing to receive, as far as appears, for no other reason, and by no other rule than his own repugnance to what is thus presented. Having considered some of the differences between the emo- tive and intellectual theology, the author adverts to the influence which the one exerts over the other. And first the theology of the intellect illustrates and vivifies itself by that of the feelings. We must add a body, he says, to the soul of a doctrine, whenever we would make it palpable and enlivening. The whole doctrine of the spiritual world, is one that requires to be rendered tangi- ble by embodiment. An intellectual view is too general to be embraced by the feelings. They are balked with the notion of a spaceless, formless existence; continuing between death and the resurrection, p. 540. In the second place, the theology of the intellect enlarges and improves that of the feelings, and is also enlarged and improved by it. The more extensive and accurate are our views of literal truth, so much the more numerous and salutary are the forms which it may assume for enlisting the affections. It is a tend- ency of pietism to undervalue the human intellect for the sake of exalting the affections, as if the reason had fallen deeper than the will. It cannot be a pious act to underrate those powers which are given by him who made the soul in his image. We must speculate. The heart is famished by an idle intellect. AVhen fed by an enquiring mind, it is enlivened, and reaches out for an expanded faith. The theology of reason not only amends and amplifies that of the affections, it is also improved and enlarged by it. When a feeling is constitutional and cannot but be approved, it furnishes data to the intellect by means of which it may add new materials to its dogmatic system. The doctrines which concentrate in and around a vicarious atonement are so fitted to the appetences of a sanctified heart, as to gain the favor of the logician, precisely as the coincidence of some geological or astronomical theories with the phenomena of the earth or sky, is part of the syllogism which has these theories for its conclusion. The fact that the faith- AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 551 ful in all ages, concur in one substance of belief, is a proof of the correctness of their faith. The church is not infallible in her bodies of divinity, nor her creeds, nor catechisms, nor any logical formula ; but underneath all, there lies a grand substance of doctrine, around which the feelings of all reverent men cling ever and everywhere, and which must be right, for it is precisely ad- justed to the soul, and the soul was made for it. These universal feelings provide a test for our faith. Whenever our representa- tions fail to accord with those feelings something must be wrong. " Our sensitive nature is sometimes a kind of instinct which an- ticipates many truths, incites the mind to search for them, inti- mates the process of investigation, and remains unsatisfied until it finds the object towards which it gropes its way. But while the theology of reason derives aid from the impulses of emotion, it maintains its ascendancy over them. In all inves- tigations for truth, the intellect must be the authoritative power, employing the sensibilities as indices of right doctrine, but sur- veying and superintending them from its commanding elevation, p. 543-546. In the third place, the theology of the intellect explains that of the feeling into essential agreement with all the constitutional demands of the soul. It does this by collecting all the discordant representations which the heart allows, and eliciting the one self- consistent principle which underlies them. The Bible represents the heart sometimes as stone, sometimes as flesh ; sometimes as dead, sometimes alive ; sometimes as needing to be purified by God, sometimes as able to purify itself, &c., &c. These expres- sions, literally understood, are dissonant. The intellect educes light from these repugnant phrases, and reconciles them into the doctrine, '•Hhsitthe character of our race needs an essential trans- formation by an interposed influence of God" p. 547. Certainly a veiy genteel way of expressing the matter, which need offend no one, Jew or Gentile, Augustin or Pelagius. All may say that much, and make it mean more or less at pleasure. If such is the sublimation to which the theology of the intellect is to sub- ject the doctrines of the Bible, they will soon be dissipated into thin air. Another illustration is borrowed from "the heart's phrases" respecting its ability. Sometimes the man of God longs to abase himself, and exclaims without one modifying word : " I am too 552 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT frail for my responsibilities, and have no power to do what is re- quired of me." At another time he says : " I know thee, that thou art not a hard master, exacting of me duties which I have no power to discharge, hut thou attemperest thy law to my strength, and at no time imposest upon me a heavier burden than thou at that very time makest me able to bear." The rea- son seeks out some principle to reconcile these and similar con- tradictions, and finds it, as Professor Park thinks, in the doc- trine that man, with no extraordinary aid from divine grace, is fully set in those wayward preferences which are an abuse of his freedom. His unvaried wrong choices imply a full, unremitted natural power of choosing right. The emotive theology, there- fore, when it affirms this power is correct both in matter and style ; but when it denies this power, it uses the language of emphasis, of impression, of intensity ; it means the certainty of wrong preference by declaring the inabihty of right ; and in its vivid use of cannot for will not is accurate in substance but not in form, p. 549. It is to be remembered that it is not the language of excited, fanatical, fallible men that our author undertakes thus to evis- cerate, but the formal didactic assertions of the inspired writers. We can hardly think that he can himself be blind to the nature of the process which he here indicates. The Bible plainly, not in impassioned language, but in the most direct terms, asserts the inability of men to certain acts necessary to their salvation. It explains the nature, and teaches the origin of that inability. This doctrine, however, is in conflict, not with other assertions of Scripture, for there are no counter statements, but with a peculiar theory of responsibility, which the author adopts ; and therefore, all the expressions of this truth are to be set down to irrational feeling which does not understand itself. Thus a doc- trine which is found in the symbols of all churches, Latin, Luth- eran, and Reformed, is explained out of the Bible, and the most vapid formula of Pelagianism (viz. that present strength to moral and spiritual duties is the measure of obligation), put in its place. The author has surely forgot what a few pages before he said of the informing nature of Christian consciousness. If there is one thing which that consciousness teaches all Christians, more clearly than anything- else, it is their helplessness, their inability to do what reason, conscience, and God require, in the plain un- AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 553 sophisticated sense of the word inability. And we venture to say that no Christian ever used from the heart, such language as Professor Park puts into the "good man V mouth, about his power to do all that God requires. Such is not the language of the heart, but of a head made light by too much theorizing. Give us, by all means, the theology of the heart, in preference to the theology of the intellect. We would a thousandfold rather take our faith from Professor Park's feelings than from what he miscalls his reason, but which is in fact the fragments of a phi- losophy that was, but is not. His fourth remark is, that the theology of the intellect, and that of the feeling tend to keep each other within the sphere for which they were respectively designed, and in which they are fitted to improve the character. When an intellectual state- ment is transferred to the province of emotion, it often appears chilling, hfeless ; and when a passionate phrase is transferred to the dogmatic province, it often appears grotesque, unftitelligible, absurd. To illustrate this point he refers to the declaration in reference to the bread and wine in the eucharist. " This is my body, this is my blood." To excited feelings such language is appropriate, but no sooner are these phrases transmuted into utterances of intellectual judgments, than they become absurd. So the lamentation : " Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," is natural and proper as an ex- pression of penitential feelings. But if seized by a theorist to straighten out into the dogma that man is blamable before he chooses to do wrong, deserving of punishment for the involun- tary nature which he has never consented to gratify, really sinful before we actually sin, then all is confusion. Here again a plain doctrine of the Bible, incorporated in all Christian creeds, inwrought into all Christian experience, is re- jected in deference to the theory that all sin consists in acts ; a theory which ninety-nine hundredths of all good men utterly re- pudiate ; a theory which never has had a standing in the symbols of any Christian church, a clear proof that it is in conflict with the common consciousness of believers. Because the doctrine here discarded finds expression in a penitential psalm, is surely no proof that it is not a doctrine of Scripture. Thomas's pas- sionate exclamation at the feet of his risen Saviour, " My Lord and my God," is no proof that the divinity of Christ belongs to 554 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT the theology of feeling, and is to be rejected by the reason. It is because such doctrines are didactically taught in the Bible, and presented as articles of faith, that they work themselves into the heart, and find expression in its most passionate language. The doctrine of innate sinful depravity does not rest on certain poetic phrases, it is assumed and accounted for it ; it is impli- cated in the doctrines of redemption, regeneration, and baptism ; it is sustained by arguments from analogy, experience, and con- sciousness ; it is part and parcel of the universal faith of Chris- tendom, and its rejection, on the score that passionate phrases are not to be interpreted by the letter, is as glaring an example of subjecting Scripture to theory, as the history of interpretation affords. In the conclusion of his discourse, our author represents the confusion of the two kinds of theology, which he endeavors to discriminate as a great source of evil. " Grave errors," he says, "have arisen from so simple a cause as that of confounding poetry with prose." Is it not a still more dangerous mistake to turn prose into poetry .^ What doctrine of the Scriptures, have Kationalists, by that simple process, failed to explain away ? What do they make of the ascription of divine names and at- tributes to Christ, but eastern metaphor and hyperbole ? How do they explain the worship paid to him on earth and in heaven, but as the language of passion, which the intellect repudiates ? The fact is, that poetry and prose have their fixed rules of inter- pretation, and there is no danger of mistaking the one for the other, nor are they ever so mistaken, where there is a disposition humbly to receive the truth they teach. " In the Bible," says our author, '^ there are pleasing hints of many things which were never designed to be doctrines, such as the literal and proper necessity of the will, passive and physical sin, baptismal regeneration, clerical absolution, the literal impu- tation of guilt to the innocent, transubstantiation, eternal gener- ation and procession. In that graceful volume, these metaphors {?) bloom as the flowers of the field ; there they toil not neither do they spin. But the schoolman has transplanted them to the rude exposure of logic, there they are frozen up, their juices evaporated, and their withered leaves are preserved as specimens of that which in its rightful place surpassed the glory of the wisest sage." P. 558. It would be a pity to throw the vail of AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 555 comment over the self-evidencing light of such a sentence. Its animus is self-revealing. A more cheering inference from the doctrine of his sermon our author finds in the revelation it affords of " the identity in the essence of many systems which are run in scientific or assthetic moulds unlike each other.'' There are, indeed, kinds of theology which cannot be reconciled with each other. There is a life, a soul, a vitalizing spirit of truth, which must never he relinquished for the sake of peace, even with an angel. " There is," as we rejoice to hear our author say, " a line of separation which can- not he crossed, between those systems which insert, and those which omit the doctrine of justification by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus. This is the doctrine which blends in itself the theology of intellect and feeling, and which can no more be struck out from the moral, than the sun from the planetary system. Here the mind and the heart, like justice and mercy, meet, and em- brace each other ; and here is found the specific and ineflaceable difference between the gospel and every other system. But among those who admit the atoning death of Christ as the or- ganic principle of their faith, there are differences, some of them more important, but many far less important than they seem to be. One man prefers a theology of the judgment ; a second, that of the imagination ; a third, that of the heart ; one adjusts his faith to a lymphatic, another to a sanguine, and still another to a choleric temperament. Yet the subject matter of these heterogeneous configurations may often be one and the same, having for its nucleus the same cross, with the formative influence of which all is safe." P. 559. But what in the midst of all these diversities becomes of Grod's word ? Is that so mul- tiform and heterogeneous in its teaching ? Or is the rule of faith after all subjective, a man's temperament and preferences ? It is obvious, first, that the Scriptures teach one definite form of faith to which it is the duty and for the spiritual interests of every man to conform his faith, and every departure from which is evil and tends to evil. Secondly, that there is doubtless far more agreement in the apprehension, and inward experience of the doctrines of the Bible, than in the outward expression of them ; so that sincere Christians agree much more nc^arly in their faith than they do in their professions. Thirdly, that this is no proof that diversities of doctrinal propositions are matters of small 556 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT moment ; or that we may make light of all differences which do not affect the very fundamentals of the gospel. Truth and holi- ness are most intimately related. The one produces and pro- motes the other. What injures the one, injures also the other. Paul warns all teachers against building, even on the true foundation, with wood, hay, and stubble. He reminds them that God's temple is sacred ; that it cannot be injured with impunity, and that those who inculcate error instead of truth, will, in the great day, suffer loss, though they may themselves be saved, as by fire. It will avail them little to say that their temperament was lymphatic, sanguine, or choleric, that they conceived of truth themselves, and presented it to others, in a manner suited to their idiosyncracies. They were sent to teach God's word, and not their own fancies. The temple of God, which temple is the church, is not to be built up by rubbish. When we began to write, we intended to furnish an analysis of this discourse before making any remarks on the views which it presents. We have been seduced, however, into giving expres- sion to most of what we had to say, in the form of comment on the successive heads of the sermon. We shall, therefore, not trespass much longer on the reader's patience. There are two points to which it has been our object to direct attention. First, the theory here propounded, and secondly, the application which the author makes of his principle. As to the theory itself, it seems to us to be founded on a wrong psychology. Whatever doctrine the writer may actually hold as to the nature of the soul, his thoughts and language are evidently framed on the assumption of a much greater distinction between the cognitive and emotional faculties in ma*n than actually ex- ists. The very idea of a theology of feeling as distinct from that of the intellect, seems to take for granted that there are two percipient principles in the soul. The one sees a proposition to be true, the other sees it to be false. The one adopts symbols to express its apprehensions ; the other is precise and prosaic in its language. We know, indeed, that the author would repudi- ate this statement, and deny that he held to any such dualism in the soul. We do not charge him with any theoretic convic- tion of this sort. We only say that this undue dissevering the human faculties underHes his whole doctrine, and is irtiplied in the theory which he has advanced. Both Scripture and con- AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 557 sciousness teach that the soul is a unit ; that its activity is one life. The one rational soul apprehends, feels, and determines. It is not one faculty that apprehends, another that feels, and an- other that determines. Nor can you separate in the complex states of mind of which we are every moment conscious, the feel- ing from the cognition. From the very nature of affection in a rational being, the intellectual apprehension of its object is essen- tial to its existence. You cannot eliminate the intellectual ele- ment, and leave the feeling. The latter is but an attribute of the former, as much as form or color is an attribute of bodies. It is impossible, therefore, that what is true to the feelings should be false to the intellect. It is impossible that a man should have the feeling {i. e., the consciousness) of inability to change his own heart, and yet the conviction that he has the re- c[uisite power. The mind cannot exist in contradictory states at the same time. Men may indeed pass from one state to another. They may sometimes speak under the influence of actual ex- perience ; and sometimes under the guidance of a speculative theory ; and such utterances may be in direct conflict. But then the contradiction is real and not merely apparent. The intel- lectual conviction expressed in the one state, is the direct reverse of that expressed in the other. These are the vacillations of fallible men, whose unstable judgments are determined by the varying conditions of their minds. We have known men edu- cated under the influence of a sceptical philosophy, who have become sincere Christians. Their conversion was, of course, a supernatural process, involving a change of faith as Avell as feel- ing. But as this change was not effected by a scientific refuta- tion of their former opinions, but by the demonstration of the Spirit revealing to them the truth and power of the gospel ; when the hearts of such . men grow cold, their former sceptical views rise before them in all their logical consistence, and demand as- sent to their truth, which for the time is reluctantly yielded, though under a solemn protest of the conscience. When the Spirit returns revealing Christ, these demons of doubt vanish and leave the soul rejoicing in the faith. These states cannot co-exist. The one is not a state of feeling ; the other of cog- nition. Both are not true ; the one when judged by one standard ; and the other, by another. They are opposite and contradictory. The one affirms what the other denies. One must 558 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT be false. A poor, fallible man driven about by the waves, may thus give utterance to different theologies under different states of mind ; but the difference, as just stated, is that between truth and falsehood. Nothing of this kind can be admitted with re- gard to the sacred penmen, and therefore, this change to which uninspired men may be subject in their apprehension and ex- pression of religious truth, cannot be attributed to those who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The changes just referred to are therefore something very dif- ferent from those for which our author contends, and consequently the occurrence of such changes in the experience of men, is no proof of the correctness of his theory ; neither do they show that the mind is not one percipient, feeling, and willing agent. The point which we wish now to urge is that the theory of Professor Park assumes a greater difference in the faculties of the soul than actually exists. From its individuaUty and unity, it follows that all its affections suppose a cognition of their appropriate objects, and that such cognition is an intellectual exercise, and must be conformed to the laws of the intelligence ; and consequently in those complex states of mind to which our author refers as illus- trating the origin of the theology of feeling, the rational element, is that very cognition by the intellect which belongs to the other form of theology. Besides, it is to be remembered that although in the apprehension of speculative truths, as in mathema.tics, for example, the cognition is purely an intellectual exercise, but when the object is an aBsthetic or moral truth the apprehension is of necessity complex. There is no such thing as a purely intellect- ual cognition of a moral truth. It is the exercise of a moral na- ture ; it implies moral sensibility. It of necessity, involves feel- ing to a greater or less degree. It is the cognition of a being sensitive to moral distinctions, and without that sensibility there can be no such cognition. To separate these two elements there- fore is impossible, and to place them in collision is a contradic- tion. A man can no more think an object to be cold which he feels to be warm, or to be beautiful which he sees to be deformed, than he can apprehend it as false and feel it to be true. It con- tradicts the laws of our nature as well as all experience, to say that the feelings apprehend Christ as suffering the penalty of the law in our stead, while the intellect pronounces such ap- prehension to be false. You might as well say that we feel a AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 559 thing to be good while we see it to be sinful, or feel it to be pleasant while we know it to be the reverse. Professor Park's whole theory is founded upon the assumption that such contradictions actually exist. It supposes not different modes of activity, but different percipient agencies in the soul. It as- sumes not that the soul can perceive one way at one time and another way at another time, which all admit, but that the feel- ings perceive in one way and the intellect in another ; the one seeing a thing as true while the other sees it to be false. It is important to note the distinction between the different judg- ments which we form of the same object, in different states of mind, and the theory of this discourse. The distinction is two- fold. The diverse successive judgments of which we are con- scious, are different intellectual cognitions ; and not different modes of apprehending the same object by different faculties — the feelings and the intellect. For example, if a man judges at one time Christianity to be true, and at another that it is false, it would be absurd to say that it is true to his feelings, and false to his intellect. The fact is, at one time he sees the evidence of the truth of the gospel and assents to it. At others, his mind is so occupied by objections that he cannot believe. This is a very common occurrence. A man in health and fond of philosophic speculations, may get his mind in a state of complete scepticism. When death approaches, or when he is convinced of sin, he is a firm believer. Or at one tim^ the doctrines of man's dependence, of God's sovereignty, and the like, are seen and felt to be true ; at another, they are seen and felt to be false ; that is, the mind rejects them with conviction and emo- tion. In all such cases of different judgments, we have different intellectual apprehensions as well as different feelings. It is not that a proposition is true to the intellect and false to the feel- ings, or the reverse ; but at one time it is true to the intellect and at another false to the same faculty. This, which is a fa- miliar fact of consciousness, is, we apprehend, very different from Professor Park's doctrine. The second distinction is this. Ac- cording to our author these conflicting apprehensions are equally true. It is true to the feelings that Christ satisfied divine just- ice ; that we have a sinful nature ; that we are unable of our- selves to repent and believe the gospel, but all these propositions are false to the intellect. He therefore can reconcile it with his 560 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT views, that good men, and even tlie inspired writers, should sometimes affirm and sometimes deny these and similar propo- sitions. We maintain that such propositions are irreconcilahle. The one judgment is true and the other false. Both can never be uttered under the guidance of the Spirit. He cannot lead the sinner to feel his helplessness, and inspire Paul to deny it ;' much less can he inspire men sometimes to assert, and some- times to deny the same thing. When the mind passes, as we all know it repeatedly does, from the disbelief to the belief of those and other doctrines, it is a real change in its cognitions as well as in its feelings — a change which implies fallibility and er- ror, and which therefore can have no place in the Bible, and can furnish no rule of interpreting its language, or the language of Christian experience. To make the distinction between Profes- sor Park's theory and the common doctrine on this subject, the more apparent, we call attention to their different results. He teaches that the theology of feelings which apprehends and ex- presses truth in forms which the intellect cannot sanction, is ap- propriate to the Hymn Book and the Liturgy. He assumes that forms of devotion which are designed to express religious feeling may properly contain much that the intelligence rejects as false. He condemns those critics who " are ready to exclude from our psalms and hymns all such stanzas as are not accurate expres- sions of dogmatic truth." In opposition to this view, we main- tain that the feelings demand truth, i. e., truth which satisfies the intellect, in the appropriation and expression of their object. The form in which that truth is expressed may be figurative, but it must have the sanction of the understanding. The least sus- picion of falsehood destroys the feeling. The soul cannot feel towards Christ as God if it regards him as merely a man. It cannot feel towards him as a sacrifice, if it believes he died sim- ply as a martyr. In short, it cannot believe what it knows to be a lie, or apprehend an object as false and yet feel towards it as true. Let it be assumed that a man is convinced that ability is necessary to responsibility ; that sin cannot be imputed to the I This is so plain a matter that Professor Park has himself given utterance to the same truth. "Is God," he asks, "the author of confusion; in his word revealing one doctrine and by his Spirit persuading his people to reject it ?" P. 544. Surelj not ; and therefore, if the sanctified heart, i. e., the feelings under the iDfluence of the Spirit, or, to use our author's phraseology, if the theology of feeling pronounces a doctrine to be true, nothing but a sceptical intellect can pronounce it to bo false. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 561 innocent ; that Christ did not satisfy divine justice, then no genuine religious feeling can find, expression in such forms of speech. Professor Park says, on this principle he must believe that God actually came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran ; that he really rode upon a chariot, &c. This in- dicates a most extraordinary confusion of mind. Is there no difference between the figurative expression of what is true and the assertion of what is false ? The phrase that " God came from Teman/' or, " He made the clouds his chariot," when in- terpreted according to the established laws of language, expresses a truth. The phrases " Christ took upon him oui^ guilt ;" " He satisfied divine justice," &c., &c., when interpreted by the same laws express, as our author thinks, what is false. Is' there then no difference between these cases ? Professor Park evidently confounds two things which are as distinct as day and night ; viz. : a metaphor and a falsehood — a figurative expression and a doctrinal untruth. Because the one is allowable, he pleads for the other also. Because I may express the truth that Christ was a sacrifice by calling him the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world — I may, in solemn acts of worship, so address him without believing in his sacrificial death at all ! All religious language false to the intellect is profane to the feelings and a mockery of God. That such is the dictate of Christian conscious- ness is plain from the fact that the Hymn Book or Liturgy of no church contains doctrines contrary to the creed of such church. We challenge Professor Park to produce from the hymns used by Presbyterians a single phrase inconsistent with the Westmin- ster Confession. If one such could be found, its inaccuracy as an expression "of dogmatic truth" would be universally regarded as a sufiicient reason for its repudiation. Men may no more sing falsehood to God, than speak it in the pulpit, or profess it in a creed. In the early part of his discourse, our author says, the intellect does not originate the phrase " God, the mighty maker, died." This he attributes to the feelings as a passionate expres- sion, designed to be impressive rather than intelligible. This, therefore, we pre^me he would adduce as an example of doc- trinal inaccuracy in the language* of devotion. A moment's re- flection, however, is sufficient to show that instead of this phrase being forced on the intellect by the feelings, it has to be defend- ed by the intejlect at the bar of the feelings. The latter at first 36 562 th:e theology of the intellect recoil from it. It is not until its strict doctrinal propriety is ap- prehended by the intelligence, that the feelings acquiesce in its use, and open themselves to the impression of the awful truth which it contains. An attempt was actually made, on the score of taste, to exclude that phrase from our hymn book. But its restoration was demanded by the public sentiment of the church, on the score of doctrinal fidelity. It was seen to be of importance to assert the truth that he, the person who died upon the cross, was " God, the mighty Maker, the Lord of glory, the Prince of Life," for on this truth depends the whole value of his death. In all cases, therefore, we maintain that the religious feelings demand truth and repudiate falsehood. They cannot express themselves under forms which the intelligence rejects, for those feelings themselves are the intelligence in a certain state, and not some distinct percipient agent. Here, as before remarked, is the radical error of our author's theory. It supposes in fact two conflicting intelhgences in man ; the one seeing a thing to be true, and the other seeing it to be false, and yet both seeing correctly from its own position and for its own object. We have endeavored to show that there is no such dualism in the soul, and therefore no foundation for two such systems of conflicting theologies as this theory supposes. The familiar fact that men sometimes regard a doctrine as true and sometimes look upon it as false ; that they have conflicting judgments, and give utterances to inconsistent declarations, we maintain is no proof of a theology of the feelings as distinct from that of the intellect. These vacillating judgments are really contradictory apprehensions of the intellect, one of which must be false, and therefore to attribute them to. the sacred writers, under the plea that they sometimes spoke to be impressive, and sometimes to be intelKgible, is to destroy their authority ; and to use in worship expressions which the intellect pronounces doc- trinally untrue, is repudiated by the whole Christian church as profane. If we wish to get the real faith of a people, that faith on which they live, in which intellect and heart alike acquiesce, go to their hymns and forms of devotion. There they are sincere. There they speak what they kfiow to be true ; and there conse- quently their true creed is to be found. Having endeavored to show that Professor Park finds no foun- dation for his theory in the constitution of our nature, or in those AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 663 familiar changes of views and feelings, in varying states of mind, of which all are conscious, we wish to say further, that this theory finds no support in the different modes in which the mind looks on truth for different purposes. Sometimes a given proposition, or the truth which it contains, is contemplated merely in its rela- tion to the reason. Its import, its verity, its consistency with the standard of judgment, is all that the mind regards. Sometimes it contemplates the logical relations of that with other truths ; and sometimes it is the moral excellence of truth which is the object of attention. When the mind addresses itself to the con- templation of truth, its posture and its subjective state will vary according to the object it has in view. But neither the truth it- self nor the apprehension of it as truth suffers any change. ^ It is not seen now as true, and now as false ; or true to the feelings and false to tho reason, but one and the same truth is viewed for different purposes. When, for example, we open the Bible and turn to any particular passage, we may examine it to ascertain its meaning ; or having determined its import, we may contemplate the truth it contains in its moral aspects and in its relation to ourselves. These are different mental operations, and the state of mind which they suppose or induce must of course be differ- ent. Every Christian is familiar with this fact. He knows what it is to contemplate the divine perfections, for the purpose of understanding them, and to meditate on them to appreciate their excellence and feel their power. He sometimes is called on to form a clear idea of what the Bible teaches of the constitution of Christ's person, or the nature of his work ; but much more frequently his mind turns towards the Son of God clothed in our nature, to behold his glory, to rejoice in his divine excellence, and amazing condescension and love. In all such cases, the intellect- ual apprehension is the same. It is the very truth and the very same form of that truth which is arrived at, by a careful exegesis, which is the subject of devout meditation. A Christian does not understand the Bible in one way when he reads it as a critic, and in another way when he reads for spiritual edification. His thoughts of God and Christ when endeavoring to discover the truth revealed concerning them, are the same as when he is en- gaged in acts of worship. Nay more, the clearer and more extended this speculative knowledge, the brighter and more un- disturbed is the spiritual vision, other things being equal. One 564 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT man may indeed be a better theologian but a less devout Chris- tian than another ; but the devout Christian is only the more devout with every increase in the clearness and consistency of his intellectual apprehensions. It may be further admitted, that the language of speculation is different from the language of emotion ; that the terms employed in defining a theological truth, are not always those which would be naturally employed in setting forth that truth as the object of the affections. But these representa- tions are always consistent. All hymns to Christ express pre- cisely the same doctrine concerning his person, that is found in the Athanasian creed. The same remarks may be made in refer- ence to all departments of theology. The doctrines concerning the condition of men by nature ; of their relation to Adam ; of their redemption through Christ ; of the work of God's Spirit ; may be examined either to be understood or to be felt. But in every case it is the truth as understood that is felt. The under- standing does not take one view and the feelings a different ; the former does not pronounce for plenary power, and the latter for helplessness ; the one does not assert that aU sin consists in acts, and the other affirm the sinfulness of the heart ; the one does not look on Christ as merely teaching by his death that sin is an evil, and the other behold him as bearing our sins in his own body on the tree. This subject admits of abundant illustration, did our limits allow of a protracted discussion. A man may look over a tract of country and his inward state will vary with his object. He may contemplate it in reference to its agricultural advantages ; or in regard to its topography, or its geological formation, or he may view it as a landscape. Another may gaze on a picture, or on any other work of art, as a critic, to ascertain the sources of the effect produced, or simply to enjoy it as an object of beauty. He may listen to a strain of music to note the varying intervals, the succession of chords and the like, or merely to receive the pleasurable impression of the sounds. In all these cases the ob- ject contemplated is the same — the intellectual apprehension is the same, and though the state of mind varies as the design of the observer varies, and though the terms which he employs as an agriculturalist, or a geologist, or a critic, may differ from those which he uses to give expression to his emotions, there can be no contrariety. He cannot apprehend the same region to be barren AKD THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 565 and yet fertile, the same picture to be beautiful and yet the re- verse, the same strain to be melodious and yet discordant. His intellect cannot make one report, and his feelings an opposite one. It is thus with regard to divine truth. It may be viewed in order to be understood; or in order to be felt. We may come to the contemplation of it as theologians or as Christians, and our inward state will vary with our object, but there will be no contrariety in our apprehensions or in their expression. The points of difference between the views expressed in the foregoing paragraph, and the theory of this discourse are two. First, Professor Park makes the perceptions themselves to vary, so that what appears true to the feelings is apprehended as false by the intellect. Secondly, he says that the expression of these different perceptions is, or may be, contradictory. Hence there may be, and actually are, two theologies, the one affirming, the other denying ; the one teaching sound old school orthodoxy, the other, any form of new school divinity that suits the reigning fashion in philosophy. We maintain on the contrary that there is perfect consistency between the intellectual apprehension of truth when viewed in order to be understood and when contem- plated in order to be felt ; and that however different the lan- guage employed on these different occasions, there can be no con- tradiction. There cannot therefore be two conflicting theologies ; but, on the contrary, the theology of the feeling is the theology of the intellect in all its accuracy of thought and expression. There is still another view of this subject, so extensive and important that we hesitate even to allude to it in the conclusion of this article. What is the true relation between feeling and knowledge in matters of religion ? The discussion of this ques- tion might properly be made to cover the whole ground embraced in this discourse. This is really the point which Professor Park's subject called upon him to elucidate, but which he has only inci- dentally referred to. We have already endeavored to show that this relation is not such as his theory assumes. It does not admit of contradiction between the two. There cannot be two conflicting theologies, one of the feeling and another of the intel- lect. But if these principles cannot be in conflict, what is the relation between them ? Are they independent, as rationalism supposes, which allows feeling no place in determining our faith ? Or is the intellect determined by the feelings, so that the prov- 566 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT ince of the former is only to act as the interpreter of the latter ? Or are the feelings determined by the intellect, so that the intel- lectual apprehension decides the nature of the affection ? These are questions upon which we cannot now enter. It appears very evident to us that neither the first nor the second of the views here intimated has any support either from Scripture or experi- ence. The intellect and feelings are not independent, nor is the former the mere interpreter of the latter. This is becoming a very current opinion, and has been adopted in all its length from Schleiermacher by Morell. Knowledge, or truth, objectively re- vealed, is, according to this theory, of very subordinate import- ance. We have certain religious feelings : to develope the contents of those feelings, is the province of the intelligence, so that theology is but the intellectual forms in which the religious con- sciousness expresses itself. The standard of truth is, therefore, nothing objective, but this inward feeling. Any doctrine which can be shown to be the legitimate expression of an innate re- ligious feeling is true — and any which is assumed to have a dif- ferent origin, or to be foreign to the religious conciousness, is to be rejected. What the Scriptures teach on this subject is, as it seems to us, in few words, simply this. In the first place, agreeably to what has already been said, the Bible never recognizes that broad distinction between the intellect and the feelings which is so often made by metaphysicians. It regards the soul as a per- ceiving and feeling individual subsistence, whose cognitions and affections are not exercises of distinct faculties, but complex states of one and the same subject. It never predicates depravity or holiness of the feelings as distinct from the intelligence, or of the latter as distinct from the former. The moral state of the Boul is always represented as affecting its cognitions as well as its affections. In popular language, the understanding is darkened as well as the heart depraved. In the second place, the Scrip- tures as clearly teach that holiness is necessary to the perception of holiness. In other words, that the things of the Spirit must be spiritually discerned ; that the unrenewed have not this dis- cernment, and therefore, they cannot know the things which are freely given to us of God, i. e., the things which he has gracious- ly revealed in this word. They may have that apprehension of them which an uncultivated ear has of complicated musical AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 567 sounds, or an untutored eye of a work of art. Much in the ob- ject is perceived, but much is not discerned, and that which re- mains unseen, is precisely that which gives to these objects their pecuh'ar excellence and power. Thirdly, the Bible further teach- es, that no mere change of the feelings is adequate to secure this spiritual discernment ; but on the contrary, in the order of na- ture, and of experience, the discernment precedes the change of the affections, just as the perception of beauty precedes the an- swering aesthetic emotion. The Qyes must be opened in order to see wondrous things out of the law of God. The glory of God, as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ, must be revealed, before the corresponding affections of admiration, love, and confidence rise in the heart. This illumination is represented as the pecu- liar work of the Spirit. The knowledge consequent on this il- lumination is declared to be eternal life. It is the highest form of the activity of the soul. It is the vision of God and of the things of God, now seen indeed as through a glass darkly. This knowledge is the intuition not merely of the truth, but also of the excellence of spiritual objects. It is common to all the people of God, given to each in his measure, but producing in all a con- viction and love of the same great truths. If this be a correct exhibition of Scriptural teaching on this subject, it follows first, that the feelings are not independent of the intellect, or the intellect of the feelings, so that the one may be unholy and the other indifferent ; or so that the one is unin- fluenced by the other. It must also follow that the feelings do not determine the intelligence, as though the latter in matters of religion was the mere exponent of the former. The truth is not given in the feelings and discovered and unfolded by the in- tellect. The truth is objectively presented in the word ; and is by the_ Spirit revealed in its excellence to the intelligence, and thus the feelings are produced as necessary attributes, or adjuncts of spiritual cognition. This is not " the light system." We do not hold that the heart is changed by the mere objective pre- sentation of the truth. The intellect and heart are not two dis- tinct faculties to be separately affected or separately renewed. There is a divine operati6n of which the whole soul is the subject. The consequence of the change thus effected is the intuition of the truth and glory of the things of God. If this representation be correct, there must be the most perfect harmony between the 568 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT feelings and the intellect ; they cannot see with different eyes, or utter discordant language. What is true to the one, must be true to the other ; what is good in the estimation of the one, must be good also to the other. Language which satisfies the reason in the expression of truth, must convey the precise idea which is embraced in the glowing cognition which constitutes religious feeling; and all the utterances of emotion must justify themselves at the bar of the intellect, as expressing truth before they can be sanctioned as vehicles of the religious affections. The relation then between feeUng and knowledge, as assumed in Scripture and proved by experience, is utterly inconsistent with the theory of this discourse, which represents them in perpetual conflict ; the one affirming our nature to be sinful, the other de- nying it ; the one teaching the doctrine of inability, the other that of plenary power ; the one craving a real vicarious punish- ment of sin, the other teaching that a symbolical atonement is all that is needed ; the one pouring forth its fervent misconcep- tions in acts of devotion, and the other whispering, all that must b^e taken cum grano salis. We have now endeavored to show that there is no foundation for Professor Park's theory- in the use of figurative language as the expression of emotion ; nor in those conflicting judgments which the mind forms of truth in its different conditions ; nor in the different states of mind consequent on contemplation of truth for different objects ; nor in what the Scriptures and experience teach concerning the relation between the feelings and intellect. We have further endeavored to show that this theory is de- structive of the authority of the Bible, because it attributes to the sacred writers conflicting and irreconcilable representations. Even should we admit that the feelings and the intellect have different apprehensions and adopt different modes of expression, yet as the feelings of the sacred writers were excited, as well as their cognitions determined, by the Holy Spirit, the two must be in perfect harmony. In unrenewed, or imperfectly sanctified, uninspued men, there might be, on tlie hypothesis assumed, this conflict between feeling and knowledge, but to attribute such contradictions to the Scriptures is to deny their inspiration. Be- sides this, the practical operation of a theory which supposes that so large a part of the Bible is to be set aside as inexact, because the language of passion, must be to subject its teachings to AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 569 the opinion and prejudices of the reader. No adequate criteria are given for discriminating between the language of feeling and that of the intellect. Every one is left to his own discretion in making the distinction, and the use of this discretion, regulated by no fixed rules of language, is of course determined ^y caprice or taste. But even if our objections to the theory of this discourse be deemed unsound, the arbitrary application which the author makes of his principles would be enough to condemn them. We have seen that he attributes to the feeling the most abstract propositions of scientific theology, that he does not discriminate between mere figurative language and the language of emo- tion ; that he adopts or rejects the representations of the Bible at pleasure, or as they happen to coincide with, or contradict his preconceived opinions. That a sentence of condemnation passed on all men for the sin of one man ; that men are by nature the children of wrath ; that without Christ we can do nothing ; that he hath redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us ; that men are not merely pardoned, but justified ; are represented as bold metaphors, impressive, but not intelligi- ble, true to the feelings, but false to the reason. It will be a matter of deep regret to many to find Professor Park, with his captivating talents and commanding influence, arrayed against the doctrines repudiated in this discourse ; and many more will lament that he should have prepared a weapon which may be used against one doctrine as easily as another. Our consolation is, that however keen may be the edge, or bright the polish of that weapon, it has so little substance, it must be shivered into atoms with the first blow it strikes against those sturdy trees which have stood for ages in the garden of the Lord, and whose leaves have been for the healing of the nations. t XVII. THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS/ ARTICLE 11. We are really sorry to find that Professor Park has been so much pained by our review of his Convention Sermon. His reply evinces a great deal of wounded feeling. The transparent vail which he has thrown over his acerbites, only renders them the more noticeable. A homely face may pass in a crowd with- out attracting much attention ; but if its unfortunate owner attempt to conceal it by a gauze mask, every eye will be turned upon him. He had better put the mask in his pocket, and let his face pass for what it is. Some allowance must be made for our author. When a man delivers a discourse with great eclat, it must, we presume, be very painful to find that the reading public does not confirm the verdict of the admiring audience. This is a very common occurrence. Instead, however, of being satisfied with the obvious solution of this familiar fact, the author, if a politician, is very apt to attribute such unfavorable judgment to party spirit, and if a preacher, to theological bigotr}\ We are the more disposed to be charitable in the present case, because, in our small way, we have had a some- what similar experience. We wrote a review which we intended to make a model of candor and courtesy. To avoid the danger of misrepresentation, we determined, instead of giving discon- nected extracts of the discourse reviewed, to present a full analysis of it, as far as possible in the author's own words ; and to guard against discourtesy, we resolved to abstain from all * Remarks on the Princeton Review, Yol. XXII. No. IV. Art. VII. By Edwards A. Pare, Abbot Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1851. Art. IX. — Princeton Review, April, 1851. 572 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT personal remarks, and to confine ourselves to the theory under discussion. We flattered ourselves that we had been tolerably successful as to both these points. Partial friends confirm us in our self-complacency. Even opponents^ though dissenting from our opinion of the sermon, acknowledged the courtesy of the review. Judge then of our chagrin to learn that it is a tissue of misrepresentations, filled with arguments ad captandum vulgus and ad invidiam^ unblushing in its misstatements,' violating not only the rules of logic, but the canons of fair criticism, and even the laws of morals, the offspring of theological bigotry and sectional jealousy, &c., &c. All this may be accounted for in various ways, except so far as the imputation of unworthy motives is concerned. That we are at a loss to explain. Does not Professor Park know in his heart that it would be a matter of devout thanksgiving to all Old-school men to be assured that their doctrines were taught at Andover ? Does he sup|jose there is a man among them capable, from motives conceivable or inconceivable, of wishing that error should be there inculcated ? If he can cherish such suspicions, he is of all Christian men the most to be pitied. Having failed so entirely to understand the Sermon, we shall not be presumptuous enough to pretend to understand the Reply. It is not our purpose, therefore, to review it in detail. We must let it pass and produce its legitimate effect, whatever that may be. We take a deep interest, however, in the main point at issue, which is nothing more or less than this : Is that system of doctrine embodied in the creeds of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, in its substantial and distinctive features, true as to its form as well as to its substance ? Are the propo- sitions therein contained true as doctrines, or are they merely intense expressions, true not in the mode in which they are there presented, but only in a vague, loose sense, which tlie intellect would express in a very different form ? Are these creeds to be understood as they mean, and do they mean what they say, or is allowance to be made for their freedom, abate- ment of their force, and their terms to be considered antiquated and their spirit only as still in force ? For example, when these creeds speak of the imputation of Adam's sin, is that to be con- * Professor Paxk says repeatedly his reviewer does not blush to say this, and does not blush to say that. AND THAT OF TIIK FEELINGS. 573 sidered as only an intense form of expressing " the definite idea, that we are exposed to evil in consequence of liis sin/'* This is surely a question of great importance. From an early period in the history of the church, there have heen two great systems of doctrine in perpetual conflict. The one begins with God, the other with man. The one has for its object the vindication of the divine supremacy and sovereignty in the solvation of men ; the other has for its characteristic aim tlie assertion of the rights of human nature. It is specially ' Sermon, p. 535. In the following article the references to Professor Park's Sermon are to the edition of it contained in the Bib. Sacra for July, 1850 ; and those to his Remarks on the Princeton Review are to the Bib. Sacra for January, 1851. That tlie point at issue is what is stated in the text will be made more apparent in the sequel ; for the present it may be sufficient to refer to the following passages. In giving his reasons for the title of the sermon, Professor Park says : '* Secondly, the title was selected as a deferential and charitable one. The representations which are classified under the theology of feeling are often sanctioned as ' the true theology,' by the men who delight most in employing them. "What the sermon would characterize as images, illustrations, and intense expressions, these men call doctrines." "We call one system of theology 'rational' or 'liberal,' simply because it is so called by its advocates ; much more then may we designate by the phrase * emotive theology,' those representations which are so tenaciously defended by mul- titudes as truth fitted both for the feeling and the judgment." Remarks, p. 140. " A creed, if true to its original end, should be in sober prose, should be under- stood as it means, and mean what it says, should be drawn out with a discriminat- ing, balancing judgment, so as to need no allowance for its freedom, no abatement of its force, and should not be expressed in antiquated terms, lest men regard its spirit as likewise obsolete. It belongs to the province of the analyzing, comparing, reasoning intellect ; and if it leave this province for the sake of intermingling the phrases of an impassioned heart, it confuses the soul, it awakens the fancy and the feelings to disturb the judgment, it sets a believer at variance with himself by per- plexing his reason with metaphors and his imagination with logic ; it raises feuds in tlio church by crossing the temperaments of men, and taxing one party to demon- strate similes, another to feel inspired by abstractions. Hence the logomachy which has always characterized the defence of such creeds. The intellect, no less than the heart, behig out of its element, wanders through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. Men are thus made uneasy with themselves and therefore acri- monious against each other ; the imaginative zealot does not understand the philo- sophical explanation, and the philosopher does not sympathize with the imaginative style of the symbol ; and as they misunderstand each other, they feel their weakness, and 'to be weak is to be miserable,' and misery not only loves but also makes company, and thus they sink their controversy into a contention and their dispute into a quarrel ; nor will they ever find peace until they confine their intellect to its rightful sphere, and understand it according to what it says, and their feeling to its province and interpret its language according to what it means, rendering unto poetry the things that are designed for poetry, and unto prose what belongs to prose." Sermon, p. 554. 574 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT solicitous that nothing should be held to be true, which cannot be philosophically reconciled with the liberty and ability of man. It starts with a theory of free agency and of the nature of sin, to which all the anthropological doctrines of the Bible must be made to conform." Its great principles are, first, that " all sin consists in sinning ; that there can be no moral character but in moral acts ; secondly, that the power to the contrary is essential to free agency ; that a free agent may always act contrary to any influence, not destructive of his freedom, which can be brought to bear upon him ; thirdly, that ability limits responsi- bility ; th-at men are responsible only so far as they have adequate power to do what is required of them, or that they are responsi- ble for nothing not under the control of the will/ From these ^ "We give from authoritative symbols and writings a few extracts confirming the account given in the text of the two systems referred to. Our Relation to Adam. Apology of the Confession of the Remonstrants, p. 84. Fatentur Remonstrantea, peccatum Adami a Deo imputatum dici posse posteris ejus, quatenus Deus posteros Adami eidem malo, eui Adaraus per peccatum obnoxium se reddidit, obnoxios nasci voluit, sive quatenus Deus malum, quod in poenam Adamo inflictura fuerat, in posteros ejus dimanare et transire permisit. At nihil cogit eos dicere, peccatum Adami posteris ejus sic fuisse a Deo imputatum, quasi Deus posteros Adami revera censuisset ejusdem cum Adamo peccati et culpae, quam Adamus commiserat, reos, Limiorch Theol. Christ. 3. 3. 8. Quod itaque imputationem peccati Adami attinet qua statuitur, Deum primum Adami et Evse peccatum omnibus ipsorum posteris ita imputasse, ut omnium peccatum sit omnesque in Adamo peccaverint et propterea mortis ac condemnationis seternae rei facti sint, eam impugnamus. Ibid. 3. 3. 19. Dicimus, Deum innoxios posteros non punire ob peccatum AdamL Original Sin. Apol. Conf. Remonstr. p. 84. Peccatum originale nee habent (Remonstrantes) pro peccato proprie dicto, quod posteros Adami odio Dei dignos faciat, nee pro malo, quod per modum proprie dictse poenae ab Adamo in posteros dimanet, sed pro malo, infirmitate, vitio aut quocunque tandem aho nomine vocetur. * * * Peccatum autem originis non esse malum culpse proprie dictse, quod vocant, ratio manifesta arguit ; malum culpse non est, quia nasci plane involuntarium est, ergo et nasci cum hac aut ilia labe, infirmitate, vitio vel malo. * * * Multo minus itaque fieri potest, ut sit culpa simul et poena. Limborch Theol. Christ. 3. 4. 4. Nullam scriptura in infantibus corruptionem esse docet, quae vere ac proprie sit peccatum. 4. 5. Absurdum est statuere. Deura homines pumvisse corruptione tali, quae vere ac proprie dictum est peccatum, et ex qua omnia actualia peccata tanquam ex fonte necessario scaturiunt, et deinde propter illam corruptionem homines denuo punire poena inferni. Ibid. 4. 7. Nullum peccatum poena dignum est involuntarium, quia nihil magis debet esse voluntarium, quam quod hominem poenae et quidem gravissimae, ceternae AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 575 principles it follows that there can be no such thing as " original righteousness," that is, a righteousness in which man was origin- ally created. Whatever moral character he had must have been the result of his own acts. Neither can there be any " original jiempe et summorum cruciatnum, reum facit. Atqui comiptio originaria est in> voluntaria. Ibid. 3. 4. 1. Inclinatio ilia (ad peccandum) proprie dictum peccatum non est aut peccati habitus ab Adamo in ipsos propagatus, sed naturalis tantum inclinatio habendi id, quod carni gratum est. Pdagius apud August, de peccato orig. 14. Omne bonum ac malum, quo vel laudabiles vel vituperabiles sum us, non nobiscum oritur, sed agitur : capaces enim utriusque rei, non pleni nascimur, et ut sine virtute, ita et sine vitio procreamur ; atque ante actionem proprise voluntatis id solum in homine est, quod Deus condidit. Epist. ad Demetr. c. 3. Volens namque Deus rationabilem voluntarii boni munere et liberi arbitrii potestate donare, utriusque partis possibilitatem homini inserendo proprium ejus fecit, esse quod velit: ut boni ac mali capax, naturaliter utrumque posset, et ad alterutrum voluntatem deflecteret. A. def. 2. Tterum quserendum est, peccatum voluntatis an necessitatis est? Si necessitatis est, peccatum non est, si voluntatis, vitari potest. 5. Iterum quferendum est, utrumne debeat homo sine peccato esse. Procul dubio debet. Si debet, potest : si non potest, ergo non debet Et si non debet homo esse sine peccato, debet ergo cum peccato esse ; et jam pec- catum non erit, si illud deberi constiteret. The maxim. Si debet ^ potest, has become immortal. It is the ground-work of the •whole system to which it belongs, and is constantly repeated by its advocates, whe- ther philosophers or theologians. In reference to Kant's Ich Soil, also kann ich, MUUer pithily answers : Ich sollte freilich konnen, aber Ich kann nicht Miiller's Lehre von der Siinde. Band ii. s. 116. Dr. Beecher, in the Spirit of the Pilgrims, 1828, held the following language: "The Reformers with one accord *taugbt that the sin of Adam was imputed to all his posterity, and that a corrupt nature descends from him to every one of his pos- terity, in consequence of which infants are unholy, unfit for heaven and justly ex- posed to future punishment." — "Our Puritan fathers adhered to the doctrine of original sin as consisting in the imputation of Adam's sin, and in a hereditary depravity; and this continued to be the received doctrine of the churches of New England, until after the time of Edwards. He adopted the views of the Reformers on the subject of original sin and a depraved nature transmitted by descent. But after him this mode of stating the subject was gradually changed, until long since, the prevailing doctrine in New England (?) has been, that men are not guilty of Adam's sin, and that depravity is not of the substance of the soul, nor an inherent physical quality, but is wholly voluntary, and consists in a transgression of the law in such circumstances as constitute responsibility and desert of punishment." Work of Christ and JvMification. The objections of Socinians against the Church doctrine of satisfaction, says Bretschneider, led Grotius to refer the satisfaction of Christ to thejustitia Dei rectoria. According to this theory he says, " The satisfaction consists in this, Christ properly endured no punishment, but innocent in himself voluntarily submitted to suffering and death, in order that men might not be punished, and that God was satisfied 576 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT sin," i. e. an innate, hereditary, sinful corruption of nature. Whatever effect Adam's apostasy may have had upon himself or on his posterity ; whether it left his nature uninjured, and merely changed unfavorably his circumstances ; or whether our nature was thereby deteriorated so as to be prone to sin, it was not itself rendered morally corrupt or sinful. Adam was in no such sense the head and representative of his race, that his sin is the ground of our condemnation. Every man, according to this system, stands his probation for himself, and is not under con- demnation until he voluntarily transgresses some known law, for it is only such transgression that falls under the category of sin. In regeneration, according to the principles above stated, there cannot be the production of a new moral nature, principle or disposition, as the source of holy exercises. That change must consist in some act of the soul, something which Hes within the sphere of its own power, some act of the will or some change subject to the will. The influence by which regeneration is effected, must be something which can be effectually resisted in the utmost energy of its operation. This being the case, the sovereignty of God in the salvation of men must o( necessity be given up. With these views of the nature and liberty of man is con- nected a corresponding view of the moral government of God. with this atonement made to his law or government." Systemat. Entwickelung, p. 628. Limborch Apol. thes. 3. 21. Satisfactio Christi dicitur, qua pro nobis poeniia omnes luit peccatis nostris debitas, easque perferendo et exhauriendo divinsa justitise satisfecit. Verura ilia sententia nullum habet in scriptura fundamentum. Mors Christi vocatur sacrificiura pro peccato ; atqui sacrificia non sunt solutiones debitorum, neque plenarice pro peccatis satisfactionea ; sed illis pevactis conceditur gratuita pec- cati remissio. Ourcelleus Eel. Christ. Instit. 5. 19. 16. Non ergo, ut putant, satisfecit Christus patiendo omnes poenas, quas peccatis nostris merueramus ; nam primo istud ad sacri- ficii rationem non pertinet, sacrificia enim non sunt solutiones debitorum ; secundo Christus non est passus mortem seteraam, quae erat poena peccato debita, nam paucis tantum horis in cruce pependit et tertia die resurrexit. Imo etiamsi mortem aeternam pertulisset, non videtur satisfacere potuisse pro omnibus totiua mundi peccatis. * * * Quarto ista sententia non potest consistere cum ilia remissione gratuita omnium peccatorum, quam Deum nobis in Christo ex immeusa sua miserl- cordia concedere, sacrse literoe passim decent. Ibid. 7. 9. 6. NuUibi docet scriptura, justitiam Christi nobis iraputari. Et id absurdum est. Nemo enim in se injustus aliena justitia potest esse formaliter justua, non magis, quam aliena albedine -^Ethiops esse albus. AND THAT OF TEE FEELINGS. 577 Sin has entered the world because it could not be prevented in a moral system. God counteracts and restrains it by every meanslTn bis power consistent with the' continuance of that sys- tem. The obstacle to its extirpation is the free-will of man ; and the obstacle to its forgiveness is the license which would thereby be given to transgression. As God governs his rational crea- tures by motives, the work of Christ is a device to meet both these difficulties. It presents a powerful motive to man to for- Bake. sin, and makes such an exhibition of God's displeasure against sin, as answers in place of its punishment as a means of moral impression. The work of Christ was not a satisfaction to law and justice in the proper sense of those terms. Justice in God is simply " benevolence guided by wisdom." The accept- ance of the sinner is the act of a sovereign, dispensing with the demands of the law. The righteousness of Christ is not im- puted to believers, but as the sin of Adam was the occasion of certain evils coming on his race, so the righteousness of Christ is. the occasion of good to his people. From these theoretical views, others of a practical nature necessarily follow. Conviction of sin Jnust accommodate itself to the theory that there is no sin but in the voluntary trans- gression of known law ; a sense of helplessness must be modified by the conviction of ability to repent and believe, to change our own heart and to keep all God's commands. Faith must regard Christ's w^ork as a governmental display of certain divine attri- butes. Stich directions as, receive Christ, come to him, trust in himj^' commit the keeping of the soul to him, naturally give place under this system to the exhortation, submit to. God, determine to keep his commands, make choice of him in; prefer- ence to the world. The view which this system presents of the plan of salvation, of the relation of the soul to Christ, of the nature and office of faith, modifies ainid determines the whole character of experimental religion. The system antagonistic to the one just described has for its object the vindication of the supremacy of God in the whole work of man's salvation, both because he is in fact supreme^ and because man being in fact utterly ruined and helpless, no method of recovery which does not so regard him is suited to his relation to God, or can be made to satisfy the necessities of his nature. This system does not exalt a theory of morals or 37 578 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT of liberty over the Scriptures, as a rule by which they are to be interpreted. It accommodates its philosophy to the facts re- vealed in the divine word. As the Bible plainly teaches that man was created holy, that he is now born in sin, that when renewed by the Holy Ghost he receives a new nature, it admits the doctrine of concreated holiness, innate sin, and of infused or inherent grace.' It acknowledges Adam as the head and * Our Relation to Adam. Lutheran Authorities. Form of Concord, p. 639. Primo, quod hoc hereditarium malum sit culpa sen reatus, quo fit, ut omnes, propter inobedientiam Adae et Hevas, in odio apud Deum, et natura fiilii irse simus. Form of Concoi'd, p. 643. Seductione Satanse, per lapsum, jvsto Dei judicio (in poenam hominura) justitia concreata seu originalis amissa est. Art. Schm, p. 311. Peccatum ab uno homine ortum esse et introiisse in mun- dum, per cujua inobedientiam omnes homines facti sunt peccatores, morti et diabolo obnoxii. Apology for Aug. Con. p. 58. Defectus et concupiscentia sunt poense [of Adam's sin of which the context speaks] ; mors et alia corporalia mala et tyrannis diaboli proprie poense sunt. Gerhard, (Tom. II. p. 132, § 52). Adam non ut privatus homo, sed ut caput totius humani generis peccavit ; et nos, qui lumbis Adse peccantis delituimus, in et cum eo non modo corrupt i, sed et rei irae, Dei facti sumus. Quensiedt (voL II p. 53). Peccatum Adami per imputationem nostrum factum est, qui omnes posteros cum culpae turn pcense implicuit, et ut representator, fons, caput et seminarium totius humanas naturae suam illis labem aspersit. Reformed Authorities. Shorter Catechism. The covenant being made with Adam not only for himself^ but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. Formula Consensus Helvetica X Sicut autem Deus foedus operum cum Adamo inivit non tantum pro ipso, sed etiam in ipso, ut capite et stirpe, cum toto genere humano. * * * Censemus igitur, peccatum Adami omnibus ejus posteris judicio Dei arcano et justo imputari. * * * Dulplici igitur nomine post peccatum homo natura, indeque ab ortu suo, antequara ullum actuale peccatum in se admittat, irae ac maledictioni divinaj obnoxius est ; primum quidem ob TrapdiTTcjfia et inobedien- tiam, quam in Adami lumbis commisit; deinde ob consequentem in ipso conceptu heereditariam corruptionera insitam. Original Sin. Luiheran Auflwrities. Augsburg Confession, p. 9, (Hase's Edition). Item docent, quod post lapsura Adae omnes homines, secundum naturam propagati, nascantur cum peccato, hoc est, sine metu Dei, sine fiducia erga Deum, et cum concupiscentia, quodque hie morbus, seu vitium originis vere sit peccatum, damnans et afferens nunc quoque mortem his, qui non renascantur per Baptisraum et Spiritum Sanctum. Damnant Pelagianos et ulios, qui vitium originis ncgant esse peccatum. Apology for Aug. Con. p, 58. In scholis transtulerunt hue (adversarii) ex philo- gophia prorsus alionaa sentcntias, quoJ propter passioues nee boiii, nee mali s:mu. // 588 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT to tlie end of the serraoiij and still more clearly in the reply, are brought into view and compared with each other. To this fact we appeal as the second proof that the statement of the question at issue, as given above, is coiTect. The systems, which our author attempts to reconcile, are those we have described in the former part of this article. In the first place the radical prin- ciples of one of those systems are distinctly presented in the ser- mon. Those principles, as before remarked, are, that moral character is confined to acts, that liberty supposes power to the contrary, and that ability limits responsibihty. These principles are all recognized in the following passages of the sermon, if we are capable of understanding the meaning of the author. After representing the convinced sinner as saying : " I long to heap infinite upon infinite, and crowd together all forms of self-re- proach, for I am clad in sin as with a garment, I devour it. as a sweet morsel, I breathe it, I live it, I am sin," &c., he adds, " But when a theorist seizes at such living words as these, and puts them into his vice, and straightens them or crooks them into the dogma, that man is blameable before he chooses to do wrong ; deserving of punishment for the involuntary nature which he has never consented to gratify ; really sinful before he actually sins, then th'S language of emotion forced from its right place, and treated as if it were a part of a nicely measured syllo- gism, hampers and confuses his reasonings, until it is given to the use for which it was first intended, and from which it never ought to have been diverted." ' " Is it said, however, that a passive nature, existing antecedently to all free action, is itself, strictly, literally sinful ? Then we must speak a new language, and speak, in prose, of moral patients as well as moral agents, of men hesinned as well as sinners, (for ex vi termini sinners as well as runners must be active ;) we must have a new conscience which can decide on the moral character of moral conditions, as well as of elective preferences ; a new lav/ prescribing the very make of the soul, as well as the way in which the soul, when made, shall act ; and a law which we transgress (for sin is ^ a transgres- sion of the law') in being before birth passively misshapen ; we must also have a new Bible, delineating a judgment scene in which some will be condemned, not only on account of deeds which they have done in the body, but also for having been born ' Sermon, p. 552. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 589 with an involuntary proclivity to sin, and others will be rewarded not only for their conscientious [conscious ?] love to Christ, but also for a blind nature inducing that love ; we must, in fine, have an entirely different class of moral sentiments, and have them disciplined by Inspiration in an entirely different manner from the present ; for now the feelings of all true men revolt from the assertion, that a poor infant dying, if we may suppose it to die, before its first wrong preference, merits for its unavoid- able nature, that eternal punishment, which is threatened, and justly, against even the smallest sin. Although it may seem paradoxical to affirm that ^ a man may believe a proposition which he knows to be false,^ it is yet charitable to say that what- ever any man may suppose himself to believe, he has in fact an inward conviction, that ' all sin consists in sinning/ There is comparatively little dispute on the nature of moral evil, when the words relating to it are fully understood."^ As to the other P'oints we have such language as the following : Man's " unva- ried wrong .choices imply a full, unremitted, natural power of choosing right. The emotive theology, therefore, when it afiirms this power is correct both in matter and style ; but when it denies this power, it uses the language of intensity ; it means the certainty of wrong preference by declaring the inability of right, and in its vivid use of can not for ivill not is accurate in substance, but not in form." ^ One of the expressions put in the lips of the emotive theology, and which is pronounced correct both in matter and style is : "If I had been as holy as I had power to be, then I had been perfect." Another is, I know thee that thou art not a hard master, exacting of me duties which I have no power to discharge, but thou attemperest thy law to my strength, and at no time imposest upon me a heavier burden than thou at that very time makest me able to bear." ^ In note F. at the end of the sermon it is said : " The pious necessarian ^ Sermon, p. 568. It ought to be remorabered that there is not a creed of any Christian church (we do not mean separate congregation) in which the doctrine, that inherent corruption as existing prior to voluntary action is of the nature of sin, is not distinctly affirmed. The whole Latin church, the Lutheran, all the branches of the Reformed church, unite in the most express, " nicely measured" assertions of fliith in this doctrine. In view of this fact we think the tone of the paragraph * quoted above, and especially of the concluding sentences must be considered a little remarkable. "We hope we shall hear no complaints hereafter, of over-weening con- fidence. 2 Sermon, p. 548. 3 Sermon, p. 547. 690 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT has a good moral purpose in declaring that the present 2iX\di future obligations of men, do and will exceed their power." This, in the connexion, implies that in the judgment of the writer, men's obligations do not exceed their power. Not only are these general principles thus recognized, but the two systems are compared very much in their details, and their harmony is exhibited by disclosing the fundamental principle in which they agree for substance of doctrine. The one system says, The sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity. The other says, The sin of Adam is not imputed to his posterity. The fundamental principle in which they agree is, That the sin of Adam was the occasion of certain evils coming upon his race. The former statement is only an intense form of expressing this definite idea. The one system asserts, That the nature of man since the fall is sinful anterior to actual transgressions. The other says, All sin consists in sinning, a passive nature existing antecedently to all free action cannot be sinful. Still these declarations are consistent. Sinful in the former must be taken to mean prone to sin. " This nature, as it certainly occasions sin, may be sometimes called sinful, in a peculiar sense, for the sake of intensity.'" The one system says. That men, since the fall, are, while unrenewed, utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good — so that their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but entirely from the Spirit of Christ. The other asserts. That such language is merely a " vivid use of can not for will not, accurate in substance, though not in its form.'' The one teaches that the commands of God continue to bind those who are unable perfectly to keep them. The other asserts. That unable here means unwilling, because God always attempers his law to our strength. The one says, That man is passive in regeneration, that he therein receives a new nature, a principle of grace, which is the source of all holy exercises. The other repudiates the idea of " a blind nature inducing love," having a moral character, but it may be called holy as tending to holiness, just as, " for the sake of intensity," we may call that sinful which tends to sin. In like manner the different representations concerned the work of Christ, however apparently conflicting, are represented as different only in form Thus in regard to our relation to Adam, the consequences of 'Repl.7, p. 174. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 591 his apostacy, the natural state of man, ability and inability, the nature of regeneration, the atonement of Christ, the justification of sinners before God, the statements of the two systems are declared to be identical in meaning, however different in form, or a mode of statement is proposed which is made to compre- hend both. We can hardly be mistaken, therefore, in saying, that the design of the sermon is to show that both of these, are allowable, and may be reconciled. If anything is clear, either in the sermon or the reply, it is that these systems are repre- sented as different modes of presenting one and the same theology, the one adapted to the feeling, the other to the intel- lect. If this is not the case, then Professor Park has failed to convey the most remote idea of his meaning to a multitude of minds, more or less accustomed to such discussions, and must be set down as either the most unfortunate or the most unintelli- gible writer of modern times. If this is a proper statement of the case, it must be admitted that the author has undertaken a great work. We know no parallel to it but the famous Oxford Tract, Number Ninety ; and even that was a modest effort in comparison. Dr. Newman merely attempted to show that there was " a non-natural sense" of the Thirty-nine Articles in which a Romanist might sign them. He did not pretend, if our memory serves us, that the sense which he put upon them was their true historical meaning. But Professor Park proposes to show, if we understand him, that the two systems above referred to are identical ; that the one is the philosophic explanation of the other ; that they are different modes of stating the same general truths, both modes being allowable ; that the one, in short, is the theology of the feelings, and the other the theology of the intellect. When we reflect on what is necessarily, even though unconsciously, assumed in this attempt, when we raise our eyes to the height to which it is necessary the author should ascend before all these things could appear alike to him, we are bewildered. It is surely no small matter for a man to rise up and tell the world that the Augustinians and Pelagians, Thomists and Scotists, Dominicans and Franciscans, Jansenists and Jesuits, Calvinists and Remonstrants,* have for centuries been contending about ^ These terms are used in tlieir historical sense ; Augustinianism and Pelagianism are designations of forms of theology distingiiisiied by certain characteristic features. The former does not include every opinion held by Augustine, nor the latter every 592 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT words ; that they perfectly agree, if they had but sense to see it ; that all the decisions of synods, all the profound discussions of the greatest men in history, relating to these subjects, are miserable logomachies. We can understand how even a babe in Christ, under the teaching of the Spirit, may rightfully and in full consciousness of Truth, lift its solitary voice against the errors of ages. But we cannot understand how any uninspired man could have the courage to say to the two great parties in the church, that they understand neither themselves nor each other ; that while they think they differ, they actually agree. That this attempt to reconcile '' all allowable creeds'' is a failure, no one would thank us for proving. Can it be necessary to show that the differences between the two systems brought into view in this sermon are substantial differences of doctiine and not a mere difference in words ? To say that the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity is to express a different thought, a different doctrine, from what is expressed by saying that his sin w^as merely the occasion of certain evils coming upon his race. The one of these statements is not merely an intense, figurative, or poetic expression of the thought conveyed by the latter. The former means that the sin of Adam was the judicial ground of the condemnation of his race, and therefore that the evils inflicted on them on account of that sin are of the nature of punishment. My neighbor's carelessness or sin may be the occasion of suffering to me ; but no one ever dreamt of expressing didactically that idea, by saying that the carelessness doctrine taught by Pelaglus ; so of the other terms. "When, therefore, it is said that the sermon proposes to show that these classes substantially agree, the only fair interpretation of such language is, that it proposes to show that the characteristic theological systems thus designated may be reconciled. Professor Park has taught us that it is not enough to express our meaning clearly. He has shown that he would consider the above statement refuted, should he adduce, as might easily be done, many points in which he would admit the inconsistency between the opinions of Augustine and Pelagius, the Jansenists and Jesuits, Calvinists and Remonstrants. In our former article we said, that the doctrine that present strength to moral and spiritual duties is the measure of obligation, is one of the radical principles of Pela- gianism. He considers himself as confuting that statement, by asking whether Pelagius held this or that other doctrine. We did not say ho did. What we did say, however, is none the less true and uncontradicted. We hope, therefore, no one will take the trouble to show in how many points the Jesuits differed from the Janse- nists in morals and discipline, or even in theology, as a refutation of the statement in the text. AND THAT OF TEE FEELINGS. 693 or crime of a reckless man was imputed to his neighbors. There is here a real distinction. These two modes of representing our relation to Adam belong to difierent doctrinal systems. Accord- ing to the one, no man is condemned until he has personally transgressed the law. Every man stands a probation for him- self, either in the womb, as some say, or in the first dawn of intelligence and moral feeling. According to the other, the race had their probation in Adam ; they sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression. They are, therefore, born the children of wrath ; they come into existence under condemna- tion. It is now asserted, for the first time, so far as we know, since the world began, that these modes of representation mean the same thing. Again, that the corrupt nature which we derive from our first parents is really sinful, is a difi'erent doctrine from that which is expressed by saying, our nature though prone to sin is not itself sinful. These are not different modes of stating the same truth. They are irreconcilable assertions. The difference between them is one which enters deeply into our views of the nature of sin, of inability, of regeneration, and of the work of the Holy Spirit. It modifies our convictions and our whole religious experience. It has in fact given rise to two different forms of religion in the Church, clearly traceable in the writings of past ages, and still existing. We refer our readers to Presi- dent Edwards's work on Original Sin, and request them to notice with what logical strictness he demonstrates that the denial of the sinfulness of human nature and the assertion of the plenary power of men to obey the commands of God, subverts the whole j)lan of redemption. Our author says, he firmly believes, " that in consequence of the first man's sin, all men have at birth a corrupt nature, which exposes them to suffering, hut not to punishment, even without their actual transgression.'" In the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, it is said of original sin, or " depravity of nature," in unoquoquc nascentium tram Dei atque damnationem meretur. Are not these state- ments in direct opposition ? Does not the one deny what the other affirms ? Can they, by any candid or rational interpre- tation, be made to be mere different modes of stating the same doctrine ? » Reply, p. 166. 38 594 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT These two systems differ no less essentially as to the doctrine of ability. According to the one, man has, since the fall, power to do all that is required of him. According to the other, though he remains a rational creature and a free moral agent, he is utterly unable either to turn himself unto Grod, or to do any thing spiritually good. According to the one doctrine, respon- sibility and inability are incompatible ; according to the other, they are perfectly consistent.^ Surely these are not different modes of asserting the same doctrine. The man who asserts the entire helplessness of men, does not mean the same thing with the man who asserts that they have full power to do all that God commands. These systems are not reconciled, as to this point, by the distinction between natural and moral ability ; because the point of separation is not the nature but the fact of the sin- ner's inability. No one denies that this inability is moral so far as it relates to moral acts, arises from the moral state of the soul, and is removed by a moral change. It is, however, none the less real and absolute. The question is. What is the state of the un- renewed man ? Has he power of himself to change his own heart ? Can he by any act of the will, or by the exercise of any conceivable power belonging to himself transform his whole character ? The one system says Yes, and the other says No. And they mean what they say. The one does not, by the asser- tion of this power, mean merely that men are rational and moral beings. The other by its negative answer does not mean merely that men are unwilling to change their own heart. It means that the change is not within the power of the will. It is a change which no volition, nor series of volitions, can effect. It is a change which nothing short of the mighty power of God can produce. Such is the plain doctrine of Scripture ; and such is the testimony of every man's consciousness. If there is anything of which the sinner has an intimate conviction, it is that the heart, the affections, his inherent moral dispositions are beyond his reach ; that he can no more change his nature than he can an- nihilate it. He knows that those who tell him he has this power, 1 The maxim that men cannot be bound to do what they are unable to perform, relates properly to external acts dependent on the will ; and to those which are not adapted to our nature. No man is bound to see without eyes, hear without ears, or work without hands ; nor can a creature be required to create a world, nor an idiot to reason correctly. But the maxim has no more to do with the obligations of moral agents in reference to moral acts, than the axioms of geometry have. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 595 are but paltering in a double sense and mocking at his misery. That this inability, though thus absolute, is perfectly consistent with continued responsibility, is also a plain fact of consciousness, and a clearly revealed doctrine of Scripture. None feel their guilt so much as those who are most sensible of their helpless- ness. It is, therefore, absurd to represent the assertion of this entire inability as consistent with the assertion that men have full power to do all that is required of them. These statements differ in their essential meaning ; they differ in their associated doctrines ; they have a different origin and they produce widely different effects. Again there is a real difference of doctrine and not a mere difference of terms^ between the statement that Christ's work opens the way for pardon by the moral impression which it makes, and the statement that it was a full and proper satisfaction to the law and justice of God. Here again is a difference which affects the whole scheme of redemption, and consequently the whole character of our religion. According to the one repre- sentation the believer is simply pardoned and restored to the favor of God ; according to the other he is justified. When a criminal is pardoned and restored to his civil rights, does any one say, he is justified ? The word justification expresses far more than the remission of the penalty of the law and the restoration of the offender to favor. And those who teach that the sinner is justified by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, teach something very different from those who make Christ's work the mere occasion of good to his people, by rendering their pardon and restoration to favor consistent with the interests of God's government. According to the one system, the deliver- ance of the believer from condemnation is an act of a judge ; according to the other, it is an act of the sovereign. In the one case, the law is set aside ; in the other case, it is satisfied. To remit a debt without payment, out of compassion for the debtor, for the sake of example, or out of regard to the goodness or request of a third party, is a very different thing from the dis- charge of the debtor on the ground that full payment has been made in his behalf. No less different is the doctrine that Christ's work renders the remission of sin possible, and the doctrine that he has made a full satisfaction for the sins of his people. As these doctrines are different in their nature, so they differ in 596 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT their effects. The one gives the sense of justification, of that peace which arises out of the apprehension that our sins have been punished, that justice is satisfied, that the law no longer condemns, hut acquits and pronounces just. If any man is un- able to reconcile this conviction, that justice no longer condemns the believer, with the most humbling sense of ill-desert, he must be in a state of mind very different from that which has char- acterized the great body of God's people. It is this sense of personal ill-desert combined with the assurance that justice can lay nothing to the charge of God's elect, when clothed in the righteousness of Christ, which produces that union of peace with a sense of unworthiness, of confidence with self-distrust, of self- abasement and self-renunciation with the assurance of God's love, which gleams and burns through all the writings of the apostles, and which found utterance in the devotional language of the saints in all ages.^ ^ In reference to this subject Professor Park uses the following language in his remarks on our review. In regard to the remark that Christ has fully paid the debt of sinners, he asks, "Does not the reviewer himself qualify this phrase, in his com- mon explanations of it? Why does he so often teach that Christ has not paid the debt of sinners in any such sense (which would be the ordinary sense of the phrase) as to make it unjust in God to demand the sinner's own payment of it ? Why does he teach, that although the debt of sinners is paid, in a very peculiar sense, yet it is not so paid but that they may be justly cast into prison until they themselves have paid the uttermost farthing ? Another illustration is, * the unqualified remark that Christ suffered the whole punishment which sinners deserve.' And does not the reviewer elsewhere thrust in various modifications of this phrase, saying Christ did not suffer any punishment in such a sense, as renders it unjust for the entire punish- ment of the law to be still inflicted on transgressors ; that he did not suffer the whole, the precise eternal punishment which sinners deserve, that in fact he did not suffer any punishment at all in its common acceptation of ' pain inflicted on a trans- gressor of law on account of his transgression, and for the purpose of testifying the lawgiver's hatred of him as a transgressor?' Why, then, does the reviewer here represent this ' unqualified remark' as identical with the ambiguous phrase * Christ bore our punishment,' and as a * summation of the manifold and diversified rejDre- sentations of Scripture ?'" Reply, p. 162. It may serve to convince the author that there is a real difference between the two systems under comparison, to be told, that his reviewer does hold that Clirist has paid the debt of sinners in such a sense that it would be unjust to exact its payment from those who believe. The reviewer does hold that Christ has suffered the pun- ishment of sin, in such a sense that it would be unjust to exact that punishment of those who accept of his righteousness. This is the very idea of justification. Paul's whole argument is founded on this principle. The law cannot justify those whom it condemns ; neither can it condemn those whom it justifies. There is no condemna- tion (no danger of it,, no exposure to it) to those who are in Christ Jesus. Who AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 597 It is not necessary to pursue this comparison further. If there be any power in language to express thought ; if human speech be anything more than an instrument of deception, then these systems of doctrine are distinct and irreconcilable. The one asserts what the other denies. It would be easy to confirm this conclusion by the testimony of the leading advocates of these conflicting creeds. They have stated in a hundred forms that they do not mean the same thing ; that the one class rejects and condemns what the other asserts. It is then only by doing despite to aU the rules of historical interpretation that any man can pretend that they mean substantially the same thing. What, then, is the theory by which our author proposes to effect the reconciliation of conflicting creeds ? According to our understanding of the matter, he presents his theory in two very different forms ; one is philosophical and plausible, the other is a truism. The one admits of discussion, the other can be refuted, as a means of reconciling creeds, only by stating it. shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemn eth? This view of justification arises from the very nature of substitution and vicarious punishment. The punishment of sin is necessary from the hohness and justice of God. That punishment may, as we learn from Scripture, be endured -by one com- petent to sustain the load, in the place of others. Christ, the eternal Son of God, assumed our nature, took our place, fulfilled all righteousness, completely obeying the precept and enduring the penalty of the law. as our substitute. Its demands were thus satisfied, i. e., it has nothing to demand, as the ground of justification, of those interested in the righteousness of Christ. That righteousness being imputed to them is the ground in justice of their being accepted as righteous in the sight of God. In themselves they are hell-deserving, to them their acceptance is a matter of grace, because it is not their own righteousness, but the righteousness of another that is the ground of their justification. As this is the form in which this doctrine is presented in Scripture,so it has its foundation in our own moral constitution. Men have a constitutional sense of justice, an intimate conviction that sin ought to be punished : and therefore they cannot be satisfied until such punishment is infiicted. No mere pardon, no restoration to favor, no assurance that the evil effects of forgive- ness will be prevented, can satisfy this intimate conviction. In all ages, therefore, men have demanded an atonement; and by atonement they have not understood a means of moral impression, but a method of satisfying justice. As these means have been ineffectual, the sacrifices of the heathen only serve to reveal the sentiment to which they owe their origin. But in the vicarious sufferings of the Son of God, in his bearing the punishment of our sins, what was merely symbolized in the ancient sacrifices was fully realized. This view of the nature of Christ's work and of the imputation of his righteousness is pronounced even in our day, by Hengstenberg, " the foundation-doctrine of the gospel, the life-point whence sprung the Reforma tion." Kirchen-Zeitung, 1836, No. 23. 598 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT The one is this, viz., that right feeling may express itself in diverse, conflicting, and therefore in some cases, wrong intellec- tual forms. The other is, that figurative language is not to be interpreted literally. It is the adroit or unconscious inter- change of these entirely difierent forms of his theory, that gives at once plausibility and confusion to his discourse. The fre- quent and sudden transition from a principle which no one denies, to one which no orthodox man admits, bewilders and deludes his readers. When startled by the fell sweep of his theory in one of its forms, he suddenly turns to them the other, and shows them how perfectly simple and harmless an affair it is. We shall endeavor very briefly to prove, first, that the author does present his theory in both of the forms above stated ; and secondly, that in the one form it is false and destructive, and in the other nugatory. But what is the theory which teaches that right feeling may express itself in diverse, and even in wrong intellectual forms ? The sermon does not present any elaborate exposition or philo- sophical discussion of it. This was not to be expected in a popular discourse. In order, however, to be properly under- stood, it is necessary that it should be exhibited somewhat in detail. We do not mean to attribute to Professor Park any thing more than the principle itself, as above stated ; we do not wish to be understood as even insinuating that he holds either its adjuncts or its consequents. The doctrine is substantially this. Religion consists essentially in feeling. It is not a form of knowledge, because in that case it could be taught like any other system of knowledge ; and the more learned on religious subjects, a man is, the more religion he would have. Much less can it consist in willing or acting, because there is no moral excellence either in volition or outward action, except as expres- sive of feeling. Religion must, therefore, have its seat in the feelings. There is in man a religious sentiment, a sense of dependence, a consciousness of relation to God. This gives rise to the persuasion that God is, and that we stand in manifold relations to him, and he to us. This is faith, i. e., a persuasion which arises out of feeling, and which derives from that source its contents and its power.' This is a form of intuition, a direct ^ Twesten's Dogmatik, p. 20. Glaube ist iiberhaupt ein auf dem Gefiihle beru- hendes Furwahrhalten. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 599 vision of its object ; apprehending, however, that it is, rather than either hoio or why it is. To this follows knowledge. That is, the cognitive faculty, the understanding, the logical con- sciousness, or whatever else it may be called, makes the intu- itions included in faith the objects of consideration, interprets and defines them, and thus transmutes them into definite thoughts. Of the materials thus furnished it constructs the- ology. In every system of theology, therefore, there are these elements, feeling, faith, knowledge, science. The two former may be the same where the two latter are very different. Hence feeling and faith may retain their true Christian character even when they cannot be reconciled with the philosophical convic- tions of the mind in which they exist.^ This provides for the case of the " tearful German" mentioned by Professor Park, who was a Christian in his heart, but a philosopher {i.e. in this con- nexion an infidel) in his head. Further, with the same religious feeling and faith there may be very different theologies ; because the interpretation given to the intuitions of faith are, to a great * This however is true only •within certain limits. Tzvesten, p. 30. Zwar han- gen Gefiihl und Glaube nicht schlechterdings von den Bestimmungen des Wissens ab ; sie fuhren ja selbst ihren Gehalfc und ihre Sicherheit mit sich, und man wird sich mancherley Gegenstiinde des religiosen Wissens denken konnen, die verschie- dene Ansichten zulassen, ohne dass dadureh der religiose und ehristliche Character des frommen Bewusstseyns verandert wird. Diess geht aber doch nur bis zu einem gewissen Punct. * * * Obgleich also die Religion weder Erkenntniss ist, noch von der Erkenntniss ausgeht, so verhalt sie sich doch nicht gleichgiiltig gegen dieselbe, und es ist z. B. far den religiosen Glauben nicht einerley, ob wir aus wis- senschaftlichen Grimden meinen, behaupten oder leugnen zu miissen, dass der Mensch unsterblich sey. Twesten belongs to the most moderate and orthodox class of Schleiermacher's dis- ciples. The master carried this matter much further, "Ja nach Schleierraacher," says his interpreter, Gess, "konnen sich religiose Gefiahle sogar mit solchen Be- grififen einigen, welche sich unter einander widersprechen. So heisst es (Reden p. 112:) es gebe zwei verschiedene Vorstellungen von Gott, eine, die ihn den Men- schen iihnlich mache, und eine, die ihn nicht als personlich denkend und wollend denke, sondern als die iiber alle Personliehkeit hinausgestellte allgemeine, alles Den- ken und Seyn hervorbringende Nothwendigkeit. Welche von beiden die richtige sey, daran liege dem Gefiihle nichts — ' sondern fromra kann jeder seyn, er halte sich zu diescm oder zu jenem Begriffe; aber seine Frommigkeit muss besser seyn, als sein Begriff. Und nichts sclieint sich weniger zu zieraen, als wenn die Anhanger der Einen die, welche von der Menscheniihnlichkeit abgeschreckt, ihre Zuflucht zu dem Andorn nehmen, beschuldigen, sie geyon gottlos; oder ebenso, wenn dies© wollton jene wegen der Menschenahnllchkeit ihres Begriffes des Gotzendienstes beschuldigen und ihre Frommigkeit fiir nichtig erklaren.' Gess's Schleiermach. System, p. 21 600 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT extent, determined by the philosophy, the knowledge, cultiva- tion, prejudices and spirit of the individual, and of the age or church to which he belongs. There is, therefore, no one Christian theology which can be pronounced true to the exclusion of all others. Different theologies are different forms of expressing or of interpreting the same religious sentiment. They are all true.^ As the force of vegetable life manifests itself in the greatest diversity of forms and in very different degrees of per- fectioUj so Christianity, which is also a power, manifests itself in various forms of faith, which are all to be recognized as expres- sions of a genuine Christian consciousness. If religion were a form of knowledge, if Christianity consisted in certain doctrines, or had Christ's immediate object been to set forth a theological system, there could be no room for such diversity ; there could be only one true theology.'' But revelation is not a making known a series of propositions. So far as it is an act of God, it is the arrangements and dispensations by which he awakens and elevates the religious consciousness of men ; and so far as it regards the recipients, it is the intuition of the truth conse- quent on this elevation of their religious feelings. And inspira- tion is the state of mind, the elevation of the religious conscious- ness, to which this immediate perception of the truth is due. It follows from all this that the Scriptures, great as is their value, are only in an indirect sense the rule of faith. They contain the record of the apprehension of divine things consequent on the extraordinary religious life communicated to the world by Jesus Christ ; and although they have a certain normal authority as the expression of a very pure and elevated state of religious ^ Twesten, p. 35. Aber so viel ist doch klar, dass es hiernach nicht bloss eine christliche Dogmatik giebt, die ausgenommen alle iibrigen geradezu unchristlich waren, sondern dass verschiedene dogmatische Systeme auf den Nameu der ehrist- lichen Anspruch machen konnen. * * * Gleich wie die Lebeuskrafte der Natur in einer grossen Mannigfaltigkeit von Erscheinungen hervortreten, verschieden nach der Art und Stufe ihrer Entwickeliing, doch alle Aeusserungen derselben Kriifte : Kraft des gottlicheu Lebens ist, in einer Fxille verschiedener Glaubensformen offen- baren, die sammtlich Formen des christlichen Lebens und Bewusstseyns sind. - Twesten, p. 33. Bestande die Religion nun zuniichst in einer Lehre, und ware Christi niichste Absicht gewesen, ein system von Dogmen aufzustellen ; so konnten tvir nicht umhin, uns zu der einen oder der andern Meinung zu schlagen, — that is, he must, in the case supposed, admit that the Lutheran system was the only Biblical and Christian system, or more or less opposed to it. There could in that case be but one true system. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 601 feeling, still of necessity that expression was greatly modified by the previous culture of the sacred writers. In other words, the form in which they presented these truths, or the interpreta- tion which they gave to their religious intuitions was influenced by their education, their modes of thought, and by the whole spirit of their age/ Our faith, therefore, is only indirectly founded on Scripture. Its immediate basis is our own religious consciousness, awakened and elevated by the Scriptures, and by the life which, proceeding from Christ, dwells in the church. The simple, historical interpretation of the sacred writings does not give us the divine element of the truth therein contained ; it gives us the temporary logical or intellectual form in which that divine element is embodied. But that form, in the progress of the church, may have become obsolete. The theology of an age dies with the age. The race passes on. It is making con- stant progress. Not only is the scientific element, which enters into every system of theology, becoming more correct, but the religious consciousness of the church is getting more pure and elevated ; and, therefore, a theology suited to one age becomes very unsuitable to another.^ Such, to the best of our understanding of the matter, is the theory to which the radical principle of Professor Park's ser- mon belongs. To understand that principle, it was necessary to have some idea of the system of which it is a part. We re- peat, however, what we have already said, viz : that we attrib- 1 7\uesten, p. 36. Vergegenwartigen wir uns den Apostel Paulus, nach seiner Xationalitiit und Bildung, nach dem Ideenkreise, in dem er erzogen war, der Art der Gelchrsamheit, die er sich angeeignet hatte, dann nach seiner Stellung in der apostoHschen Kirche, den Hinderuissen, die er zu beseitigen, den Gegnern, die er zu bekampfen hatte: konnte diess ohno Einfluss bleiben auf die Art, wie er das Christenthum auffassto und vortrag, und musste es nicht, von allem Andern abge- sehen, seiner Lehre ein anderes Geprdge geben, als sie auch bey innerer Geistes- verwandtsehaft und unter ahulichen Umstanden z. B. bey einem Luther habeu konnte, der nicht in der Schule Gamahels, sondern der Scholastik gebildet war, und" nicht Juden aus den Geschichten und Andeutungen des Alten, sondern Papstler au3 den Lehren des Neucn Testaments von todteu Werkeu zum lebendigen Glauben fiihren sollte ? 2 MorreWs Philosophy of Religion, p. 223. '■ The inevitable result of this is, that those who take tlieir stand pertinaciously upon the formal theology of any given period, remain stationary, as it were, in the religious consciousness of this period, while that of the age goes far beyond them, that their theology is no longer an adequate exponent of the religious life of the times, and no longer satisfies its just denjands." 602 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT ute to our author nothing more than he has avowed. We do not say, and we do not Imow, that he holds the theory above stated in any of its steps beyond the principle that right feeling may express itself in diverse, inconsistent, and therefore, at times, erroneous intellectual forms. That he does teach this principle, and that it is one aspect of the theory by which he proposes to reconcile " all allowable creeds," we think plain, in the first place, from the formal statements of his doctrine. The sermon from beginning to end treats of two theologies, which differ in form, i. e. in their intellectual statements, but have a common principle. Both are, therefore, allowable, because they are only different expressions of the same thing. It is a matter of perfect indifference whether these are called two theologies, or two modes of expressing one and the same theology. The difference between them in either case is the same.' ^^ Some- times," says our author, " both the mind and the heart are suited by the same modes of thought, but often they require dissimilar methods, and the object of the present discourse is, to state some of the differences between the theology of the intellect and that of the feeling, and also some of the influences which they exert upon each other," p. 534. " The theology of feeling differs from that of the intellect. It is the form of belief which is suggested by, and adapted to the wants of the well-trained heart. It is embraced as involving the substance of truth, although, when literally interpreted, it may or may not be false," p. 535. " In the theology of reason, the progress of science has ^ One of the complaints against us, which Professor Park urges most frequently, is that we misrepresent him as teaching two "kinds of theology," instead of "two dif- ferent forms" of one and the same theology. After many iterations of this complaint, he loses his patience, and asks, " Will the reviewer never distinguish between two doctrines, and the same doctrine expressed in two forms?" We are afraid not. There is not the slightest difference between the two statements, except in words. There are no doctrines so wide apart, but that some general truth may be found of which they are but different forms. Atheism is one form, and Theism is another form of the one doctrine, that the universe had a cause. The Socinian and the church exhibition of the design of Christ's death, are but different forms of the one doctrine, that we are saved by Christ. It is therefore perfectly immaterial whether Professor Park teaches that there are " two theologies," or " two forms of one and the same theology." His readers understand the former expression precisely as they do the latter, after all his explanations. The former is the more correct, and has the usage of all ages in its favor. One great difficulty in regard to this sermon is, .that its author wishes to change the established meaning of terms, and call new things by old words. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 603 antiquated some, and will continue to modify other refinements ; theory has chased theory into the shades ; but the theology of the heart, letting the minor accuracies go for the sake of hold- ing strongly upon the substance of doctrine, need not always accommodate itself to scientific changes, but may use its old statements, even if, when literally understood, they be incorrect," p. 539. " Our theme," he says, " reveals the identity in the essence of many systems which are run in scientific or aBsthetic moulds unlike each other." ^' There are, indeed, kinds of the- ology which cannot be reconciled with each other." p. 559. "Another practical lesson developed in this discourse is, the importance of exhibiting the mutual consistency between all the ex2:)ressions of right feeling," p. 137. We see not how these and many similar declarations are to be understood, otherwise than as teaching that the intellectual forms under which right feeling expresses itself, may be, and often are diverse and incon- sistent. The diff'erence is not that between literal and figura- tive language, but between systems run in different scientific moulds. The intellectual forms of doctrine may change, theory may succeed theory, but the feelings may adhere to these anti- quated forms, and continue to express themselves in modes which the reason pronounces to be false. But, in the second place, a large class of the illustrations employed by our author, puts this matter out of all doubt. They are instances not of figurative, imaginative, or intense expressions, but of purely intellectual and doctrinal statements. This we have ah-eady abundantly proved. That the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity, that they are condemned for that sin, that its consequences to theip are of the nature of punish- ment is a different doctrine from that expressed by saying we are exposed to evil in consequence of that sin. That inherent depravity is truly and properly sin, is a different intellectual proposition from the statement that it is not properly sin. That no mere man since the fall is able perfectly to keep the com- mandments of God, is a different doctrine from that asserted by saying, that God never requires of us more than we are able to perform. These statements suppose different theories of moral obligation, of moral agency, and of the freedom of the will. So too, the propositions, Christ bore the penalty of the law, his sufferings were of the nature of punishment, he fully satisfied 604 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT the demands of the law and justice of God, are recognized forms of stating a doctrine concerning the atonement, which has ever heen held to be incompatible with the governmental or Socinian theory of the nature of Christ's work. As these and others of a like kind are included in the author's illustrations of his theory, they prove beyond doubt that his theory is that right feeling may express itself in diverse and inconsistent intel- lectual forms. It matters not what name he may give it. It is the precise doctrine of those who hold that the different systems of theology are not to be distinguished as true and false, but as different interpretations of the same genuine Christian con- sciousness ; or that right feeling may express itself in incompat- ible intellectual forms.' This is the philosophical, grave, and plausible aspect of our author's theory. He presents the matter, however, in another and very different light. The second form in which the doctrine of the sermon is pre- sented, is that figurative language is not to be interpreted literally, that poetry is not to be treated as prose ! This, as a device for reconciling " all allowable creeds," as we said above, needs no refutation beyond the statement of it. That our author does run down his theory to this " infinite little," is plain both from his exposition and illustration of his doctrine. The emotive theology may, he says, be called poetry, " if this word be used, as it should be, to include the constitutional developments of a heart moved to its depths by the truth. And as in its essence it is poetical, with this meaning of the epithet, so it avails itself of a poetic license, and indulges in a style of remark, which, for sober prose, would be unbecoming, or even, when associated in certain ways, irreverent."* Being poetical in its nature, the theology of feeling is better adapted to the hymn-book than to creeds. He ascribes a great deal of mischief to the introduction of the language of poetry into doctrinal symbols. Men, he says, will never find peace " until they confine their intellect to its ^ When the writers, to whom we have referred, represent conflicting systems of theology as alike true, they of course mean that there is a higher view which em- braces and harmonizes them all ; that they are different aspects of the same general truth; and further, that they have a common element, which is differently com- bined in these several systems. They would accept Professor Park's statement of the identity in essence of systems run in different scientific moulds, or of "the mutual consistency of all the expressions of right feeling," as a proper expression of their doctrine. ^ Sermon, p. 538. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 605 rightful sphere, and understand it according to what it says, and their feeh'ng to its province, and interpret its language according to what it means, rendering to poetry the things which are de- signed for poetry, and unto prose that which belongs to prose."^ '•'Our theme" i,e. the theme discussed in the sermon, he says, " grieves ns by disclosing the ease with which we may slide into grave errors. Such errors have arisen from so simple a cause as that of confounding poetry with prose.'" The emotive theology, as appears from these statements, is poetry. It is the poetic exhibition of doctrines. The conflicts of theologians arise, in a measure, from their not recognizing this fact. They interpret these poetic forms as though they were the sober and waiy lan- guage of prose. He sustains the doctrine of the sermon, in this view of it, by quotations from Blair, Campbell, Burke, and even a certain commentary on the Epistle to the Komans. " In accordance with these simple principles," he says, " not dug out of the depths of German metaphysics, but taken from the surface of Blair's Ehetoric, the sermon under review describes the theol- ogy of feeling as introducing obscure images, vague and indefi- nite representations."' The doctrine of the discourse, therefore, is the perfectly harmless truism that poetry is not prose, and therefore is not to be interprQted as though it were. Accordingly he asks the commentator referred to, how it happens, that when he " comes to criticise a Kew England sermon, he should forget the rhetorical principles with which he was once familiar."* These representations present the author's theory as a simple rhetorical principle, which no one denies. A large class of the illustrations of the doctrine of the sermon are adapted to this view of the case. Passages of Scripture, which speak of men as hiding under Jehovah's wings, which rep- resent God as jealous or angry ; which speak of him as a rock or high tower ; or which describe him as armed with sword and buckler ; the figurative language of our hymn-books, which speaks of God's burning throne, his smiling face, his open arms ; the intense and hyperbolical language of emotion, as when the Psalmist says, I am a worm and no man ; and when the sinner says, I am less than nothing, are all cited as illustrations of the principle contended for. There can, therefore, be no doubt, that ^ Sermon, p. 654. ' Sermon, p. 558. 3 Reply, p. 158. * Reply, p. 160. 606 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT one aspect of our author's theory is that poetry is not to be in- terpreted as though it were prose. But is this the only aspect of his doctrine ? Was it with this penny- whistle he discoursed such music as stole away the senses of a Boston audience ? When he stood up as a vates jjroescius venturi, to foretell the blending of all creeds into one colorless ray, and to predict the end of religious controversy, was Blair's Rhetoric the source of his inspiration ? Did he persuade the shrewd Athenians of America, that it was a feasible matter to interpret the West- minster Confession as a poem, and that men never would have peace until that feat was accomplished ? Such is the modest interpretation which he gives his " humble convention sermon." We entertain for it a much higher opinion. We believe it teaches something more than lies on the surface of the Scotch Principal's dull lectures. If it does not, then we grudge the ink — worth less than a farthing — we have spent in writing about it.* It is the principle that right feeling may express itself in wrong intellectual forms, incorrect and dangerous as that prin- ciple is, that gives dignity and importance to the sermon under review. This is a grave matter. The theory with which it is connected is not to be treated lightly. It has been elaborated with so much skiU, sustained by so much power, and adopted by so many leading minds, that it deserves the most serious examin- ation. It would be a very important service if some competent hand would undertake such a scrutiny, and philosophically dis- cuss the various points which the theoiy in question involves, separating the warp of truth from the woof of error in its compli- cated texture. No one can read even the bald outline of that theory as given above, without feeling its power, and seeing that there is an element of truth in it which gives it a dangerous plausibility. We must leave such an examination, however, to * Yet the author seems to labor through this whole reply to persuade his readers that this is all he meant. This is the source of his retorts and sarcasms. " Do you hold that God is a rock, or that he came from Teman ? Do you forget your own principle, that figurative expressions are not to be taken according to the letter ? "What pitiable logomachy then is it, to contend about doctrinal discrepancies. Can- not is only another form of will not ; sinful is only a figure for " not sinful." If we all admit we are saved by Christ, what is the use of disputing how he saves us ? We are all agreed, if we did but know it. You say the thing figuratively, I say the same thing literally ; I mean just what you mean, mean what you please, (within allowable limits.") AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 607 those whom God calls to the work. We have an humbler office. There are two methods of dealing with a false theory. The one is, the refutation of its principles ; the other is, to show that its admitted results are in conflict with established truths. The latter is much the shorter, and generally much the more satis- factory, as it is the common scriptural method of dealing with error. We propose, tlierefore, simply to indicate one or two points in which the theory, one of whose principles our author has adopted, stands in conflict with the Bible. In the first place the radical principle of the theory, viz., that religion consists essentially in feeling, is contrary to the scrip- tural doctrine on the subject, and is opposed to what the Bible teaches of the importance of truth. According to Scripture, religion is not a blind feeling, desire, or emotion, but it is a form of knowledge. It is the spiritual discernment of divine things. The knowledge, which in the Bible is declared to be eternal, or spiritual life, is not the more intellectual, or speculative appre- hension of the truth ; but such apprehension is one of its essen- tial elements, and therefore of true religion. No man can have the spiritual discernment of any truth which he does not know. The intellectual cognition is just as necessary to spiritual knowl- edge as the visual perception of a beautiful object is to the appre- hension of its beauty. Men cannot be made religious by mere instruction, but they cannot be religious without it. Eeligion includes the knowledge, i. e. the intellectual apprehension of divine things, as one of its essential elements, without which it cannot exist. And therefore it is often called knowledge. Hence, to know God, is the sum of all religion. The vision of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, is the vital principle of inward Christianity. Hence throughout the Bible, the knowledge of God, wisdom, understanding, and words of like import, are used as designations of true religion. With spiritual discernment is in- separably connected a feeling corresponding to the nature of the objeci apprehended. This is so intimately united with the cogni- tion as to be an attribute of it — having no separate existence, and being inconceivable without it.. And it is to the two as insepa- rably united that the name of religion properly belongs. Neither the cognition without the feeling, nor the feeling without the cognition completes the idea of religion. It is the complex state of mind in which those elements are inseparably blended, so as 60S THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT to form one glowing, intelligent apprehension of divine things, which constitutes spiritual life. But in this complex state the cognition is the first and the governing element, to which the other owes its existence ; and therefore, in the second place, the Scriptures not only teach that knowledge is an essential constit- uent of religion, but also that the objective presentation of truth to the mind is absolutely necessary to any genuine religious feel- ing or affection. It is by the truth as thus outwardly presented, that the inward state of mind, which constitutes religion, is pro- duced. We are begotten by the truth. We are sanctified l)y the truth. It is by the exhibition of the truth, that the inward life of the soul is called into being and into exercise. This is the agency which the Spirit of God employs in the work of conver- sion and sanctification. Hence truth is essential to the salvation of men. It is not a matter of indifference what men believe, or in what form right feeling expresses itself There can be no rignt feeling but what is due to the apprehension of truth. Hence Christ commissioned his disciples to teach. The Church was made the teacher of the nations ; she has ever regarded her- self as the witness and guardian of the truth. Heresy she has repudiated, not as an insult to her authority, but as destructive of her life. Is not this scriptural view of the relation between knowledge and feeling, confirmed by consciousness and experience ? Is not the love of God intelligent ? Is it not complacency in the divine character as intellectually apprehended ? Does not the love of Christ suppose the knowledge of Christ ? Can the man who looks upon him as a creature, feel toward him as God manifest in the flesh ? Can the feeling which has for its object the Son of God bearing our sins in his own body on the cross, be the same as that which regards him as an amiable martyr.^ Kepentance, faith, love, reverence, gratitude, every affection and exercise which enters into true religion, our own consciousness tells us, derives its character and owes its existence to knowledge, to the intelligent apprehension of the truth as revealed in the word of God. The history of the world is a continued illustra- tion of the truth, that inward character depends on knowledge. This is one of the great principles of Protestantism ; and there- fore Protestants have ever been the advocates of religious instruc- tion. It is a purely Eomish doctrine, that " Religious light is AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 609 intellectual darkness/" Knowledge, according to Protestants, is one of the elements of faith, without which it cannot exist. It includes assent to some known truth. In the one church, there- fore, truth has a paramount importance ; in the other ignorance is regarded as the mother of devotion. If a man trust in the cross, the Romish system tells him he need not know what the cross means. It matters not whether he thinks he is saved by the wood of the cross, by the magic influence of the sign, or by Christ as crucified for the sins of the world. These are different expressions of the feeling of confidence. A distinguished Unita- rian clergyman once said to us, that there was no difference between his doctrine as to the method of salvation and that of the orthodox. Both believe that we are saved through Christ, and even by his death. The one says how this is done ; the other leaves the manner unexplained. The general truth both receive. The difference is not a difference of doctrine, but of the mode or form in which the same doctrine is presented. In opposition to the scriptural doctrine on the subject, the theory under consideration teaches that religion consists in feel- ing, as distinguished from knowledge, and that it is in a great measure independent of it. In the extreme form in which this doctrine is presented by its great master, it is immaterial, so far as religion is concerned, whether a man be a Pantheist or Theist; whether he regards God as a mere force, of which neither intelli- gence nor moral excellence can be predicated, or as a spirit, in- finite in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. And even in the more moderate form, in which it is set forth by some of his followers, truth is of subordinate importance. As the essence of religion is feeling, it may exist under very dif- ferent intellectual forms, and find expression in conflicting sys- tems of doctrine. Both, therefore, as to the nature of religion, and as to the importance of truth, there is a vital difference between this theory and the teachings of the word of God. Secondly, this theory subverts the doctrine of a divine revela- tion, in the correct and commonly received sense of those terms. Revelation is the communication of truth by God to the under- standings of men. It makes known doctrines. For example, it makes known that God is; that God is a spirit ; that he is infin- ite ; that he is holy, just, and good ; that Christ is the Son of * Newman's Parochial Sermons, Vol. I., p. 124. 89 610 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT God ; that he assumed our nature ; that he died for our sins, &c. These are logical propositions. They are so set forth, that the meaning of the terms employed, and the sense of the propositions themselves, are understood, and understood in the same way by the renewed and the unrenewed. That the one class perceive in the truths thus revealed an excellence, and experience from them a power, of which the other class have no experience, does not alter the case. Eevelation, as such, is addressed to the under- standing ; to the understanding indeed of moral beings, capable of perceiving the import of moral propositions ; but it is very different from spiritual illumination. All this the thoery in question denies. It makes revelation to be the awakening and elevating the religious feelings, which when thus roused, have higher intuitions of spiritual things than were possible before. Doctrines are not matters of revelation. They have no divine authority. They are constructed by the understanding. They are the logical statements of the supjiosed contents of these im- mediate intuitions, and are therefore fallible, transient, variable; assuming one form under one set of influences, and a different under another. Thirdly, this theory necessarily destroys the authority of the Scriptures. This follows from what has already been said. If it subverts the true idea of revelation, it subverts all that rests on that idea. But, besides this, it teaches that the influence under which the sacred writers thought and wrote was not pecu- liar to them. It is common to all believers. Inspiration is an exalted state of the religious feelings, quickening, and rendering clearer the religious perceptions. The light within is therefore co-ordinate with the light in the Scriptures. This theory is a philosophical form of Quakerism, and stands in much the same relation to the normal authority of the Scriptures. The practi- cal operation of this doctrine confirms the view here given of its nature and tendency. There is of course a great difference among its advocates, as to the reverence which they manifest for the word of God, and as to the extent in which they agree with its teachings ; but in all there is abundant evidence that the Bible has lost its ancient authority as a rule of faith. They construct systems which do not profess to be expositions of what is taught in the word of God, but deductions from the religious consciousness as it now exists. Few of them hesitate to say that AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 611 the Bible is full of errors, not merely of history and science, but of such as are connected with religion ; that it is disfigured by misconceptions, false reasoning and erroneous exhibitions of doctrine. How can it be otherwise if its logical propositions are but the fallible interpretation given to their feelings by the sacred writers. Our readers cannot ask us to say more in opposition to a theory which thus deals with the Scriptures, which represents its doctrinal statements as due to the peculiar training of the sacred writers, and which teaches that propositions categorically opposed to each other may be alike true — true relatively, since none is true absolutely. Professor Park may ask. What has all this to do with his con- vention sermon ? That discourse does not teach that all religion consists in feeling, nor does it advocate the view of revelation and inspiration deduced from that principle. Very true. But it does teach one of the main principles of the theory in question. It does teach that right feeling may express itself in inconsistent intellectual forms. Does it not teach that we may say the sin of Adam is imputed to his race ; that our nature since the ^aU is sinful ; that Christ's sufferings were of the nature of punish- ment ; that he satisfied the law and justice of God, &c. ? And yet are not all these propositions pronounced to be false, in the very sense which those who use them mean to convey ? Is it not the avowed design of the sermon to show that all " allowable creeds" may be reconciled ? Does not the author attempt to show that the two great systems of doctrine which have been in conflict for ages, are but different forms of expressing the same right feelings ? If this is so, we know no method of refutation more fair or more conclusive, than to point out the origin, and to trace the consequences of a principle by which these results are brought about. To object to an argument designed to show that a doctrine is false, by proving that the principles which it involves, and the consequences to which it leads, are unsound and dangerous, is to object to its being refuted at all. XVIII. THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS/ ARTICLE III. It is not our intention to reply to the long article of which the title is given below. Our object in what follows is to pre- sent in few words our reasons for putting an end to the discus- sion between Professor Park and ourselves, so far as we are concerned. His Convention Sermon presented three legitimate topics for discussion. 1. The nature of the theory therein proposed. 2. The correctness of that theory, and 3. Its value as a general solvent of all allowable creeds. We have endeavored to adhere strictly to these points. In that sermon our author set forth a theory which he seemed to think new and important. He ap- plied that theory to neutralize some of the great doctrines of the Bible. It was incumbent on those to whom those doctrines iii'G dear, and who saw them evaporating, in Professor Park's alembic into thin air, to examine the nature of the process, and to ascertain whether it was a real discovery or only another Paine-light. Professor Park is very importunate in urging that we should drop this subject, and take up a very different one. After presenting in an interrogative form a variety of objections to the doctrine of inherent sin, he says, " We request an answer to these questions as a favor. We are entitled to demand such answer as a right." ' We cannot accept this challenge. It may ' Cfniti/ and Diversities of Belief even on Imputed and Involuntary Sin ; with Comments on a Second Article in the Frin^ton Review relating to a Convention, Sermon. By Edwards A. Park, Abbot Professor in Andover Theological Seminary, Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1851, p. 594-64T. — Princeton Review, October, 1851. 2 Bib. Sac. p. 646. 614 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT suit Professor Park's purposes to divert attention from the real point at issue, but we are not disposed to aid him in the attempt. In our preceding article we distinctly stated the subject we intended to discuss. After presenting an outline of the two great systems of doctrine, which have so long been in conflict, we said, " The question is not which of the antagonistic systems of theology above described is true ; or whether either is true. Nor is the question which of the two Professor Park believes. His own faith has nothing to do with the question. * * * The point to be considered is not so much a doctrinal one, as a prin- ciple of interpretation, a theory of exegesis and its application. The question is, whether there is any correct theory of interpre- tation by which the two systems above referred to can be har- monized. Are they two theologies equally true, the one the theology of the intellect, the other the theology of the feelings ? or, in other words, are they different forms of one and the same theology ?" * On the same page we say, we proposed, 1. To show that the above statement of the question was correct, {i. e. that Professor Park had really undertaken the task of reconcil- ing the Augustinian and anti-Augustinian systems of theology), 2. To consider the success of this attempt, and 3. To examine the nature of the theory by which that reconciliation has been attempted. The prosecution of this plan involved the careful statement of the doctrines to be harmonized by the new theory, but it excluded a discussion of the truth of those doctrines. When, therefore, Professor Park calls upon us, with sucli author- ity, to answer his objections to the doctrine of original or inher- ent sin, he is travelling out of the record. Again, where is the matter to end ? The two systems which Professor Park proposes to harmonize embrace almost the whole range of theology, in its two great departments of anthropology and soterology. Are we to go over the whole of this ground ? Must we write a system of polemic theology in answer to a Con- vention Sermon ? This is a great deal more than we bargained for. When we ran out of the harbor in our yacht to see what " long, low, black" schooner was making such a smoke in the offing, we had no expectation to be called upon to double Cape Horn. Our author indeed confines his present challenge to the discussion of imputed and involuntary sin ; but these are only * Prinoeton Review, April, 1851, p. 320. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 615 two out of a long concatenation of doctrines embraced in these systems ; and if we admit his right to demand a discussion of these at our hands, we concede his right to keep us busy to the end of our days. We beg to be excused. Our relation to Adam, the effect of his sin upon his posterity, the nature of sin, ability, and inability, regeneration, grace, predestination, and election ; the work of Christ, justification, faith, and persever- ance, topics on which thousands of volumes have been written, are some of the subjects on which Professor Park assumes the right to call us out at pleasure. This is one of the numerous mistakes into which our author has been betrayed by a want of due discrimination. The truth of his theory and the truth of Augustinianism are two very different things. We are open to all fair demands as to the former, but we never volunteered to defend " Gribraltar" against his attacks. Again, where is the necessity for any such discussion .^ Why should we again go over ground rendered hard by the footsteps of generations .^ Why discuss anew questions which have been debated every ten years since the days of Augustin ? Why trouble ourselves to pick up and send back spent balls which have been discharged a thousand times before to no purpose ? Every generation has indeed its own life to live. It must fight out its own battles, which are only a repetition of the conflicts of former ages. The same great questions are constantly recur- ring, and must be settled anew by every seeking soul. But these are mostly personal struggles. The doctrines are fixed. They have taken their place in the settled faith of the church ; and the real struggle is in the breast of each individual, to come to a comprehension, appreciation, and acknowledgment of the truth. To help such individuals in their inward conflicts, to vindicate the flxith from misapprehension, to commend it fairly to the acceptance of men, is now, in great measure, the work of the theological teacher. That there is a God ; that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three persons, the «ame in substance, equal in power and glory ; that God was manifested in the flesh for the redemption of man ; that Jesus Christ our Lord is very God and very man in two distinct natures and one person for ever ; that he died for our sins and rose again for our justifi- cation ; that we are saved by faith in Christ as the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us ; that the race whose 616 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT nature he assumed, and whom he gave his life to redeem, is a fallen race — born in sin — by nature the children of wrath, under condemnation from their birth, infected with a sinful depravity of nature, by which they are disabled and indisposed to all spir- itual good, and therefore must be born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of Grod, are no longer open questions among Christians. These doctrines are part of the settled faith of Christendom, included in the creeds of all churches, Greek, Latin, Lutheran, and Reformed. We are aware that these doctrines are liable to assault from various quarters, and that every man should be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in him. But this is no reason why we should treat the whole Christian system as something unsettled, to be discussed anew with every individual w^ho may choose to assail any of its fundamental principles. It is time that men should feel and acknowledge that assaults against matters of common faith, are attacks, not against opinions of men, but against Christianity ; so that the position of the assail- ant may be defined from the beginning. If the point assailed can be shown to be part of the common faith (9£ the church, then we think the necessity for further debate is, in all ordinary cases, at an end. We hold to no infallibility of the church, but we hold to the certain truth of what all Christians believe. The fact of their agreement admits of no other solution, than the teaching of the Spirit of truth, who dwells in all believers. We regard it, therefore, as a matter of great importance that such questions should not be open, at least within the church {i. e. among Christians) to perpetually renewed agitation. The church has new conflicts enough before her, without fighting over and over her former battles. Again, there is nothing new as to substance or form, in Pro- fessor Park's objections to call for special attention. They are presented somewhat more rhetorically than usual, but with less than common logical force and discrimination. They are the old, ever recurring, and constantly repeated difficulties, which arise partly from the nature of the subject, and partly from the apparent impossibility of disabusing the mind of misconceptions to which it has become wedded. Language is at best an im- perfect vehicle of thought, and when men have become accus- tomed to associate certain ideas with certain terms, they find it AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 617 very difficult to free themselves from such trammels. There is a large class of words to which Professor Park attaches a meaning difl-erent from that in which they are used by theologians of the Keformed church, and he, therefore, unavoidably misunderstands and misrepresents their doctrines. To this class of terms belong such words as imputation, guilt, punishment, condemnation, satisfaction, justification, nature, natural, moral, disposition, voluntary, &c. In numerous cases he perverts these words from their established sense, and tKen pronounces judgment with the greatest confidence, on doctrinal propositions, of whose meaning he has no distinct apprehension. If instead of reading here and there a page in Turrettin, through dark green spectacles, which turn everything into spectres, he would read his ^vhole work through with unclouded eyes, he would find himself in a nevr world, and would be saved the trouble of asking a multitude of irrelevant questions. We will give specimens of the Professor's objections to justify our description of their character. He represents the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin, for example, as involving an unintelligible oneness of the race with Adam : an assumption that men sinned before they existed ; that the moral character of the act imputed is transferred ; that men, being regarded as morally guilty of Adam's sin, are, contrary to all justice, punished for it. The true doctrine on this subject is nothing more or less than that the sin of Adam is the judicial ground of the condem- nation of his race. There is no mysterious oneness of the race, no transfer of moral character, no assumption of the moral guilt of men for the sin of Adam, involved in the doctrine. Professor Park knows this, for he himself makes the question on this sub- ject to be, whether God exercises distributive justice or sover- eignty toward us, in causing us to suffer for the sin of Adam.' ' Bib. Sacra, p. 616, ei seq. Wliat is more remarkable, our author, after stating at great length, the old theory of imputation, and making it include "a common exist- once" in Adam, ante-natal sin, and transfer of moral ill-desert, and laboriously sus- taining his representations by a long array of misunderstood quotations, says, at last, p. 621, "The dispute turns chiefly on this word, punishment, and is merely verbal I" "We never saw a house built with so much trouble thus recklessly pushed over by its author. If the old doctrine differs from the new simply in the use of a word, then the former does not involve all the absurdities and atrocities which through so many weary pages he had been attributing to it. We cannot see why we should be called upon to answer objections which their author thus summarily disposes of. 618 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT If, then, our author is able for himself thus to eliminate the un- essential elements of this doctrine, why does he overload it with all his queries and difficulties about oneness, transfer of character, &c., &c. ? If, as Professor Park says, the whole dispute is about the word punishment, or, in other words, whether the evils brought upon our race by the sin of Adam be judicial or sover- eign inflictions, then imputation does not involve any transfer of the moral character of the act imputed. This is still further plain, not only from the explicit declarations of the advocates of the doctrine, but also from the notorious fact, that no other im- putation of the offence of Adam is acknowledged or contended for, than is asserted when is is said our sins were imputed to Christ, and his righteousness is imputed to believers. Every one knows it would be a gross calumny against the Lutheran and Reformed churches, to say they teach the transfer of moral tur- pitude (or moral ill-desert) to the Lord Jesus, or of the moral excellence of his righteousness to his people. The imputation of sin to Christ did not render him unholy, nor does the imputation of his righteousness render us holy. Why then should it be con- tended that the imputation of Adam's sin renders his race morally guilty of his transgression ? As to the objection that it is unjust to condemn men for a sin not personally their own, there are three modes of answer. First, it may be shown that the objection bears with aggravated force against those who deny the doctrine of imputation. They admit that evils only less than infinite come upon the race in consequence of Adam's sin ; that God as a sovereign determined that if Adam sinned all his race should sin ; he decreed to bring men into existence with such a constitution of their nature and imder such circumstances, as to render their becoming sinners absolutely certain, and then to condemn them to eternal misery for the sin thus committed, in the first dawn of reason. All this is done in sovereignty. The other doctrine teaches that the evils which afflict our race on account of Adam's sin, are part of the just penalty of that transgression. Professor Park himself says, " Our calamities hang suspended on the sovereign purpose of heaven : we say, directly; he (his reviewer) says, indirectly: we say, without any intervening links ; he says, with the inter- vening links of imputation, guilt, &c."' When we first read this ' Bib. Sacra, p. 617. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 619 sehtence we could hardly believe that Professor Park had been given up to speak the truth thus simply and clearly. It is pre- cisely as he states it. A man is put to death, he says, by a sovereign act ; we say, with the trifling intermediate links of guilt and just condemnation. He is welcome to all the converts he can make by this statement of his case. A second method of answering this charge of injustice is to show that it bears against undeniable facts in the providence of God. It is vain to say anything is wrong which God actually does. It is a plain fact that the penalty threatened against Adam in case of transgression has been inflicted on his posterity. Death, the pains of child-birth, the unfruitfulness of the earth — all the visible manifestations of God's displeasure, fell upon the race as well as upon the original transgressors. These evils were denounced as a curse, as a penalty, and as such they have come on all mankind. A third answer to this objection is found in the express dec- larations of Scripture. The Bible does not say we are merely pardoned, by a sovereign act, on account of Christ's death ; but that we are justified by his blood. Neither does it say we sufier certain evils inflicted in a sovereign manner, of which Adam's sin is the occasion ; but it says, we are condemned for that sin. If justification means more than pardon, then condemnation means more than the sovereign infliction of evil. This is Paul's method of answering difiiculties. If an objection can be shown to bear against the providence or the word of God, it is thereby handed up to a higher tribunal, where the objector can prosecute it or not as he sees fit. Another subject on which our author has many difficulties is the doctrine of inability — or the denial of the doctrine '' that ability limits responsibility ; that men are responsible only so far as they have adequate power to do what is required of them; that they are responsible for nothing that is not under the con- trol of the will." ' On this subject there are three forms of doctrine more or less prevalent in this country. The first is that of plenary or adequate power; the second, the doctrine that man is naturally able, but morally unable to keep the command- ments of God ; the third, the doctrine that since the fall men are both " indisposed and disabled" to all spiritual good. The * Princeton Review, April, 1851, p. 309. .620 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT symbols of the Lutheran and Reformed churches which incul- cate this last mentioned view of the subject^ clearly teach, first, that since the fall man retains all his faculties of soul and body, and is, therefore, still a free moral agent ; second, that he not only has the power of choosing or refusing what is agreeable or disagreeable, but has the power of performing things " civilly good ;'' the inability asserted is restricted to things spiritually good, or things connected with salvation ; thirdly, that this inability arises out of the sinful state of the soul, and is removed by spiritual regeneration and the co-operation of the Holy Ghost. The second form of this doctrine mentioned above, is a kind of neutral ground, and is a very convenient hiding and dodging place. Many who profess that view of the subject, mean by natural ability, nothing more than what the old theologians mean by man's free agency ; and by moral inability they mean what those divines intend, when they say men are since the fall disabled and indisposed to all spiritual good. On the other hand, however, there are many who understand by natural ability, plenary power ; and the only inability which they admit, is a disinclination which it is in the power of the will, i, c, of the sinner in the exercise of his natural strength, to remove. With regard to Professor Park's objections to the old doctrine on this subject, we have but three remarks to make. First : Most of his difficulties arise from his not understanding the question. He overlooks the limitations and explanations of the doctrine given in the Protestant confessions. We no more believe than Professor Park does, that men can be under obligation to create a world by their own power. The old doctrine does not repre- sent the inability of the sinner as being the same in kind, though as invincible in degree as that of the blind to see, or of the deaf to hear. The inability of the blind to see does not arise out of their moral state, has not reference to moral acts, and is not removed by a moral change. It is, therefore, of an entirely different nature from the inability under which the sin- ner is represented to labor. The objection, therefore, which takes for granted their identity, is simply an argumentum ad ignorantiam. Secondly : Whether men are, or are not able, of themselves to do all that God requires, is a question of fact, and is to be determined accordingly. Where is the man who has ever regenerated himself ? Where is the man who has loved AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 621 God perfectly even for one hour, mucli less for a lifetime ? Where is the sinner who by any exercise of his natural strength, though in imminent danger of perdition, can turn himself unto God ? Let Professor Park, with all his boasted power, go on his knees and utter ten sentences in a manner to satisfy his own conscience. He knows he could not do it, if the salvation of the world depended on it. The plain, simple fact of conscious- ness and observation, is that men cannot do what they know they are bound to do ; and every denial of this fact, is either palpably false, or true only in an esoteric and deluding sense. As every man knows that his affections are not under the con- trol of his will, the only way to sustain the doctrine, that ability is the measure of obligation, is to take the ground that we are not responsible for our affections ; that the command to love is absurd ; and then the very foundation of religion and morals is overthrown. Thirdly : As the Scriptures nowhere tell men they can regenerate themselves, but expressly declare that the natural man cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God, so that blessed Agent, in leading men to a knowledge of themselves, uniformly convinces them of their entire helplessness, i. e. that they cannot of themselves repent, believe, or even think any good thought. It is not a matter of surprise, therefore, that the doctrine of adequate power, or that men "can by their natural strength turn themselves unto God,'' is repudiated as anti-Christian no less by Eomanists than by Protestants. It is just as abhorrent to the theology of New England, as it is to that of the Eeformed church. It is, however, on the subject of involuntary sin that Professor Park is most zealous, and on which he seems most confident of carrying the public sympathy with him. The term involuntary is not very happily chosen, as it is used in very different senses. Any thing may be said to be voluntary which inheres in the will, or which flows from an act of the will, or which consists in such an act. Then again, the word will may be taken to include all the " active powers of the mind," so that all liking and disliking are acts of the will : or it may be taken in the stricter sense for the imperative faculty of the mind, or power of self-determination. In this sense, only acts of choice, volitions generic or imperative, are acts of will. To say that all sin is voluntary in the first of these senses, is a very different thing 622 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT from saying it is voluntary in the sense last mentioned. Yet it is easy and very tempting to quote, as Professor Park does, Augustin's admission that all sin is voluntary in one sense, as an authority for teaching it is voluntary in a sense which would overthrow the whole of that father's system. On this subject of original sin, we have in this country three principal forms of doctrine. The first is founded on the prin- ciple that all sin consists in the voluntary transgression of known laws ; whence it follows that whatever may be the condition of human nature since the fall, there is nothing of the nature of sin in man until in his own person he voluntarily transgresses the law of God. The second is " the exercise scheme," which assuming that the soul itself is a series of exercises, teaches that moral agency begins at the commencement of the existence of the soul, and that since the fall all moral exercises, though " created" by God, are sinful, until at regeneration a holy series is commenced. The third is the common doctrine that men derive from Adam a sinful nature, i. e. that they are born desti- tute of original righteousness, and with unholy dispositions or principles, which corruption of nature is commonly called original sin. This, beyond the possibility of doubt, is the doctrine em- bodied in the symbols, inculcated in the teaching, and implied in the rites of every Christian church. Our author indeed says that some theologians have taught this doctrine.^ Some indeed ! He might as well admit that some men have eyes. True or false, the doctrine of inherent, hereditary, sinful corruption of human nature since the fall, is part of the faith of the whole church. In assailing that doctrine. Professor Park arrays him- self, not against some theologians, but against the Christian world, and he should have the courage to acknowledge his posi- tion. He denies a doctrine, the rejection of which (connected ^ Bib. Sac. p. 628. " What is the theory of passive, inherent sin ? Our reviewer frankly defines his doctrine when he says that we have ' an innate, hereditary, sin- ful corruption of nature;' that we have derived from Adam 'a nature not merely diseased, weakened, or predisposed to evil, but which is 'itself as well as 'all tho motions thereof truly and properly sin.' Having already admitted that many theo- logians have believed in our moral guilt for the crime of Adam, we also admit that some have believed in our moral guilt for the very make of our souls. The two themes have by some been indissolubly blended, and it has been, therefore, main- tained that our inherent as well as our imputed sin ig ill deserving, and is justly punishable with the second death." AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 623 with the assertion of plenary powers), Edwards says, does away with the necessity of redemption. He puts himself in special opposition to the faith of the New England churches ; for the New England divines, the less they made of imputation, the more stress did they lay on inherent sin. Most of Professor Park's objections to this doctrine belong to one or the other of two classes ; they either arise from mis- apprehension, or they involve a petitio 2^'i^'incipu. The source of a large part of them is indicated in the following sentence : " A thorough Calvinist can no more believe in the passive sin of the heart, than he can beheve in the sin of the muscles and veins.'' ^ It is assumed that nature means- the essence of the soul with its constitutional faculties and sensibilities, A sinful nature, therefore, must mean a sinful substance, something made. Hence the objections about physical depravity, God's being the author of sin, the absurdity of men being responsible for the " make" of their souls, &c., &c. All these objections are swept away by the simple remark, that nature in such connexion means natural disposition, and is expressly declared not to mean essence or substance. Cannot a man have a new nature without having a new soul ? Cannot we believe in a holy nature with- out believing in holy muscles ? In every rudimental treatise on original sin our author will find distinctions and definitions which ought to have precluded the possibility of his advancing such objections as these. Another class of his difficulties arises from his taking for granted there can be no such thing as moral dispositions, as dis- tinct from active preferences. To him it appears an axiom that all sin consists in sinning. " What," he asks, " is the passive voice of the verb sin ? What is the inactive form of the word evil'doers ? Why is language made without any such phrases as to endure or suffer criminality without any criminal volition .^"^ These are some of the questions to which he says he has a right to demand an answer. We would reply with all seriousness and respect, that years ago, when we were harassed by the same diffi- culties, we derived more satisfaction from Edwards on the Relig- ious Affections, and from his work on Original Sin, than from any other source. We there found a philosophical exhibition of the nature of dispositions, principles, or habits, as distinguished » Bib. Sac p. 642. » Bib. Sao. p. 645. 624 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT from acts ; and a clear demonstration that such dispositions, whether innate, infused, or acquired, may have a moral charac- ter. The venerable father of New England theology taught us that it was not " necessary that there should first be thought, reflection, and choice, before there can be any virtuous disposi- tion ;"^ and therefore that it is not inconsistent with the nature of virtue that Adam should be created "with holy principles and dispositions." He showed us that as it was possible for Adam to be holy, before any act of preference, so it is possible for man to be unholy before any such act. He made it plain to us that the Scriptures everywhere inculcate the doctrine that there may be, and are, moral principles distinct from moral acts and ante- cedent to them, in the distinction which they make between the tree and its fruits, between the heart and the thoughts, feelings, and preferences which proceed out of it ; in their description of the natural state of men as born in sin, and by nature the chil- dren of wrath ; in their representing even infants as needing redemption and regeneration ; and in their account of a new birth, as the infusion of a new life, a holy principle, inherent and permanent, as the source of all holy preferences, feelings, words and works. He pointed out to us a fact which seems to have escaped Professor Park's notice, viz., that all human lan- guages (so far as known) bear the impress of this distinction between moral principles and moral acts. A good or bad man means something more than a man whose preferences are good or bad, whose acts are right or wrong. It is implied in such ex- pressions that there are certain abiding moral states which con- stitute the man's character, and afford ground of assurance what his acts will be. He further showed us how deeply this doctrine entered into the religious experience of God's people, and how intimately it is connected with the whole scheme of redemption. It is not for us to retail his arguments, but we apprize Professor Park that if he hopes to succeed in his present course, or to carry with him the sympathy and confidence of New England, the first thing he has to do is to answer Edwards on the Will, Edwards on the Affections, and Edwards on Original Sin. When he has done this, it will be time enough to come all the way down to us. In the meanwhile, we think it best to step aside, and let him face his real antagonist.' ' Edwards on Original Sin, p. 140. v ' Should Professor Park accomplish the task indicated in the text, he will find his AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 625 Our first general reason^ then, for discontinuing tliis discussion is, that our author, instead of adhering to the true question in debate, wishes to introduce a doctrinal controversy for which we feel no vocation and see no occasion. Our second reason is to be found in his manner of conducting the discussion. He represents our articles as little else than a series of misstatements, and our method of argument as little better than " nicknaming." See pp. 628 and 605, et passim. He will not, therefore, object to our respectfully pointing out some particulars in which it appears to us he has come short. In the first place, we think his articles are, to a great degree, characterized by evasions, and playing with words. For exam- ple, one point of distinction between the two systems of theology, is that the one teaches that the sufferings of Christ were penal, the other that they were simply didactic ; that is, designed to exhibit truth and make a moral impression. This point is evaded by the remark that the author only denied that Christ suffered the entire penalty of the law, which his reviewer must admit, as he does not hold that Christ suffered remorse. Another point of difference is, as to whether the law of God is set aside in the salvation of sinners, or whether its demands are satisfied by the righteousness of Christ. This corner is turned by saying that what he rejects is complete satisfaction which his reviewer can- not maintain, as he admits the law to be still binding as a rule of duty. Again, the theology of the intellect, we are told, would not suggest the unqualified remark that Christ has fully paid the debt of sinners. Here the pirouette is performed on the word unqualified, and the real point is left untouched. To such an extent is this word-play carried, that language seems in his hands to lose its meaning. He can make anything out of any- thing. In his former article, setting up himself and his reviewer as representatives of opposite systems, he showed that there was nothing the latter could say in the matter of doctrine which he could not say too ; and in the present article, he " avows before work scarcely begun. There is Julius MuUer's " Lehre von der Siinde," the most elab- orate and philosophical work on the subject of sin which has appeared since the Ref- ormation. That work must be answered, and then he will have before him all the great army of Romanist and Protestant divines ; and when all these are disposed o^ he will be prepared for Augustin, and alter him for Paul. We humbly hope to be in heaven long before our turn comes. 40 626 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT the wide world" his hearty belief that we are regarded and treated as sinners on account of Adam's sin, that we are punished for it, by which, he says, he means that we " are not punished in the most proper sense." (See p. 623.) Thus the words satisfaction, impute, ability, inability, &c., &c., are kept going up and down like a juggler^s balls, until no man can tell what they mean, or whether they have any meaning at all. We feel ourselves to be no match for our author in such a game as this, and therefore give the matter up. He may keep the balls going, and we will take our place among the admiring spectators. In the second place, we object to the personal character which he has given the discussion. The only interest which our readers can be presumed to take in this matter, relates to the truths con- cerned. But our author seems far more anxious to prove that his reviewer contradicts himself and agrees with him, than to establish the truth of his theory. This ad hominem method of argimient is greatly commended by our author's friends, and con- sidered very effective. Were he ever so successful in his attempts to convict his reviewer of self-contradiction, we cannot see that he would be much the better for it. His theory would remain unproved and its evil tendencies uncounteracted. In our partial judgment, however, our author nowhere appears to less advantage than in these personal attacks. To make sure of his object he goes back twenty years, and ascribes to us articles in this Keview some of which we probably never even read. Taking such a sweep as this it is hard that he should catch nothing. We will select what we consider the most plausible examples of self-con- tradictions, examples over which our author has specially tri- umphed, and show in few words the source of his mistake. , In our former article we denied that ability or adequate power is the measure of obligation. As a direct contradiction to this, he quotes from the Biblical Repertory for 1831, the passage, " Man cannot be under obligation to do what requires powers which do not belong to his nature and constitution." This, he says, ends the strife. These propositions are not only perfectly consistent, but it is the express object of the writer of the article for 1831 to teach the very doctrine that ability is not the measure of obligation, and this Professor Park could not possibly fail to see and know if he read the article he quotes. The above propo- sitions are consistent, for the one does not affirm what the other AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 627 denies. The one affirms that nothing can be obligatory which transcends the powers of our nature and constitution. The ex- arnjDles given by the writer are, that a rational act cannot be required of an irrational animal, nor a man be required to trans- port himself to heaven. The other simply denies that adequate power, or as it is explained, the power of the will, is the measure of obligation ; for example, it is not necessary that a man should be able to change his affections at will in order to his being responsible for them. The object of the writer is thus distinctly stated : " The maxim," he says, that obligation to obey a com- mand supposes the existence of an ability to do the act required, relates entirely to actions consequent on volitions." " Man," he says further, " cannot alter the perceptions of sense ; he cannot excite affections to any objects at will. ^^ ■••' * We utterly deny," he adds, " that in order to a man's being accountable and culpable for enmity to God, he should have the power of instantly changing his enmity to love."^ Where is now the contradiction between the Repertory of 1831 and the Repertory of 1851 ? And where is now our author's self-respect ? On page 630 he goes still further back, and quotes from the Repertory of 1830, the proposition : " the loss of original righte- ousness and corruption of nature are penal evils;" whereas, in another place, the Repertory says, " we do not teach, however, that sin is the punishment of sin." Professor Park asks, " What are we to believe ? Noio, original sin is a penal evil ; but then we do not teach that sin is penal !" Taken in their connexion these propositions are perfectly consistent. It is a common ob- jection to the doctrine of original sin that it represents sin to be the punishment of sin. To this it is answered, that if this means either that God causes men to commit one sin as a pun- ishment for having committed another, or that he infuses evil principles into men's hearts as a punishment of their own, or of Adam's sin, then we deny that sin is the punishment of sin. As these are the senses in which objectors are wont to use the ex- pression, it is perfectly proper and perfectly intelligible to deny that we teach what they charge upon us, when they say sin is the punishment of sin. On the other hand it is perfectly intel- ligible and perfectly correct to express the idea that original sin is the certain consequence of God's judicial abandonment of 'Biblical Repertory, July \??>\. 628 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT our race, by saying it is a penal evil. Paul teaches, Kom. i. 24, that God judicially abandons men to uncleanness, and that immorality is a punishment of impiety. In this sense sin is the punishment of sin. But in the sense that God causes men to sin, or infuses sin into them, as objectors say, sin is not the punishment of sin. Cannot our author understand this ? The Bible says God does not tempt men ; in other places it says, He does tempt them. The apostle says, the heathen know God, and in another place that they do not know him. What would be thought of a sceptic who should try to overthrow the authority of Scripture by parading such verbal contradic- tions as contradictions in doctrine ? Again, the denial that nature, in the sense of essence, is or can be sinful, is represented as contradicting the assertion, that nature in the sense of moral disposition, can have a moral char- acter ; and the assertion that the Augustinian system character- istically exalts the sovereignty of God, is inconsistent with say- ing that the opposite system represents the law of God, in the pardon of sinners, as being set aside by a sovereign act. In view of such contradictions. Professor Park asks, ''What will this gentleman say next ?" Why, he says he would just as soon spend his time in picking up pins as in answering such objections as these, of which we should say, in the language of feeling, there must be some hundreds in our author's two articles. There is another class of these arguments ad hominem. There are certain familiar facts and principles which lend an air of plausibility to our author's theory, and which we were careful to distinguish from it. We admitted that figurative language and the language of emotion were not to be pressed unduly ; that true believers agree much more nearly in their inward faith than in their written creeds ; that the mind often passes from one state to another, at one time receiving as true what at another it regards as false. When in his search for contradictions the author finds in our pages the acknowledgment of such truths as these, he brings them forward with exultation as the very doc- trine of his sermon. He quotes, for example, the following passage from the Biblical Kepertory, Vol. xx. p. 140 : '' There is a region a little lower than the head, and a little deeper than the reach of speculation, in which those who think they diifer, or differ in thinking, may yet rejoice in Christian fellowship." On AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 629 r page 598 of his present article he says, " Lest our reviewer sus- pect this remark of Germanism, let him have the goodness to re-peruse his own saying, ^ this is a doctrine which can only be held as a theory. It is in conflict with the most intimate moral convictions of men ;' and further, ^ it is the product of the mere understanding, and does violence to the instinctive moral judg- ment of men ;' and further still, ^ even among those who make theology their study, there is often one form of doctrine for spec- ulation, another, simpler and truer for the closet [!] Metaphys- ical distinctions are forgotten in prayer, or under the pressure of real conviction of sin, and need of pardon, and of divine assist- ance. Hence it is that the devotional writings of Christians agree far more than their creeds.' " We can almost pardon our author considering the straits to which he is reduced, for quoting these passages as agreeing with the doctrine of his sermon. The difference between them is, however, we are sorry to say, essential. It is a familiar fact of consciousness and observation that faith is sometimes determined by the understanding, and sometimes by the inward experience and instinctive laws of our nature. It is also a familiar fact that the convictions produced by the con- siderations presented by the understanding, give way when those considerations pass from the view of the mind, and it is brought under the influence of the feelings and the common laws of belief. Thus, a man may be a sincere idealist so long as the metaphys- ical arguments in favor of the system are before the mind ; but as soon as the attention is withdrawn from those arguments, and the mind is brought under ordinary influences, he believes in the external world as truly as other men. Thus too^ a man puzzled with the difficulties which beset certain doctrines, or controlled by his philosophical theories, may be a sincere Arminian ; or he may really believe that responsibility is limited by ability, that he has no sin in him but his acts, and that he can change his heart by a volition. But when these theories are absent, and the mind is brought into contact with the simple word of God, or governed in its conviction by the inward teachings of the Spirit, he can adopt all the language of David or Augustin. StiU further, it is not uncommon to meet with experiences similar to that of Schleiermacher. He was educated as a Moravian, but became addicted to a Pantheistic form of philosophy, and wrote 630 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT a system of divinity, which such men as Hengstenberg regard as subverting some of the essential doctrines of the gospel. Yet, he often relapsed into his former faith, and thought, felt, acted, and it is hoped, died as a Moravian. All this is true, and this, and nothing more than this, is contained in the extracts quoted by Professor Park from our pages. Has any one before our author, ever inferred from these facts, that idealism and materi- alism are different modes of one and tlie same philosophy ; or that Arminianism and Calvinism, Moravianism and Pantheism, are but different forms of one and the same theology ? Let it be remembered that Professor Park proposes to reconcile all allowable creeds ; that he proposes to do this by his theory of two theologies, the one of the intellect, and the other of the feelings, distinguished not as true and false, but as " one system of truths exhibited in two modes,"' that he applies his method exprofesso to harmonizing the Augustinian and anti-Augustinian systems, and in the article under consideration, applies his prin- ciples to the case of imputed and involuntary sin, for this reason among others, ^' that it is more difficult to reconcile the New England, and the old Calvinism, on these subjects, than on any other.'" Is there not a difference between Professor Park and ourselves ? Is there not a difference between saying that pious men, when not speculating, think and feel very much alike, and saying that conflicting creeds are one system of truths presented in different modes ? Whether Professor Park has come to this conclusion by the same steps as the German theologians, or not, the fact is clear that the conclusion is the same. Their theory is, Christianity is a life and not a doctrine. Their conclusion is that this life manifests itself in different theologies, which differ not as true and false, but as the same system of truths in dif- ferent modes. He says it is " an unworthy attempt," on our part, to link his sermon with the German theory. We express- ly and repeatedly stated we intended no such thing,' though we are free to confess, it appears to us more respectal)le to take the theory with the conclusion, than to take the conclusion with- out the theory. We would far rather adopt the Schleiermacher doctrine on this subject out and out, than the principle which to so great an extent pervades Professor Park's articles, of * Bib. Sac. p. 596. -2 Bib. Sac. p. 607. 3 Princeton Eeview, April, 1851, pp. 333, 337. AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 631 teaching error in the established formulas of truth/ We begin to suspect that when our author wrote his Convention Sermon he had no developed theoiy whatever. There probably floated in his mind the simple principles, that men often say things in an excited state of the feelings, which mean more than their sober judgment can approve ; that good people agree much nearer in experience than in their creeds ; and that a man often changes his faith with his varying states of mind : and he thought he could, out of those principles, construct a scheme of union of allowable creeds, and do away with the inconvenient distinction of sound and unsound theology. But in the^ excite- ment of the work, his Pegasus ran away with him, and carried him over into the German camp, and when a friendly hand rouses him up and tells him where he has got to, he insists he is still safe at home. There is another feature of Professor Park's mode of conduct- ing this discussion, which is very little to our taste. He con- stantly endeavors to represent us as assailing New England theology. This is a ruse de guerre every way unworthy of a candid disputant. We stated as the three radical principles of the anti-Augustinian system — " First, that all ^ sin consists in sinning ;' that there can be no moral character but in moral acts ; secondly that the power to the contrary is essential to free agency ; that a free agent may always act contrary to any influ- ence, not destructive of his freedom, which can be brought to l)ear upon him ; thirdly, that ability limits responsibility : that men are responsible only so far as they have adequate power to do what is required of them, or that they are responsible for nothing not under the control of the will."' If there is one characteristic of New England theology more j)rominent than any other, it is opposition to these principles. The world-wide fame of President Edwards as a theologian, rests mainly on his thorough refutation of them in the works we have already refer- red to. In this opposition, Bellamy, Dwight, and the other great men of New England were no less strenuous than Edwards. ^ This, after all, appears to us the most objectionable feature of this whole theory, that it justifies the use of language out of its established sense. Professor Park has openly avowed that there is scarcely any form of expressing Old-school doctrine which lie could not adopt. 2 Princeton Review, April 1851, p. 309. 632 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT The aberration of the advocates of the "Exercise Scheme/' though it led them to a denial of at least the first of the above principles J was in the direction of ultra Calvinism. It was not until the rise of what is popularly called New Havenism, that these principles were rejected by any other class of New England divines reputed orthodox. It is Professor Park, and not we, who is the assailant of New England theology; a fact which he will not be able to conceal. We recently heard of certain Uni- tarian gentlemen who seemed honestly to believe that Trinitari- anism is dying out in this country. It is possible that a similar hallucination may lead Professor Park to regard the little coterie to which he belongs as all New England. Again, there is not in the long article under consideration any frank and manly discussion of principles. His great object seems to be to elude pursuit by a copious effusion of ink. We had two leading objects in our late review. The one was to state clearly what it was our author proposed to accomplish ; and the other was, to examine the means by which he endeavored to attain his end. We endeavored to show that the task which he undertook, was to reconcile the two great conflicting systems of theology, the Augustinian and the anti-Augustinian ; and then we en- deavored to set forth the theory, under its different aspects, by which this reconciliation was to be effected. If he intended his " Comments" to be an answer to our review, it was incumbent upon him to take up these points. He should have proved either that we had not fairly presented the two systems of theology re- ferred to, or that they were not included under his category of allowable creeds. Or if satisfied as to these points, he should have shown either that we misapprehended his theory, or that that theory was philosophically true. So far as we can discover, he has hardly made a show of attempting to accomplish any one of these objects. We therefore do not feel it necessary to pursue the subject any further. If, on the other hand, our author did not intend his " Comments" as an answer ; we have, of course, nothing to say. In either case we remain unanswered. We hope the reasons above given will satisfy our friends of the propriety of our discontinuing this discussion. We have one other, which, we trust we may present without offence. It is a common remark that a man never writes anything well for which he has " to read up." Professor Park has evidently labored AND THAT OF THE FEELINGS. 633 under this disadvantage. Old-school theology is a new field to him ; and though he quotes freely authors of whom we, though natives, never heard, yet he is not at home, and unavoidably falls into the mistakes which foreigners cannot fail to commit in a strange land. ,He does not understand the language. He finds out " Rwe meanings of imputation !" It would be wearisome work to set such a stranger right at every step. We would fain part with our author on good terms. (^We admire his abilities, and are ready to defer to him in his own department. But when he undertakes to teach Old-school men Old-school theology it is very much like a Frenchman teaching an Englishman how to pronounce English. With the best intentions, the amiable Gaul would be sure to make sad work with the dental aspirations. THE END. LIST OF BOOKS Published by ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 530 Broadway, corner of Spring-st., NEW YOUK. Abercrombie, John, M.D. The Contest and the Akmok, Adams, Rev. Thomas. The Thkee Divine Sistbks, Adopted Son, and other Stories. By the Author of the "Clakemont Tales." 18mo, Advice to a Young Christian. With an Introduction by the Kev. Dr. Alexander. 18mo, .... Africa's Mountain Valley. By the Author of " Ministkbino Chil- dren." ISmo, $ 25 50 50 40 A Heine, Rev. Joseph. Gospel Promises. 18mo, . Life and Letters of, . Alexander, Rev. A., D.D. Counsels to the Young, Anderson, Rev. Joseph. Bible Light from Bible Lands, Anderson, Christopher. 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